Lithostratigraphy of the Jurassic San Rafael Group from Bluff to the Abajo Mountains, southeastern Utah: Stratigraphic relationships of the Bluff Sandstone

Measured sections of Jurassic San Rafael Group strata correlated by lithostratigraphy along an ~60 km transect between Bluff and the Abajo Mountains in southeastern Utah indicate that: (1) the Carmel Formation is continuous and disconformable on the Navajo Sandstone (J-2 unconformity); (2) the Entrada Sandstone (Slick Rock Member) is continuous and conformable on the Carmel; (3) the Summerville Formation is continuous and does not intertongue with the Entrada (its base is the J-2 unconformity); (4) the Bluff Sandstone grades northward into the upper Summerville south of the Abajo Mountains; (5) the Recapture Member of the Bluff is physically continuous with at least part of the Tidwell Member of the Summerville; and (5) the base of the Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Fm. is a pervasive unconformity (J-5) with demonstrable local stratigraphic relief of up to 14 m. These observations counter previous claims of extensive Entrada-Summerville intertonguing in southeastern Utah and do not support recognition of depositional sequence boundaries in the Entrada and Summerville lithosomes. Though Entrada deposition may have been by a wet eolian system, its southeastern Utah outcrops are well to the south/ southeast of any marine and paralic facies with which the Entrada intertongues.