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Is something wrong with the Colorado Plateau?

By John Serfustini

Welcome to the geology edition of the Sun Advocate. First there’s Rick Sherman’s Page One article on those curious spherical concretions and now this little item on the state’s portion of the Colorado Plateau.
Take a look at the unemployment chart just released by the Utah Department of Workforce Services. Note that the highlighted counties are all well above the state average of 3.6 percent for unemployment.
Now consider another factor: they are all on the Colorado Plateau, that huge geologic uplift bounded on the north by the Uinta Mountains, on the west by the Wasatch Plateau, on the east by the Rockies and on the south by the Mogollon Rim.
This could be a meaningless correlation, like skirt length and stock market performance. However, could there be something to be said for geology? Utah east of the Wasatch Line has been flooded by shallow inland oceans and huge lakes and overgrown with dense marshes, all of which have left organic and mineral deposits that lead to commodity-based local economies.
The other thing that “life really elevated” produces is a so-called rain shadow, where the Wasatch Plateau intercepts and precipitates moist air from the northwest before it gets here. Your ideas are welcome.

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