The Colorado Plateau covers vast stretches of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, spanning 130,000 square miles. This large area has been uplifted by 8,500 feet during the last 100 million years which occurred in three distinct phases. So, how exactly was the Colorado Plateau uplifted, and what link does it share to modern volcanism in the area? This video will answer that question and discuss the formation of the Colorado Plateau.

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Sources/Citations:
[1] Roberts, G. G., N. J. White, G. L. MartinBrandis, and A. G. Crosby (2012), An uplift history of the Colorado Plateau and its surroundings from inverse modeling of longitudinal river profiles, Tectonics, 31, TC4022, doi:10.1029/2012TC003107.
Note: This source was cited when showing the speed/rate, timing, and total uplift of the Colorado Plateau.
[2] U.S. Geological Survey
[3] Andersen, J., Göğüş, O.H., Pysklywec, R.N. et al. Symptomatic lithospheric drips triggering fast topographic rise and crustal deformation in the Central Andes. Commun Earth Environ 3, 150 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s4324702200..., CC BY 4.0
[4] He, John & Kapp, Paul. (2023). Basin record of a Miocene lithosphere drip beneath the Colorado Plateau. Nature Communications. 14. 10.1038/s41467023401477. CC BY 4.0.
[5] Levander, A., Schmandt, B., Miller, M. et al. Continuing Colorado plateau uplift by delaminationstyle convective lithospheric downwelling. Nature 472, 461–465 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10001
[6] The Google Earth KMZ file used in this video used to show the Geologic Map of Arizona was downloaded from: U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona geologic map data, at https://mrdata.usgs.gov/geology/state...

0:00 Colorado Plateau
1:24 Timing of Uplift
1:54 Plate Subduction
3:39 Ongoing Lithospheric Drip