Laserfiche WebLink
<br />mudstones, silts!ones, and calcareous shales. Some.of the cement for the case-hardened <br />'~1• sandstone prohably is derived fr ~m this unit. Localiy, the member contains coal seams near <br />its top; some of the coal has bee.i. striF-mined nearby. • This; upper member overlying the <br />1 sandstone at the site constitutes t+e-Founded, gentler slopes at the top of the cliff. <br />2.2 General Structural Geology <br />The major reverse faults and northwest-southeast plunging asymmetrical folds in <br />the general area occurred during the late Cretaceous Laramide Orogeny. Eocene <br />deformation modified these Cretaceous faults and folds and produced normal faults. <br />1 The Twentymile Sandstone at the site has a generally uniform dip of 3' to 10' <br />northwestward. Locally, near the western edge of the study area, the base of the sandstone <br />outcrop appears to be moderately distorted with dips approximately 10' southeastward and <br />small folds that plunge a maximum of 30 degrees southeastward. The rocks in this <br />• anomalous area may have been structurally affected by an arcuate rock failure along the <br />sandstone cliff. Alternatively, the distortion may be a manifestation of deformation <br />associated with an inferred northwest-striking buried fault near the location where County <br />• Road 27 passes through the eroded notch of the sandstone. <br />The sandstone in the azea is cut by several northwest-striking faults or zones. <br />Locally, the faults or zones are sites of erosion that form re-entrants into the cliff face. <br />Elsewhere, re-entrants do not occur. In some locations a relatively high frequency of joints <br />and fractures are associated with these faults or zones, whereas, in other areas, the high joint <br />frequency is not obvious. <br />Seven strong joint sets and other irregular fractures have been developed in the <br />sandstone. They will be described in the sections on Engineering Geology (3.0) and Joint <br />J Mapping (4.0). <br />l • 3 <br />