Henry’s Fork, High Uintas Wilderness, Summit County, Utah. Photo by Christian Hardwick.
Morning sun casts light on the reddish-brown and grayish-red sandstone, shale, and siltstone of the Precambrian-age formation of Red Castle in the Uinta Mountain Group. Ice-age glaciers carved the broad valleys and basins of the Uinta Mountains.
Utah—putting the “Awe” in geology since the Precambrian.
High Uintas Wilderness, Summit County, Utah
Photographer: Chris DuRoss; © 2013
Ostler Peak (12,718 feet) is reflected in a meander bend of the Stillwater Fork of the Bear River in the Uinta Mountains. Thousands of years ago glaciers inundated much of the Uinta Mountains, leaving behind long glacier-carved valleys, steep-sided cirques, and jagged peaks.
High Uintas Wilderness, Summit County, Utah
Photographer: Rich Emerson
On the north slope of the Uinta Mountains, Henrys Fork Lake is a paternoster lake—one of a chain or series of lakes in a glacially eroded valley. Most of the glaciers had retreated by 14,000 years ago, leaving behind moraines, U-shaped valleys, and cirques carved into Precambrian-age Uinta Mountain Group rocks.
The Utah Geological Survey (UGS) is a division of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Several specialized programs comprise the UGS: Data Management, Energy & Minerals, Geologic Hazards, Geologic Information & Outreach, Geologic Mapping, Groundwater & Wetlands, and Paleontology.
© Christian Hardwick