What constructive/destructive forces made red rock canyon?
Thrust Fault The most significant geologic feature of Red Rock Canyon is the Keystone Thrust Fault. The Keystone Thrust is part of a large system of thrust faults that extends north into Canada and began to develop approximately 65 million years ago. A thrust fault is a fracture in the earth’s crust that is the result of compressional forces that drive one crustal plate over the top of another. This results in the oldest rocks on the bottom of the upper plate resting directly above the youngest rocks of the lower plate. At Red Rock Canyon, the gray carbonate rocks of the ancient ocean have been thrust over the tan and red sandstone in one of the most dramatic and easily identified thrust faults to be found. Ocean For much of the past 600 million years the land that is now Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area was the bottom of a deep ocean basin and the western coast of North America was in present day western Utah. Swamps Beginning approximately 225 million years ago crustal move
