The San Rafael Swell is a large geologic feature located in south-central Utah about 16 miles (26 km) west of Green River, Utah. The San Rafael Swell, measuring approximately 75 by 40 miles, consists of a giant dome-shaped anticline of sandstone, shale, and limestone that was pushed up during the Paleocene Laramide Orogeny 60–40 million years ago. Since that time, infrequent but powerful flash floods have eroded the sedimentary rocks into numerous valleys, canyons, gorges, mesas, buttes and badlands.
Factory Butte is a 6,302-foot summit in the Upper Blue Hills in northern Wayne County, Utah, United States, about 12 miles northwest of Hanksville and about 14 miles east of Capitol Reef National Park boundary. The approach and the base of Factory Butte are made of the clay/silt mudstone of the Mancos rock type, which erodes into sharp rills, deep gullies and badland-type rock (fine-grained clay/mud). The crown of the Butte is Mesa Verde sandstone, which erodes into sheer vertical cliffs.
