The posted coordinates will bring you to a lovely, quiet spot in Salt Lake City. The best time to visit this location is sunset and we recommend you bring a camera. This spot happens to be located within the Salt Lake City segment of the Wasatch Fault. More specifically, a strand of the Wasatch Fault called the East Bench Fault. The Wasatch Fault is approximately 240 miles (386 km) long and has 10 segments. The Salt Lake City segment of the Wasatch fault is approximately 25 miles (40 km) long, extending along the eastern side of the Salt Lake Valley from southeast of Draper to North Salt Lake.
A fault is a break in the earth's crust along which blocks of earth slip past each other. This slipping is the earth's way of adjusting to the buildup of strain within its crust. Movement can be horizontal, vertical, or both. The Wasatch fault is called a normal fault, because the slip is mostly vertical. The Wasatch Range moves upward relative to the adjacent downward-moving valley. Each segment of a fault can rupture independently. The Wasatch fault is one of the longest and most active normal faults in the world.
The topographic expression at the posted coordinates is known as a fault scarp. A fault scarp is a small step or offset on the ground surface where one side of a fault has moved vertically with respect to the other. These fault scarps, triangular facets of mountain fronts, and in some places springs, reveal the surface trace of the Wasatch fault. The sediment displaced here includes ancient Lake Bonneville sand, silt, and clay strata.
The Teton Range in Wyoming is an example of an active fault scarp. The Hurricane Cliffs, west of Zion National Park, is an example of a fault scarp along an inactive fault.
To receive credit for this Earthcache, send me a Geocaching message with the following:
- The text "GC788NK Park on a Scarp" on the first line
- The number of people in your group who will log this cache with the answers sent.
- What is the slope of this scarp?
- What is the approximate length of this scarp?
- What is the name of this location?
- What is in the fault trace here? What else would you find along this fault trace?
- In your estimate, how many feet below the scarp are the apartments?
- Laying yourself end to end, how many of you wide is the scarp?
- A picture of you or your party at the location would be nice but is optional.
If you include any information about the answers to this cache in your log or pictures, it will be deleted with no warning.
This cache was placed by a member of Utah Association of Geocachers (UTAG).
Information for this Earth Cache was derived from the following sources:
- Easterbrook, D. J. (1999) Surface processes and landforms. (Second Ed). Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
- Wasatch Fault. n.d. Idaho State University. Department of Geosciences. Web. 26.Jun 2017. .
- Essentials of Geology, 3rd ed., Stephen Marshak
- Fault Scarp. n.d. Glendale Community College. Physical Geography. Web. 26.Jun 2017. .
- Byrd, J.O.D., Smith, R.B., Geissman, J.W. (1994) The Teton fault, Wyoming: Topographic signature, neotectonics, and mechanisms of deformation, Journal of Geophysical Research (99), No. B10, p. 20095-20122
- Utah Geological Survey 1996. The Wasatch Fault. Public Information Series 40.
Congratulations to PiTime for FTF and daphm for STF. We are glad you liked the spot and found the night time view. A big thanks to mmdoc for his cache that originally brought us to this location.