Book Cliffs

{{short description|Geographic feature in Colorado and Utah, US}}

File:Book Cliffs above Helper, Utah.jpg, with several sedimentary cycles visible in the cliffs]]

Image:Near Grand junction, CO.jpg (on right, approximate altitude {{cvt|6600|ft|disp=or}}) in Mesa County, Colorado]]

File:The Book Cliffs near Green River, Utah - DPLA - 6dacd5b503270ef6cd770db46ff15eb9.jpg

File:Bookcliffs.helperUT.jpg

The Book Cliffs are a series of desert mountains and cliffs in western Colorado and eastern Utah in the Western United States.{{gnis|1425876|Book Cliffs}} They are so named because the cliffs of Cretaceous sandstone capping many of the south-facing buttes appear similar to a shelf of books.{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sa9SAAAAIBAJ&sjid=c38DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6741%2C5066695|title=You name it - there's a town for it|last=Van Atta|first=Dale|newspaper=The Deseret News|page=15|date=Jan 22, 1977|access-date=18 October 2015|via=Google News}}

Stratigraphy

Image:FluteCast.JPG, one of many sedimentary structures found in the Book Cliffs]]

The Book Cliffs are one of the world's best places to study sequence stratigraphy. In the 1980s, Exxon scientists used the Cretaceous strata of the Book Cliffs to develop the science of sequence stratigraphy. The Book Cliffs have preserved excellent strata of the foreland basin of the ancient Western Interior Seaway that stretched north from the Gulf of Mexico to the Yukon in the Cretaceous Period. Components of deltaic and shallow marine reservoirs are very well preserved in the Book Cliffs.

Wildlife

There are many small streams that contain a variety of trout species.

Large mammals found in the Book Cliffs include coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, mule deer, elk, black bears, pronghorn, American bison as an extension of the Henry Mountains bison herd and bighorn sheep. In January 2009, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources officials transplanted 31 bison from the Henry Mountains bison herd to the Book Cliffs.{{cite web |url=http://wildlife.utah.gov/news/09-01/bison.php |title=DWR captures bison near Lake Powell |publisher=Utah Division of Wildlife Resources |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091210162314/http://wildlife.utah.gov/news/09-01/bison.php |archive-date=2009-12-10 }} The new group joined 14 animals previously released in August 2008 from a private herd on the nearby Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation.{{cite web|url=http://wildlife.utah.gov/news/08-09/book_bison.php|title=Bison Return to the Book Cliffs|publisher=Utah Division of Wildlife Resources|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091025143519/http://wildlife.utah.gov/news/08-09/book_bison.php|archive-date=2009-10-25}} This herd is approximately {{convert|100|mi|km}} north of the Henry Mountains across mostly harsh, desert terrain.