Arches National Park and most of nearby Canyonlands National Park lie within what geologists have termed the “Paradox basin,” which contains a remarkable assemblage of sediments called the Paradox Member of the Hermosa Formation. These deposits were laid down in shallow seas and lagoons during Middle Pennsylvanian time, roughly 300 million years ago (fig. 59). As indicated in figure 4, the Paradox Member contains, in addition to shale and limestone, minerals deposited by the evaporation and concentration of sea water—common salt, gypsum, anhydrite, and potash salts. For this reason such deposits are collectively called evaporites. Figure 7 also shows that the northeastern part of the Paradox basin, which is the deepest part, contains a series of partly alined anticlines which have cores of salt and, hence, are called salt anticlines. As might be expected, roughly alined synclines intervene between the anticlines, but are not shown because of space limitations. According to Cater (1970, p. 50): “The salt anticlines of Utah and Colorado are unique in North America both in structure and in mode of development.” To this may be added that they also are relatively rare in the world. A section across the Salt Valley anticline and the Courthouse syncline in the northwestern part of the park is shown in figure 8, and the axes of these structures are shown in figure 9. Normally, a series of roughly parallel northwestward-trending folds would result from shortening of a segment of the Earth’s crust by compressive forces from the northeast and the southwest, but such does not seem to be the origin of these folds. The folds occur in a relatively narrow belt along the northeastern part of the Paradox basin, the deepest part, which was broken by a series of northwesterly trending normal faults (fig. 6) that cut the deep-lying Precambrian and older Paleozoic rocks (fig. 8) prior to the deposition of the salt-bearing Paradox Member of the Hermosa Formation. Movement along these faults continued intermittently during and after deposition of the Paradox, however, and resulted in the formation of a series of northwesterly trending ridges and troughs. Following Paradox time, normal sediments derived from a rising landmass to the northeast began to fill the basin. These sediments accumulated most rapidly and to greater thicknesses in the fault-derived troughs. Salt differs from normal sediments in two properties critical to the development of salt anticlines: first, salt is considerably lighter (fig. 10), and, second, salt under pressure will flow slowly by plastic deformation, much like ice in a glacier flows slowly downstream. Thus, salt in the troughs underlying the thicker and heavier masses of sediments was squeezed into the adjoining ridges, causing them to rise. Once started, this process tended to be self-perpetuating, as the flow of salt from beneath the thick masses of sediments in the troughs made room for the accumulation of still greater