Kate Lonadier
Mrs. Fowler
2017SPGEL-111-NDY1
5 March 2017
Colorado Geology Report
Within Colorado’s borders lies the home of 104,185 square miles of geology. Within those 104,185 square miles you will find many different types of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. Colorado is split into five physiographic provinces: the Middle Rocky Mountains, the Wyoming Basin, the Colorado Plateau, the Southern Rocky Mountains, and the Great Plains (“Physiographic,” 2013). Inside these provinces are millions of years worth of geological time that tell a story of volcanic eruptions, uplift and erosion, deposition, and metamorphism. The Middle Rocky Mountains are home to the Dinosaur National Monument. In Dinosaur National Monument you
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In Colorado you can find both intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks that date all the way back to the Precambrian era. According to Colorado’s Geological Survey's website “at one time, about 2/3 of Colorado was covered by [extrusive] rocks but much has eroded” (“Volcanic rocks,” 2013). Today, Colorado is home to many different types of intrusive igneous rocks, such as: alkalic complexes, batholiths, dikes, kimberlite diatremes, plugs, sills, and stocks. If you are looking for metamorphic rocks in Colorado, you will certainly find gneiss, schist, amphibolite, and quartzite. Theses rocks have been formed by both contact metamorphism and regional metamorphism. Metamorphic rocks are also found mostly in the Southern Rocky Mountains. Some of the oldest rocks in Colorado are metamorphic and the date back to the Archean period, 2.7 billion-year-old. These ancient rocks can be found around the city of Beaver …show more content…
Colorado is home to eleven national parks, with different stories to be told in each one! One of those parks is the Rocky Mountain National Park. In this park alone you can find all three rock types of all ages. For example, there is Silver Plume granite that “intruded upward into the metamorphic rocks about 300 million years after the formation of the Proterozoic mountains” and can be found in the eastern side of the park (“Geology resources division,” 2007). Geologist are unsure what caused this
...e morphed it into the quartzite that is seen surrounding the butte (4). Rocks that undergo this process are called metamorphic rock, which is the same as the rock seen years ago by dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. The quartzite rocks were formerly seafloor sediment that was forced upwards, and then surrounded by lava basalt flows. Once erupted through fissures and floods through out most of the area, lava flow eventually created enough basalt to form a thickness of about 1.8 kilometers (1). All of this basalt flow eventually led to the covering of most mountains, leaving the buttes uncovered. The igneous lava flows and loess is reasons that the Palouse consists of such sprawling hills, and rich soil for farming (2). In result of the lava flows, the Precambrian rock Quartzite was formed. And lastly covered by the glacial loess, which were carried by the wind.
The Powder River Basin is located in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming. According to Luppens et al. (2008), the Powder River Basin is approximately 22,000 square miles in area. The basin itself trends in a north-to-north west direction. The eastern side of the basin dips gently westward, whereas the western side dips much more steeply towards the east. This forms an asymmetrical syncline with the synclinal axis lying closer to the western margin of the basin (USGS, 2013). The Powder River Basin is structurally separated from other basins by Laramide style tectonic landforms, where large portions of Archean basement rock were thrust upwards during the late Cretaceous and Paleocene (Flores, 2004). In Wyoming the Powder River Basin is surrounded by the Bighorn Mountains to the west, the Black Hills to the East, and the Laramie Mountains, Casper Arch, And Hartville Uplift to the South. To the north, in the Montana portion of the Powder River Basin, the Miles City Arch separates the basin from the Williston Basin in North Dakota. The coal beds that were deposited in the basin are mainly sub-bituminous but can also be lignite in rank and range from Cretaceous to Eocene in age. There are four formations that contain coal beds in the Powder River Basin and include the Mesaverde Formation, the Lance Formation, the Fort Union Formation, and the Wasatch Formation. Each of these formations contains several different coal ...
Shown in the picture above is volcanic extrusive igneous rock known as andesite. They were imported here to Laguna Beach to help minimize erosion (Merton Hill, p. 10-11). Extrusive Igneous rocks are formed on Earths surface due to lava quickly cooling or mixing with different materials such as ash or cinders from an eruption. There are two different types of extrusive igneous rocks; Plutonic and Volcanic. Andesite is known for being gray in color and being made up of very coarse grainy textures, which make it much harder to break down than sedimentary rocks. Unlike loose gravel and other sediments igneous rocks are known for being able to slow down seismic waves from earthquakes which cause less damage to surface structures.
Glaciers are an integral part of the world’s climate. In fact, as Richard Armstrong of the University of Colorado says, “Glaciers are key indicators in monitoring and detecting climate change” (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, 2003, p. 1). Not only are they an important part of monitoring current climate, they can hold many keys to the past. Glaciers are in fact, “a source of paleoclimate data…” (Meier and Dyurgerov, 1980, p. 37). This paleoclimate data can give geologists information on the conditions that were present at the time of the glaciers birth, as well as the approximate age. This has an important role in the geologic time scale of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. These Glaciers played a role in the carving of the present day Rocky Mountains in Colorado, which will be the primary focus of this paper. In addition, glacial formations will be discussed to give the reader background information and the future of the Glaciers in Colorado will close this paper.
Stone Mountain rises in sharp contrast to the surrounding flat, rolling landscape creating a geomorphic monadnock. Geologists appear to have consensus of the volcanic origins and underground formation of t...
"Sedimentary Rocks." Backyard Nature with Jim Conrad. N.p., 18 May 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.
More than 50 mountain ranges make up Montana’s Rockies. Glaciers and rivers are found in the mountain areas, too. Some of these rivers flow westward, toward the Kootenai and Clark Fork rivers. Others move eastward, to the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers (Av2 books). Montana straddles the Continental Divided, a geographical line running through the Rocky Mountains from which water flows either east or west in the continental United States.
Zig-zag, back and forth, down, down, down, Jonathon, Dad, and I went into a mysterious new world. Now that I have gone into this hot, dry canyon surrounded by monstrous hoodoos, I have seen what it is really like to leave the small town of Seymour, and emerge into the greatness of this world. I have now seen several other National Parks on one of the most renowned places on earth for mysterious creations, the Colorado Plateau. Of all the beautiful places on it, even the Grand Canyon, I have found my favorite one. Bryce Canyon National Park. I thought it was amazing, because it was the most diverse to anything I have ever seen before. We hiked down into it and I felt like I was surrounded by skyscrapers. We trekked around a little, but we didn’t
The Rocky Mountains were created by the Laramide orogeny, which began roughly 75 million years ago (Connor and Harrison 10). In the paleographic map below it shows the oceans wand where all the landmasses were during this time (DeMets). This can possible give one a better perspective as to what was going on, through out the rest of this process. Most mountains are created by plate boundaries. Either by continental collisions, or subduction zones at plate boundaries usually create mountains. The Rocky Mountains were not, though. These mountains were formed away from plate bo...
Coal production had become a driving force behind the United States industrial revolution. Coal was used for a variety of purposes including powering steam engines, iron manufacturing, and the heat in homes and towns. One of the largest users of coal in southern Colorado was the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I). Their furnaces were heated with coal from, he Culebra Mountain range in the southern part of Colorado was known for having some of the richest coal in the state. The coal is glossy black bituminous coal the second highest grade of coal available.
Hussey, Russell C. Historical Geology: The Geologic History of North America. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947. 379. Print
Soon after the sea reached longer distance westward and the sandy tidal deposits were converted to deep water deposits. Mancos Shale is the name given to represent these deposits, which are comprised of organic material and small particulates. Another interesting fact to note is that this type of sediment consists of fossils. These remains can include prehistoric shell fish, shark teeth, and many other types of organisms. The hills seen at the foundation of the mesa in the Montezuma Valley are comprised of gray
The main theme in Rising from the Plains is the formation of the Rocky Mountains. “Topography grows, shrinks, compresses, spreads, disintegrates, and disappears” (McPhee 27). The physical features of the Earth are temporary and are always changing. The
Blakey, R. C. (1996). Geologic history of western us. Informally published manuscript, Northern Arizona Univ, Flagstaff, AZ, Retrieved from http://www.jan.ucc.nau.edu
...These rocks include indurated conglomerates, coarse-grain granites, and Arkosic and breciated granites. Furthermore, there are evidences to indicate that faulting took place in the area. Hydrothermal and epithermal action must have intruded the rocks in the Goldfield area forming small stringers of quartz. There are also evidences of sedimentary rocks such as sandstones, limestone and conglomerates found near Roosevelt Lake (Eppinga, 2006).