Interim Geologic Map of the Monte Cristo Peak Quadrangle, Cache, Rich, and Weber Counties, Utah (OFR-684)

By: James C. Coogan

The Monte Cristo Peak quadrangle is located northeast of Ogden, Utah, and southeast of Logan, Utah, in the southern Monte Cristo Range in Cache, Rich, and Weber Counties. The range is the source of snow-melt runoff used in Utah and Idaho. Although the range is largely unpopulated, an increasing number of summer and year-round homes are being built in and near the quadrangle. Erosion through cover of Tertiary sedimentary rocks provides exposures of mostly marine lower Paleozoic (Cambrian into Mississippian) sedimentary rocks that are contiguous with rocks as old as Precambrian (Neoproterozoic) to the east in the Dairy Ridge and Horse Ridge quadrangles. Karst in Paleozoic carbonate rocks is exposed in the east part of the Monte Cristo Peak quadrangle and extends into the adjacent Dairy Ridge quadrangle. It likely extends beneath Wasatch Formation cover in the Monte Cristo Range and probably includes the recharge area for the voluminous Causey Spring, located to the south in the Causey Dam quadrangle. Numerous periglacial features are visible in the quadrangle. They include pimple mounds in Ant Valley that look like large ant mounds and nivation hollows (arcuate scarps) on northeast- and east-facing slopes near Utah State Highway 39 (Monte Cristo road) that can contain snow into August.

Other Information:
Published: 2018
Pages: 29
Plates: 1
Scale: 1:24,000
Location: Utah
Media Type: Paper Publication