In 1948 Williams subdivided the Jefferson Formation of northeastern Utah into two formations. The upper formation was referred to as the Late Devonian Jefferson Formation and the lower formation the Early Devonian Water Canyon Formation (Williams, 1948, p. 1138). Since that ti.me detailed study of the Water Canyon Formation has not been made . It is the purpose of this investigation to describe in detail the lithology and paleontology of the formation and their implication as to the environment of deposition of Early Devonian time in northeastern Utah.

Lower Devonian foraminifera are known from only a few localities globally and thus are not much investigated. The taxonomy, as well as further use of this group is insufficiently known. One of the main areas of research of foraminifera is the Barrandian area in the Czech Republic. This thesis follows previous studies of this territory but focuses particulary on the Prag formation, which has proven to be rich in foraminifera communities. Taxonomic studies were conducted at two Lower Devonian sites, namely the Na Stydlých vodách quarry and the Požáry quarry. The study showed that foraminifera communities described from the Na Stydlých vodách quarry were dominated by the following genera: Hyperammina, Colonammina and Tolypammina. The highest abundance was recorded at the transition of dvorecko-prokopské limestones and řeporyje limestones and in dvorecko-prokopské limestones. At the Požáry quarry, the communities were dominated by tubular genera of Tolypammina, Hyperammina and Bathysiphon and spherical genera of Lagenammina and Colonammina. The abbundance of Colonammina is unusually high, the genus has been described rarely from other parts of the world so far.

The Devonian Frog Mountain Formation thickens abruptly eastward across the Eastern Coosa thrust fault from <12 m on the west to>70 m on the east. The thin Frog Mountain on the west unconformably overlies the Cambrian-Ordovician Knox Group. The thin Frog Mountain (mostly shale) is overlain by the Mississippian Maury Shale (~1 m thick) and Fort Payne Chert (~50 m thick). The thick Frog Mountain on the east rests on the Middle Ordovician Athens Shale, a black shale >150 m thick. The Athens overlies the Knox Group. The thick Frog Mountain is nearly all sandstone and is overlain by Fort Payne Chert which is only ~1 m thick In the Eastern Coosa hanging wall, an upper-level out-of-the-syncline thrust fault with thick Frog Mountain in the hanging wall cuts more than 290 m stratigraphically down section from Athens to lower Knox in the footwall. The upper-level Frog Mountain thrust sheet crosses over the Eastern Coosa fault, and truncates folds in the Eastern Coosa footwall, moving ~2 km. The thick Frog Mountain Formation associated with the Eastern Coosa thrust sheet has been transported ~100 km cratonward. The Frog Mountain Formation was deposited over a low topographic high, which was in the location of the Blountian peripheral foreland bulge.