The tar-bearing Permian White Rim Sandstone in the Elaterite basin near Canyonlands National Park, Utah, is an example of an exhumed paleotopographic high (paleohigh) with approximately 250 ft (76 m) of relief. Accumulations of heavy hydrocarbons are concentrated along the axis of the high.

Eolian processes controlled deposition of most of the White Rim Sandstone, and the action of erosional marine processes modified preexisting dune relief at the top of this sandstone. The interaction of these depositional processes is evidenced by the distinction of two informal units within the White Rim Sandstone. The lower unit is an eolian facies that comprises most of the formation. This unit is characterized by prominent, large-scale, high-angle cross-stratification; ripples with high ripple indices; and eolian ripple (translatent) strata. The upper unit is a thin marine facies with oscillation (wave) ripples, fluid-escape structures, megapolygons, and rip-up clasts of the lower unit. The eolian and marine facies are separated by a sharp erosional boundary.

The basic form of the paleohigh is the result of sedimentation within an eolian dune field, but much of the study area's unusual paleotopographic relief is attributed to erosion and reworking of the lower unit during a major marine transgression. The upper marine facies of the White Rim was also deposited during this transgression. Six different wave-cut terrace levels on the flanks of the elongate high record a discontinuous rise of sea level during the transgression. Megapolygons within the upper unit resulted from desiccation and expansive salt-crystal growth when the area became subaerially exposed during a regression at the end of the Permian. The paleohigh was eventually mantled by fine-grained sediments of the Triassic Moenkopi Formation. The Moenkopi cover effectively protecte the delicate features of the paleohigh now exposed by Holocene erosion in the Elaterite basin. The depositional and preservational model for the White Rim Sandstone proposed here may be a useful analog to other stratigraphic traps associated with paleotopographic relief.