FROM SOURCE TO SEA - A CLASSIC FIELD TRIP THROUGH THE PERMIAN CUTLER FORMATION, PARADOX BASIN, COLORADO AND UTAH

An E-W traverse through the Paradox basin provides an outstanding field trip for illustrating continental facies and their relations, from the Ancestral Rocky Mountains source in western Colorado to a fluctuating shoreline in eastern Utah. At Gateway, Colorado spectacular alluvial fan deposits, within sight of the ancient Uncompahgre highland source, consist of boulder conglomerate and thinly bedded sandstone of debris flow and sheet flood origin. At Fisher Valley ~30 km west, the Cutler fines to conglomeratic sandstone with a full spectrum of braided stream structures interbedded with fine sandstone of eolian dune and sand sheet origin. These interbedded facies clearly exhibit arid climate fluvial channel and flood plain interactions. Another 40 km west at Cane Creek anticline, continuously exposed lower Cutler beds record a regularly fluctuating shoreline with cyclic deposits of eolian dune, braided stream, and alternating nearshore clastic and fossiliferous limestone deposits. Collectively, these localities provide stratigraphy and sedimentology students with classic and instructive field exposures of proximal to distal relations, interactions between various continental and nearshore marine systems, and vertical transgressive-regressive stacking patterns.