Mount Rose A Story in Rock

An ancient sea floor.

NPS Photo / GM Spoto

Quick Facts

Location:

Mount Rose Trail

Amenities

2 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Scenic View/Photo Spot

A Story in Rock

The weathered outcrop above you is made of sedimentary rock, known as the Rove Formation, formed by layers of sands and clay deposited on an ancient sea floor nearly two billion years ago. There are at least two sedimentary rock types visible in the stratigraphy, or layering, you see before you: a dark sandstone known to geologists as graywacke; a fine-grained siltstone known as shale.

Rivers carried these sediments to the sea, where they were deposited on the deep ocean floor by submarine landslides known as “turbidity currents.”