Utah has been awarded $14.1 million today, toward an eventual sum of $35 million. “Utah is one of 10 states to receive millions of dollars for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Recovery Act,” said Jason Berry, manager of the Utah State Energy Program.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced more than $204 million in Recovery Act funding. In order to be eligible for funding from DOE’S State Energy Program (SEP), states must have proposed statewide plans that prioritize energy savings, create or retain jobs, increase the use of renewable energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This initiative is part of the Obama Administration’s national strategy to support job growth, while making an historic down payment on clean energy and conservation.

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American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Package)

geosights-wall-arch-beforeDuring the night of August 4, 2008, Utah lost a popular giant when Wall Arch, a prominent arch along the Devils Garden Trail in Arches National Park, collapsed.

While not the largest or most famous arch in the park, Wall Arch was still a favorite due to its proximity to Landscape Arch along the always-busy trail. With a measured span of 55 feet, it was ranked as 12th largest in the park (some publications and Web sites give the span as 71 feet – this is actually the “breadth”, a dimension that is not useful for comparing arches).

While no arch lasts forever, it is still extremely rare to see such a dramatic example of “geology in action.” We do not have a good geologic tool for dating arch formation, but we are sure that Wall Arch had stood nearly unchanged for hundreds, and probably thousands of years.

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geosights-fanatsy-canyonGeologic Information: The sandstone layer in which the pinnacles, pillars, arches, and knobs of Fantasy Canyon are formed consists of ancient river channel sediments. The underlying and overlying rock layers sandwiching the sandstone layer, and creating scenic badland topography around the canyon, are finer grained floodplain deposits.

During the Eocene Epoch, 55 to 34 million years ago, the Fantasy Canyon area was at the fringe of a vast subtropical lake – Lake Uinta – that at peak level stretched from the Wasatch Plateau to western Colorado. The lake was in a drying phase and retreating westward by the end of the Eocene.

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cascade-springsGeologic Information: The area around Cascade Springs is underlain by coarse-grained glacial sediment deposited when glaciers covered high elevations of the Wasatch Range approximately 30,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Beneath the glacial deposits, bedrock consists of Cambrian-age (about 500 million years old) quartzite, shale, sandstone, and limestone. These rocks were transported eastward 30 to 50 miles during low-angle faulting on the Charleston-Nebo thrust fault around 80 million years ago. As a result of the faulting, the bedrock in the vicinity of the springs is tilted and highly fractured.

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