California 1983

On a geology field trip in April 1983 led by Dr. Myron G. Best and myself I dug out these old pictures. Some of the old 35 mm slides are still pretty nice.

 Green hills of the Coast Range looking out over the San Jose valley.

 Tiburon Peninsula on a rainy April day with the occasional blueschist or greywacke knocker poking up through the grass.

Early morning along the Merced River gorge outside of Yosemite.

Agmatite – a mass of rock thought to represent the collapsed roof of a magma chamber.

 Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite Valley in the morning light.

Another example of agamite with numerous inclusions of different types in the granite matrix. Located along the Merced River gorge near Yosemite National Park.

Landslide on road west of Yosemite. The spring of 1983 was one of the wettest the west had seen in over 100 years causing many landslides.

The beautiful U-shaped, glaciated Yosemite valley.

Flow layering and folding in the rhyolite lava flows near Mono Lake, California near Mammoth, California.

Sedimentary dikes cutting across tuff layers near Mono Lake.

More of the flow folded rhyolite lava. Just spectacular.

Geology Photos from My Travels and Laboratory

These are just a few 35 mm slides that I have scanned from my old collection of places and interesting geological things.

 

Dunes of unique white sand at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. The sand is made up entirely of crystals of gypsum, a very soft mineral, that is quite different from typical sand made of the mineral quartz. 

 Tracks or trails made by the fission of uranium atoms in the mineral apatite. These "fission tracks" are used to calculate the time at which the apatite grains cooled below about 100 ºC. They have been revealed by etching the apatite briefly in an acid solution. These particular apatite grains come from the Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation of southwestern Utah.

Mafic (dark) inclusions in granite in the Sierra Nevada along the Merced River just outside of Yosemite National Park. The dark inclusions are older rocks that were picked up as the granite magma intruded up into the Earth's crust. They did not completely melt in the liquid, molten granite, however, and you can see how the large dark inclusion cracked and some of the liquid granite oozed up into the crack.

 

Cracks in a solid piece of granite illuminated by a fluorescent dye that was infused into the cracks. The photo is about 3 mm across and shows the pathways for fluid movement in something that appears so solid and impervious as a piece of granite.

 

This photo is of a volcanic mudstone layer in the Green River Formation located in Indian Canyon south of Duchesne, Utah. The cracks are filled with hard silica, which likely dissolved out of the volcanic material (white stuff) around the cracks. The photo is about 2 feet across (0.6 m).

 

A fall scene looking down Pole Canyon toward Provo Canyon near Provo, Utah. The mountain on the right side of the photo is Cascade Mountain. The gray cliffs exposed above the maple covered slopes are composed of limestones and sandstones of the Oquirrh Formation (Pennsylvanian-Permian in age).

View to the east from near Capitol Reef National Park. The low hill in the middle of the picture with the brick red stripe at the bottom is the Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic) capped by some sandstones of the Cedar Mountain Formation (Early Cretaceous). Behind the hill are the gray slopes formed by the Tununk Shale Member of the Mancos Shale (Cretaceous), which are capped by tan sandstones of the Ferron Sandstone (Cretaceous). In the far distance, the Henry Mountains peaks can be seen. The Henry Mountains are composed of diorite porphyry intrusions of Oligocene age.

The Mountain in Our Backyard -- Mount Timpanogos

Here are a few shots I have taken over the years of one of nature's most beautiful mountains: Mount Timpanogos in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. Even though Timp is only 11,752 feet high, it rises abruptly from Utah Valley, with an elevation difference of over 5,000 feet. The upper parts of the mountain were glaciated during the last ice age, carving the top into its present form.

Most of the mountain is comprised of the Oquirrh Group, a series of Pennsylvanian-Permian age limestones and sandstones that were deposited in the ocean about 300 million years ago when Utah was at the edge of the North American continent. The rocks have since had an interesting history including deep burial, uplift, and erosion to form them into the current spectacular mountain. Several of the photos here were taken from my backyard and others as I have traveled around the mountain.

Photos from Raft Trip through the Grand Canyon in 1998

Sunset in the Grand Canyon, Arizona

Pumpkin Spring along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Arizona

Lava falls at Vulcan's throne in the Grand Canyon, Arizona

Spectacular cliffs in the Paleozoic rocks of the Grand Canyon

Floating along in the muddy waters of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon

Black bridge at Phantom Ranch, Grand Canyon, Arizona

Great unconformity between Precambrian rocks and Paleozoic rocks in Grand Canyon, Arizona

Vasey's Paradise, waterfalls originating from springs flowing out of the Redwall Limestone in the Grand Canyon, Arizona

A Few Photos from the Archives

Thistle Landslide in Spanish Fork Canyon, Utah in the spring of 2000.

Light green Jurassic Curtis Formation atop the brown stripes of the Summerville Formation on the San Rafael Swell, Utah

Light greenish gray beds of the Tertiary Green River Formation overlying red beds of the Wasatch Formation in southwestern Wyoming.

Scenic San Rafael Swell, Utah.

Spring flowers on the San Rafael Swell, Utah.

Light green beds of the Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation above the purples and reds of the Jurassic Morrison Formation near the Dalton Wells dinosaur quarry north of Moab, Utah.

Red blossoms bloom on a cactus in springtime on the San Rafael Swell, Utah.

In this photo, the brick red Triassic Moenkopi Formation is at the base of the cliff. It is overlain by a greenish and purplish slope of the Triassic Chinle Formation (with the prominent Black Ledge Member near the top of this formation). At the top of the cliff is the massive sandstone cliff of the Triassic (and perhaps partly Jurassic) Wingate Sandstone.

Rock art in the Tertiary Green River Formation of Wyoming. This circular feature is call a concretion.

Sandstones and coal beds of the Cretaceous Blackhawk Formation just west of Helper, Utah.

Vineyards stretch across the Sonoma Valley, California in the spring of 2000.

Clear Lake, California located north of the Sonoma Valley.