Lake Mead - an eroding pediment

This view looks west over badlands of an eroding pediment near the intersection of the Overton Beach access road and the Northshore Road. A pediment is a gently sloping erosional surface or plane of low relief on bedrock. They commonly developed in arid or semiarid regions at the base of an abrupt and receding mountain front. Alluvial fans and pediments often occur side-by-side or merge along mountain ranges throughout the Desert Southwest ( Easterbrook, 1999). Pediments may have a thin, intermittent veneer of sediment. In this area, the pediment consists of Muddy Creek Formation (soft, basin-fill sediments of late Miocene to Pliocene age) capped by capped by Quaternary-age alluvial deposits. The alluvial deposits that once covered a fairly flat surface are now preserved only in the high points of the badlands, the rest having been removed by gully-forming erosion.