The Outflow of Eocene Lake Gosiute Into Lake Uinta and its Affects on Sedimentation in Lake Uinta in the Piceance Basin of Western Colorado
Johnson, Ronald C.
U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO
The Eocene Green River Formation, where exposed near the
mouth of Yellow Creek in western Colorado, provides evidence of
outflow from in Lake Gosiute of western Wyoming and northwestern
Colorado into Lake Uinta of western Colorado and eastern Utah.
Throughout much of their histories, the two lakes were separated by
the Axial Arch, however, Lake Gosiute, apparently drained
southward across the arch into Lake Uinta late in its history, entering
Lake Uinta near the present-day mouth of Yellow Creek. This
outflow, which caused Lake Gosiute to evolve from saline to fresh
water, caused a major expansion of Lake Uinta represented by the
base of the Mahogany oil shale zone. Because of this outflow, the
normally rich Mahogany oil shale zone grades into organic-poor
rocks in the vicinity of Yellow Creek, and cannot be recognized.
Coarse volcaniclastic sediments, sourced from the Absaroka volcanic
field in central Wyoming, flooded into Lake Uinta starting about 150
ft above the base of the Mahogany zone at Yellow Creek, implying
that Lake Gosiute was filled in by that time. Many of these
volcanoclastic wedges grade into thin airfall tuffs toward the center of
Lake Uinta.
The Yellow Creek area was a locus of sand and silt deposition
starting much earlier than Mahogany time, implying that outflow
from Lake Gosiute followed a previously established drainage system
that flowed southward into Lake Uinta. Outflow must have reached
the upper part of this drainage through a low somewhere along the
Axial Arch, possibly near Cross Mountain.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90071 © 2007 AAPG Rocky Mountain Meeting, Snowbird, Utah