Hiking up to the next plot…
Colorado embraces five physiographic provinces, which include the Great Plains, Southern Rocky Mountains, Middle Rocky Mountains, the Wyoming Basin, and the Colorado Plateau. All three major rock types—igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic— are widely spread throughout the state. Most of the major structural features, including mountain uplifts and intervening basins, developed during the Laramide Orogeny about 50 to 70 m.y. ago. Colorado is dominated by the Southern Rocky Mountains which include 14 mountain ranges. Most of these ranges are cored by Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks with sections of Paleozoic rocks exposed along their flanks. Structural basins, filled largely with Tertiary clastic rocks, are downwarped features that include North, Middle, and South Park; Raton Basin; Wyoming Basin; Peceance Basin; and the San Juan Basin. During the following Tertiary period, about 40 to 25 m.y. ago, the crust was subjected to major east-west extension, forming the Rio Grande Rift Zone now occupied by the Arkansas River Valley and the San Luis Valley. Plateaus are found in the western part of the state, and include the Roan and White River Plateaus north of the Colorado River, and the Grand and Uncompahgre Plateaus south of the river. These features are underlain by Tertiary sedimentary rocks, with volcanic rocks locally. The major historical events that have affected the geologic framework of Colorado include the Laramide Orogeny and the KT Boundary mass extinction. During the close of the Cretaceous Period, the Laramide Orogeny affected the western Cordillera from Alaska to Argentina. In Colorado the movement of mountain blocks was largely vertical, as in the Front Range and elsewhere.
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