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Show 244 GEOLOGY OF THE HIGH PLATEAUS. As we enter the lower gateway of the gorge ascending from Sevier Valley we at once recognize the nature of the displacements which have occurred. On the north side are seen immense beds of volcanic conglomerate dipping at angles varying from 12° to 25° to the westward. There is much repetitive faulting here. Again and again the beds have sheared Fig. 4.-Faults at lower end of East Foek Canon. and slipped, the throws varying from 200 to 350 feet, all of them being thrown to the eastward. More than 2,000 feet of conglomerate, beautifully stratified in huge massy layers, with intercalations of dark hornblendic trachyte of the roughest description, are exposed in this part of the gorge. Suddenly we miss the conglomerates. They appear to end abruptly at a lateral ravine which enters the main canon from the north, and on the opposite side of the ravine the rocks are of a totally different character. Through that ravine runs the main throw of the great Sevier fault, here of about 2,500 feet of displacement. As we look beyond it and up to the towering crags of the principal plateau mass, we again recognize the continuations of the conglomerates in the palisades bounding the tabular summit. Beneath them another series of strata has been brought to light by the lift of the fault and the erosion of the canon. These are tufaceous deposits, presenting features of great interest. The general aspect of these beds is shown in Heliotypes V and VI.* It is obvious at once from their very aspect that they are water-laid, yet when closely examined all of them are seen to have been subject to alteration in varying degree, which gives them the appearance of massive volcanic rocks. There is one member about 120 feet in thickness which has the character of a volcanic rock so pronounced that no person would doubt that * The summit of the plateau is not visible from the points where the photographs were taken, as the upper walls of the canon are beyond the summits of the lower walls. |