Waterpocket Fold

The Waterpocket Fold is a nearly one hundred mile long monocline, a step like fold in otherwise flat sedimentary rock layers, running through Capitol Reef National Park in south central Utah. It formed roughly fifty to seventy million years ago when compressional forces from the Laramide orogeny warped the overlying sedimentary strata above a buried fault in the older rock beneath. The fold takes its name from the many depressions eroded into its sandstone surface, waterpockets, that collect and hold rainwater.