Ancient landscapes of the Colorado plateau
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Imagine seeing the varied landscapes of the earth as they used to look throughout hundreds of millions of years of earth history. Tropical seas lap on the shores of an Arizona beach. Immense sand dunes shift and swirl in Sahara-like deserts in Utah and New Mexico. Ancient rivers spill from a mountain range in Colorado that was a precursor to the modern Rockies. Such flights of geologic fancy are now tangible through the thought-provoking and beautiful paleogeographic maps, reminiscent of the maps in world atlases we all paged through as children, of Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau. Ron Blakey of Northern Arizona University is one of the world's foremost authorities on the geologic history of the Colorado Plateau. For more than fifteen years, he has meticulously created maps that show how numerous past landscapes gave rise to the region's stunning geologic formations. Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau is the first book to showcase Blakey's remarkable work. His maps are accompanied by text by Wayne Ranney, geologist and award-winning author of Carving Grand Canyon. Ranney takes readers on a fascinating tour of the many landscapes depicted in the maps, and Blakey and Ranney's fruitful collaboration brings the past alive like never before.