OF-23-01 Geologic Map of the Badger Wash Quadrangle, Mesa County, Colorado

The purpose of this publication is to describe the geology, mineral and groundwater resources, and geologic hazards of the Badger Wash 7.5-minute quadrangle. This map is part of a STATEMAP geologic mapping program on Colorado’s Western Slope, near Grand Junction. Nearby completed CGS maps are the Mack, Fruita, and Corcoran Point quadrangles. CGS geologists Jonathan L. White and Emily A. Perman completed the field work on this project during the mapping seasons of 2022-23. Digital ZIP download. OF-23-01D

From the abstract:

The Badger Wash quadrangle lies in the Grand Valley in Mesa and Garfield counties of West-central Colorado, approximately 24 km northwest of the town of Fruita and 4.4 km east of the Utah state line. The Grand Valley is a broad topographically low area of subdued hills and badlands that lie between the Uncompahgre Plateau and the Book Cliffs. Elevations range from 1,376.3 to 1,632.5 m. The site is arid (annual precipitation is 20-30 cm) and the creeks are intermittent or ephemeral. The quadrangle lies at the northwestern edge of the Grand Valley where agricultural lands irrigated by the Government Highline Canal end at West Salt Creek. The quadrangle area is underlain by members of the Upper Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The topography in the southern part of the map area consists of wide and subdued flats, low hills, and low (<50-m high) gravel-capped mesas overlying the Smoky Hill Member. North of the flat irrigated lands and the canal in the map area, the underlying Mancos Shale bedrock is the Prairie Canyon Member that is more sandy and more resistant to weathering and erosion. Shallow dendritic drainage patterns are developed in low hills and subtle ridgelines that rise from 70 to 90 m above the irrigated lands. In the northern map area underlain by the upper Mancos Shale, the shale surface is variably mantled with episodic Late to Middle Pleistocene alluvial-fan gravel deposits from erosion and transportation of rocky sediments from the Mesaverde Group sandstones of the Book Cliffs. The differing periods of gravel deposition and greater resistance to erosion than the adjacent shale slopes have formed several topographically inverted surface elevations of gently sloping mesas and mesa remnants surfaces, up to 127 m above stream base level. Small offset faulting and low-angle anticlines and synclines occur in the quadrangle that have been conducive to oil and gas exploration and production.