The Raton basin (shown on photograph below, with the city of Trinidad) is a Laramide-age foreland basin in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Foreland basins record orogenic events. We use the stratigraphy of Cordilleran foreland basins to understand Sevier and Laramide-age rheological changes in the North American lithosphere. We also work on the Anadarko basin (Oklahoma) and the Colville basin (Alaskan North Slope).