SURFICIAL GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, MONTEZUMA COUNTY, COLORADO By Paul E. Carrara 2012 Scientific Investigations Map 3224 ABSTRACT Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado was established In 1906 to preserve and protect the artifacts and dwelling sites, including the famous cliff dwellings, of the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived in the area from about A.D. 550 to A.D. 1300. In 1978, the United Nations designated the park as a World Heritage Site. The geology of the park played a key role in the lives of these ancient people. For example, the approximately 600 cliff dwellings are closely associated with the Cliff House Sandstone of Late Cretaceous age which weathers to form deep alcoves. In addition, the ancient people farmed the thick, red loess (wind-blown dust) on the mesa tops because its particle size distribution gives it good moisture retention properties. The soil in this loess cover and the seasonal rains of the "Arizona monsoon" allowed these people to grow their crops of corn, beans, and squash on the broad mesa tops. Today, geology is still an important concern in the Mesa Verde area because the landscape is susceptible to various forms of mass movement (landslides, debris flows, rockfalls, swelling soils, and flash floods can affect the park's archeological sites and its infrastructure of roads, septic systems, utilities, and building sites. The map encompasses an area of about 100 mi2 (260 km2) and includes all of Mesa Verde National Park, a small part of the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation that borders the park on its southern and western sides (fig. 1), and some Bureau of Land Management and privately owned land to the north and east. Mesa Verde is essentially a broad gently sloping upland surface, called a cuesta, that dips to the south. It is dissected by a series of generally north-to-south-trending, steep-walled canyons containing ephemeral streams that drain south to the Mancos River. The northern escarpment (a long cliff-like ridge) of the cuesta includes Park Point, the highest point in the park, at an elevation of 8,571 ft (2,612 m), and drops abruptly more than 2,000 ft (610 m) into Montezuma Valley where the town of Cortez is located. Along the eastern boundary of the park, the eastern escarpment drops more than 1,500 ft (455 m) into the Mancos Valley. Two of the high mesas, Big Mesa and Whites Mesa, have scattered stream-worn pebbles and cobbles on their surfaces, indicating that in the past an ancestral Mancos River flowed across this area. Canyon cutting probably began in the early Pleistocene (2.588–0.78 Ma). DISCLAIMERS Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also contains copyrighted material as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items for other than personal use must be secured from the copyright owner. Any use of trade, product or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Geological Survey. This database, identified as SIM 3224, has been approved for release and publication by the Director of the USGS. Although this database has been subjected to rigorous review and is substantially complete, the USGS reserves the right to revise the data pursuant to further analysis and review.Furthermore, it is released on condition that neither the USGS nor the United States Government may be held liable for any damages resulting from its authorized or unauthorized use. 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DATA FILES List of files: 00ReadMe.txt SIM3224_map.pdf SIM3224.met SIM3224_pamphlet.pdf Datafiles directory mvnp_shade_trans.tif mvnp_shade.tfw mvnp_topo.tif mvnp_topo.tfw mesaverde_geol.gdb directory (contains GIS data as geodatabase feature classes) mesaverde_bndy08 mvnp_shade mvnp_topo Geology mesaverde_bedding mesaverde_line mesaverde_poly mesaverde_poly_label mesaverde_sample SIM3224_shapefiles.zip directory: mesaverde_bedding.shp (dbf/prj/sbn/sbx/shp.xml/shx) mesaverde_line.shp (dbf/prj/sbn/sbx/shp.xml/shx) mesaverde_poly.shp (dbf/prj/sbn/sbx/shp.xml/shx) mesaverde_poly_label.shp (dbf/prj/sbn/sbx/shp.xml/shx) mesaverde_sample.shp (dbf/prj/sbn/sbx/shp.xml/shx) PRINT FILES: As of publication, this report is not available in a printed version, except through the print-on-demand option. For other methods of printing, these files have been made available and can be used to generate a hardcopy map, pamphlet, and map jacket. 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