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Colorado Plateaus

Ecoregion on Colorado Plateau in AZ, UT, CO, NM

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The Colorado Plateaus ecoregion is an uplifted, eroded, and deeply dissected tableland. Its benches, mesas, buttes, salt valleys, cliffs, and canyons are formed in and underlain by thick layers of sedimentary rock. Precipitous side-walls mark abrupt changes in local relief, often of 1000 to 2000 feet or more. The region contains a greater extent of pinyon-juniper and Gambel oak woodlands than the Wyoming Basin (18) to the north. There are also large low lying areas containing saltbrush-greasewood (typical of hotter, drier areas), which are generally not found in the higher Arizona/New Mexico Plateau (22) to the south where grasslands were typically more common. Summer moisture from thunderstorms supports warm season grasses not found in the Central Basin and Range (13) to the west. Many endemic plants occur and species diversity is greater than in Ecoregion 13. Several national parks are located in this ecoregion and attract many visitors to view their arches, spires, and canyons.

— EPA

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