Colorado

• Colorado

60:2.5This was a fresh-wa­ter age char­ac­ter­ized by many in­land lakes, as is shown by the abun­dant fresh-wa­ter fos­sils of the so-called Mor­ri­son beds of Col­orado, Mon­tana, and Wyoming. The thick­ness of these com­bined salt- and fresh-wa­ter de­posits varies from 2,000 to 5,000 feet; but very lit­tle lime­stone is pres­ent in these lay­ers.

• Colorado

60:4.4The pres­ent North Amer­i­can Rocky Moun­tain re­gion is not the orig­i­nal el­e­va­tion of land; that el­e­va­tion had been long since lev­eled by ero­sion and then re-el­e­vated. The pres­ent front range of moun­tains is what is left of the re­mains of the orig­i­nal range which was re-el­e­vated. Pikes Peak and Longs Peak are out­stand­ing ex­am­ples of this moun­tain ac­tiv­ity, ex­tend­ing over two or more gen­er­a­tions of moun­tain lives. These two peaks held their heads above wa­ter dur­ing sev­eral of the pre­ced­ing in­un­da­tions.

• Colorado

61:2.4Marked changes were tak­ing place in the fauna of the planet. The sea life was un­der­go­ing great mod­i­fi­ca­tion; most of the pres­ent-day or­ders of ma­rine life were in ex­is­tence, and foraminifers con­tin­ued to play an im­por­tant role. The in­sect life was much like that of the pre­vi­ous era. The Floris­sant fos­sil beds of Col­orado be­long to the later years of these far-dis­tant times. Most of the liv­ing in­sect fam­i­lies go back to this pe­riod, but many then in ex­is­tence are now ex­tinct, though their fos­sils re­main.