The Campanian Cliff House Formation represents a series of individually progradational shoreface tongues preserved in an overall landward-stepping system. In the Mancos Canyon area, the formation consists of four, 50- to 55-m-thick and 10- to 20-km-wide sandstone tongues, which pinch out landwards into lower coastal plain and lagoonal deposits of the Upper Menefee Formation and seawards into offshore shales of the Lewis Shale Formation. Photogrammetric mapping of lithofacies along the steep and well-exposed canyon walls was combined with sedimentary facies analysis and mapping of the detailed facies architecture. Two major facies associations have been identified, one comprising the mostly muddy and organic-rich facies of lagoonal [...]
