Thompson Mesa and Henry Mountains Last Light

The Big Thompson (Thomson )  Mesa, on the Eastern side of Capitol Reef National Park. Capitol Reef National Park is located on the Colorado Plateau, which occupies the adjacent quarters of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Big Thompson Mesa is part of a large feature known as the Waterpocket Fold.

The Fold is a geologic structure called a monocline—layers of generally flat-lying sedimentary rock with a steep, one-sided bend, like a carpet runner draped over a stair step. Geologists think that monoclines on the Colorado Plateau result from faulting (cracking) of deeper and more brittle crystalline rocks under tectonic pressure; while the crystalline rocks were broken into raised or lowered blocks, the overlaying, less brittle sedimentary rocks were flexed without breaking.