INTRODUCTION
THE FACE AND FACES OF IRON COUNTY
T
he political unit known as Iron County begins with land millions of years old formed into layers of rock and altered by the actions of oceans, earthquakes, floods, and erosion. These landforms and their associated natural resources, scenery, and landscape have dictated the positioning of towns, routing of roads, and uses of the land, in turn influencing the vocations and lifestyles of the people. Millions of years ago, the natural corridor of Utah which runs west of the mountains north to south from Salt Lake City to St. George probably ran east and west along a hinge-like line parallel to the position of the Earth's equator along the continental margin.! The counterclockwise motion of the continent gradually turned the line north to south. Along the stable continental shelf, once south but now east of the line, many thin layers made up of brightly colored sediments were deposited. This is the plateau country, which rose some five thousand feet during Miocene times, causing fast and great erosion from water and in areas where faults and folds divided the plateaus. The westernmost plateaus, including the Markagunt in east1
