Utah Geological Survey

 

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Virtual Geology Tour of Mill Creek Canyon, Salt Lake County, Utah DRAFT VERSION

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Mill Creek Canyon is one of several east-west trending canyons in the Wasatch front in Salt Lake County that are dominated by geologic structure. A nearly north-south compressional event folded and thrust-faulted rocks about 85 million years ago and from about 17 million years ago, to the present, an east-west extension is uplifting the Wasatch Range along the Wasatch Fault to expose the mountain front we see today.

Folded and Thrust Faulted Wasatch Mountain Rocks, Salt Lake County. Note that the age of rocks decreases northward from Mt. Olympus. The diagram is from University of Utah Geology and Geophysics Department. Color and abbreviations refer to rock formations, black arrows represent thrust faults. The view is to the east.
folded faulted rock diagram

Marine and nonmarine sedimentary rocks in Mill Creek Canyon were deposited from Mississippian time (about 350 million years ago) to Jurassic time (about 180 million years ago).

Mill Creek Canyon rocks were deposited during times when the world experienced southern continent glaciations, construction and separation of a supercontinent, the largest extinction of marine species, and, perhaps the largest expanse of sand dunes, ever in North America. The land that is now Utah was near the equator when Mill Creek rocks were deposited.

Quaternary-age sediments (about 18,000 years to present) include glacial moraines near the head of the canyon, stream alluvium throughout the canyon, and Ice-Age Lake Bonneville's highest elevation (about 5,100 ft., 1,555 m.) beach deposits at the mouth of the canyon.

Mill Creek Canyon road rises in elevation from 5,000 ft. (1,524 m.) at the mouth to 7600 ft. (2,317 m.)at Upper Big Water Trail Head. The road is 9 miles (13.4 km.) long.

The highest peaks, Gobblers Knob and Mt Raymond, 10,240 ft. (3,122 m.) are on the southern divide; peaks on the northern divide are lower; Mount Aire is 8,621 ft. (2,628 m.) and Grandeur Peak is 8,299 ft. (2,530 m.).

mill creek mouth

The mouth of Mill Creek Canyon is a classic "V-shaped" river canyon cross-section.

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Background Image from NASA World Wind 1.3

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