Marker Logo HMdb.org THE HISTORICAL
MARKER DATABASE
“Bite-Size Bits of Local, National, and Global History”
“Bite-Size Bits of Local, National, and Global History”
Morrison in Jefferson County, Colorado — The American Mountains (Southwest)
 

Front Range Foothills

 
 
Front Range Foothills Marker image. Click for full size.
Photographed By Kevin W., July 5, 2012
1. Front Range Foothills Marker
Inscription. You are looking out over the edges of tilted and eroded layers of sandstone and shale that lie upon much older rocks in the mountains behind you. If the eroded layers were restored to where you stand they would be more than two miles thick. The sandstone and shale were deposited as flat layers of sand and mud in streams, lakes and shallow seas during a time that began about 300 million years ago and ended about 70 million years ago. Later, the flat layers were bent upward during the rise of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Since then, they have been eroded to their present form. The sandstone layers are hard, and their eroded edges form great ridges but the soft shale layers are hard, and their eroded edges from great ridges but the soft shale layers from valley which extend far to the north and south.

The rock on which you stand, and in which the Red Rocks Theater is carved, belong to the Fountain Formation. In places, these rocks contain fossil remains of tiny animals that lived in the sea about 300 million years ago (fossil 1).

Alon the highway that crosses the ridge in front of you there are maroon and gray shales of the Morrison Formation. These rocks – – about 130 million years old – – have yielded the remains of the largest dinosaurs that ever lived (fossil 2).

The ridge,
Paid Advertisement
Click on the ad for more information.
Please report objectionable advertising to the Editor.
Click or scan to see
this page online
known as the Dakota Hogback, is composed of hard Dakota sandstone, which lies above the Morrison Formation. The Dakota sandstone contains fossil clams (fossil 3) and is a valuable source of artesian water and of oil in the plains region east of the hogback. Afew miles south of here it contains uranium.

Mount Carbon, farther east, has seams of coal but consists mainly of clay used for bricks. It also contains fossil seashells and dinosaur bones about 100 million years old (fossils 4 and 5).

After these deposits were laid down, volcanic debris, partly preserved at Green Mountain, was deposited by streams.

Gravel along the creeks was washed down during the ice age only a few thousand years ago, when mammoths (fossil 6) roamed the Denver Plains.
 
Erected 1962 by Colorado Scientific Society and the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists.
 
Topics. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Natural FeaturesPaleontology.
 
Location. 39° 40.331′ N, 105° 12.225′ W. Marker is in Morrison, Colorado, in Jefferson County. Marker can be reached from Plains View Road. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Morrison CO 80465, United States of America. Touch for directions.
 
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker. Red Rocks Amphitheatre (approx. half a mile away);
Picture of cut away on lower front of Front Range Foothills Marker image. Click for full size.
Photographed By Kevin W., July 5, 2012
2. Picture of cut away on lower front of Front Range Foothills Marker
Red Rocks Park (approx. 0.6 miles away); Cretaceous Time (approx. 0.6 miles away); The Rocky Mountains (approx. 0.6 miles away); Brontosaur Bulges (approx. 0.6 miles away); Rock Deformation (approx. 0.6 miles away); Volcanic Ash (approx. 0.6 miles away); West Alameda Parkway / Dinosaur Ridge (approx. 0.6 miles away).
 
Also see . . .  Front Range. Wikipedia entry. (Submitted on September 13, 2020, by Larry Gertner of New York, New York.) 
 
Red Rocks Amphitheatre from the Marker image. Click for full size.
Photographed By Kevin W., July 5, 2012
3. Red Rocks Amphitheatre from the Marker
 
 
Credits. This page was last revised on September 13, 2020. It was originally submitted on July 28, 2012, by Kevin W. of Stafford, Virginia. This page has been viewed 726 times since then and 4 times this year. Photos:   1, 2, 3. submitted on July 29, 2012, by Kevin W. of Stafford, Virginia.
 
Editor’s want-list for this marker. Wide area picture of the marker and its surroundings. • Can you help?

Share this page.  
Share on Tumblr
m=57932

CeraNet Cloud Computing sponsors the Historical Marker Database.
This website earns income from purchases you make after using our links to Amazon.com. We appreciate your support.
Paid Advertisements
Mar. 18, 2024