The 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created September 18, 1996 by President Clin- ton and was the first national monument to be placed under the management of the U.S. Bur eau of Land Management. Located in southern Utah, the monument contains an array of geological, paleontological, historic, ar chaeological, and bi- ological resources. It lies in a r emote area comprised of canyons, plateaus, mesas, and clif fs set in an envir onment of col- orful geologic formations. The monument is surrounded by several national and state parks, a primitive ar ea, and a national recreation area. It can be divided into three geographical sections: fr om west to east these are the Grand Staircase, Kaiparowits Basin, and Es- calante Canyons sections. Rock formations exposed in these sections range in age fr om Permian to Cretaceous comprising more than 200 million years of Earth's history . Structurally, these rocks dip gently northward, and are deformed by most- ly north-south-trending faults, anticlines, synclines, and monoclines. The monument area contains known coal, oil and gas, and mineral r esources and potential resources which are gener- ally undeveloped because market areas are distant and because ways of transporting the commodities out of the r egion have never been in place. As a national monument, the area will provide many future opportunities to study a r egion of remarkably well-exposed geology.