Upper Triassic Chinle Formation, Colorado Plateau

The Upper Triassic Chinle Formation was deposited at an exceptional time in Earth's paleogeographic and pa-leoclimatic history. During the Triassic, the superconti-nent Pangaea was at its greatest size, in terms of both aggregated continental crust and exposed land area. Moreover, the exposed land was divided symmetrically about the paleoequator between the northern and south-ern hemispheres. These conditions were ideal for maxi-mizing monsoonal circulation, as predicted from paleo-climate models. The Chinle was deposited between about 5?to 15?N paleolatitude in the western equatorial region of Pangaea, a key area for documenting the effects of the monsoonal climate. This study summarizes sedimento-logic and paleontologic data from the Chinle Formation on the Colorado Plateau and integrates that data wit