Pikes Peak granite is a 1.08 billion year old Late-Precambrian geologic formation found in the central part of the Front Range of Colorado. It is a coarse-grained pink to light red syenogranite with minor gray monzogranite, and it has a distinctive brick-red appearance where it outcrops. The granite gets its name from the Pikes Peak, which is made up almost entirely of this rock. Origin The Pikes Peak granite was emplaced in Colorado's central Front Range from three major intrusive centers near what is now Pikes Peak, Buffalo Park and the Lost Creek Wilderness. It is the geochemically potassic series of plutons compromising most of the Pikes Peak batholith, a batholith formed of two major types of plutons, the potassic Pikes Peak granite and later plutons, plus late stage sodic syenite and granite plutons. Both the batholith and the Pikes Peak granite are A-type, meaning granites that originate in anorogenic, or non-mountain building, tectonic settings, with an alkaline geochemistry and arising from more anhydrous magmas. Erosion Over the next 300 million years, the now cooled granite was gradually exposed through erosion of the overlying rocks. About 700 million years ago, the granite was exposed at the surface and, for another 300 million years, it was subject to extensive weathering. Since no sediments were being deposited, there is a large time gap in the geological record. This gap is part of a more generalized gap called the Great Unconformity. About 510 million years ago, the granite was again subject to deposition and was gradually buried by thick layers of sediment. Over the next 450 million years, the area was covered by seas, reefs, beaches, sand dunes and mountain streams which laid down more than 15,000 feet (4,500 m) of sediment. About 60 million years ago, parts of the Western U.S. were subjected to a series of uplifts, known as the Laramide orogeny, that eventually formed the modern Rocky Mountains and raised Pikes Peak to its current height. Pikes Peak, like other portions of Colorado Rockies is still being uplifted today as a part of larger tectonic processes affecting the Western United States. Today, the Pikes Peak Batholith and Granite is exposed over a large part of the central Front Range of Colorado. It is found as far north as the southern slopes of Mount Evans west of Denver, west to South Park, and as far south as Cañon City. The batholith