Geology is a hard thing to miss in southern Utah.
Unless you travel through the state blindfolded, you have probably
wondered about the evolution of the region’s dramatic cliffs,
spires and canyons. Maybe that’s why there are so many guidebooks
that aim to decipher the area’s layered
landscape.
Unlike most popular guidebooks,
The Geology of the Parks, Monuments, and Wildlands of
Southern Utah doesn’t just focus on famous landmarks.
Author Robert Fillmore encourages exploration by devoting the first
half of the book to a description of Utah’s general geologic
setting, giving readers the background they need to understand the
geology along any canyon hike or plateau bike
ride.
Less adventurous folks will appreciate the
book’s second section, which points out features along popular
roads in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks and Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Fillmore,
a professor at Western State College in Colorado, knows how to talk
about rocks: His engaging explanations range from simple
sedimentary geology to complex plate
tectonics.
Fillmore’s book left me with more
questions than I had when I started, and, luckily, that’s what he
intended. “My immediate goal,” he writes in the book’s
introduction, “was to understand the evolution of this fantastic
Western landscape. Thus began a journey without end, the kind I
like.” The Geology of the Parks, Monuments, and Wildlands
of Southern Utah, by Robert Fillmore, University of Utah
Press, Salt Lake City, Utah; paperback: $19.95. 268
pages.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline How Utah got that way.
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