Straight Cliffs

The Straight Cliffs are a band of steep, often vertically exposed rock faces and benches in southern Utah associated with the Cretaceous Straight Cliffs Formation. They are a regional geological feature important for sedimentary rock exposures and fossil finds.

Viewers typically note broad outcrops of sandstone and shale forming cliffs and benches that can be tens to hundreds of meters high where the formation is exposed. The exposures often show bedding, local coal seams, and fossil-bearing layers that attract geologists and paleontologists.

These cliffs are erosional expressions of the Straight Cliffs Formation, deposited during the Cretaceous period and later uplifted and dissected by erosion. Over geologic time the sediments lithified into sandstone, siltstone and mudstone and were later exposed by regional uplift and incision.

The Straight Cliffs occur across parts of southern Utah, notably within the Grand Staircase-Escalante region and adjacent plateaus. Exposures are found in several counties across the Colorado Plateau province of south-central Utah.

• Geology: Exposes sedimentary rocks deposited during the Cretaceous and contains sandstone, siltstone and coal-bearing layers that have yielded plant and vertebrate fossils.
• Extent: Forms a continuous band of steep cliffs and benches within the Grand Staircase-Escalante region and other parts of southern Utah where the Straight Cliffs Formation is exposed.