Random Geology Photo #001

The first installment of Random Geology Photo comes to us from The Garden of the Gods outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. This beautiful, almost 90 degree rotated bedrock plane was titled "on end" during the Rocky Mountain Orogenies, though I cannot guess as to which one as of right now.
This wonderful red-orange rock, and pink in certain light, is mostly Triassic sandstone, with various sedimentary structures such as ripple marks. There is also pebble-pavements present, (as well as a little aliteration) which may not be attributed as a common sedimentary structure, but I for one believe it should considered.

Garden of the Gods: Mainly a Picture Show

(Still) Day 4 - Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado

After our morning of tempting gravity to pull our 2-ton vans down 5000' of Pike's Peak Granite, we venture on to western Colorado Springs to unwind with cold nalgenes and soft rock. Colorado BASIN soft rock (ohhh geology joke....) Anyways, we arrive at Garden of the Gods around 1PM, after eating lunch in the scalding visitor's center parking lot, and after visiting the welcoming center. (Beware: this is not the first time we'll stop by a visitor's center before actually visiting the attraction.)

The Garen of the Gods stop is a series of tremendous, near vertical or completely vertical tipping bedrock monoliths protruding upwards. Aside from one bright white limestone piece, many orange and deep pinkish-tan sandstone outcrops (with outrageous sedimentary structures) surround you as you enter the park. I believe the rocks are Paleozoic, but my rite-in-the-rain notebook is currently drying in the dining room right now. Anyways, on to more pitcures.

Les Hasbargen in Super-Geologist-Photo Mode

Vertical Bedrock=Drool
Sedimentary Structures worth Killing For
Something happened riiiiiight here...
Don't tell my geo-colleagues I took pictures of a dicot...I mean plant..
And this.

Watauga Falls

In the Fall of 2007, we went out to this outcrop, or waterfall in Delaware County, rather proximal to the town of Delhi. I don't remember the exact stratigraphic location of the falls themselves, but I do recall an abundance of excellent sedimentary structures, including ripple marks, as well as cross stratification in multiple directions.

The bad news: after about 1 hour we realized there was a Delaware Co. police vehicle parked behind our van. Needless to say, we were out of there way too soon, but there long enough to get some nice shots of the falls.

On a side note, this was the top terrace of a two-fall system. The second terrace was much larger, at least 4x as wide, and over 100' vertical drop. However, the lower falls were not accessible from out position.

Formation of Rodinia

"For every tectonic event there is a sedimentary response" Dr. Ebert

Greetings all, this is mt first post and I'd like to start by taking you on a journey that I recently travelled with my Historical Geology at SUNY Oneonta. This journey, guided by Dr. Ebert, took as back 1.2 billion years into the past and forward in time to look at glacial features.

Our first stop is in the Mohawk River Valley 1.2 billion years in the past. The rocks are a highly metamorphosed gneiss. There are two distinct features present in the gneiss. The first is the pink and purple crystals that can be found all over the rocks. These crystals are in fact garnets! The other predominate feature is extensive foliation, or banding, seen with in the rocks. The foliation is both on small scale

Our second stop brings us to Canajoharie where a large grouping of sedimentary rocks begins to show us some indicators that an orogeny, mountain building event, is eminent. The first two lays of rock are carbonates. The first layer is dolostone, a chemically altered limestone, and the second layer is a limestone. The first layer is bare of fossils except for stromatolites, a feature formed by mats of algae. This, combined with the present of carbonates indicates that the environment was very warm. The second layer was rich in bryozoans, brachiopods and crinoids. The third and final layer was an extremely black shale. The black shale indicates that the water extremely deep and very anoxic. The only life that can be found in these shales are graptolites, a floating organism. The two limestones are part of what is called The Great American Bank, a large deposit of carbonate rocks that indicate the subsidence of the continent. The shale is part of what is called the Starved Basins which is a time when the crust has subsided a lot and has a very small sediment source.

The third stop brought us to a sequence of alternating sandstone and shales. These rocks were filled with burrows and flute casts, a sedimentary structure that indicates the flow of water and sediment. This sequence is known as flysch. This is a sequence that indicates that an approaching landmass is now close enough to dump sediment on the area.

Our final stop was in Schoharie and was simply a fossil prospecting run. These fossils were everywhere at this site, among them were bryozoans, cephalopods, brachiopods, crinoids and tentaculids.