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| This view shows a rock pinnacle named Balanced Rock located in Fruita Canyon about a mile from the park entrance. This view shows the gentle dip of the strata. Colorado National Monument encompasses part of a great fold in the Earth's crust called a monocline (see right). A monocline typically forms were solid, dense rock, like granite, is broken by a fault, however, sedimentary rocks, like shale, will bend and fold rather than break. The rocks exposed at Colorado National Monument display both a monoclinal fold, but erosion has cut through the sedimentary layers locally exposing both the granite basement rock and a fault responsible for the monocline. |  |
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