The Kaiparowits Formation is an unusually thick package of Upper Cretaceous (late Campanian) strata exposed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of southern Utah, USA. The formation was deposited within the rapidly subsiding Cordilleran foreland basin as part of a thick clastic wedge derived from sources in the Sevier orogenic belt, thrust sheets in southeastern Nevada and southern California, and the Mogollon slope in southwestern Arizona. Channel systems in the Kaiparowits Formation shifted from northeastward to southeastward flow over time, and for a short period of time, sea level rise in the Western Interior Seaway resulted in tidally influenced rivers and/or estuarine systems. Thick floodbasin pond deposits, large suspended-load [...]
