Roan+Plateau+1A

The Roan Plateau towers 3,000 feet above 1-70between Rifle and Grand Junction. If you climb to the top of The Bookclifs you can see the Roan Plateau. Its home for many beautiful types of plants and many animals. It hosts an abundance of native plant communities, birds of interest butterflies and two populations of Colorado River trout. The Roan Plateau was labeled as a naval oil shale reserve for decades. The Roan Plateau is a point of interest for many. Companies want the oil from its oil strata for human consumption, but people think it will harm the environment and the animals. A waterfall flows over the western edge; it is composed of Green river formation sandstone and shale.

The green river flows through the roan plateau and along its way it erodes rock and can carve new canyons, rivers, and valleys. The green river is not only forming new rivers and canyons but it is making new landforms from the rocks that have been eroded away. When it rains the river can take small rocks with it but if it floods or the snow from winter melts the river can bring larger rock to farther places. Even the smallest things can be a destructive such as rain is will slowly weather away rock or get in cracks of the rock and when it gets cold it will freeze and the water expands to ice and this will crack and weather the rock. Out of all the ways to weather rock the fast is ice because other ways can take hundreds of years