St. Francois Mountains

Determining the location of the Shawangunk Mountain formation from our position on the outcrop can demonstrate a lot about the upbringing of this formation. The Shawangunk Formation, consisting of quartz pebble conglomerate from the Middle Silurian age, extends from south of the Hudson Valley down south until Virginia. The vanishing of the formation within the area of Rosendale, NY has led to investigations of tectonic events. Due to the Taconic orogeny, we see the formation of the Shawangunk Mountains being formatted. Through the transgression of fluvial system, the Shawangunk Mountain formation rose southeast as the result of the tectonic deformation. The coarse-grained beds in the lower portion of the outcrop demonstrate a very

Starved rock and St. Peter Sandstone are an erosional remnant of Ordovician period. These remnants contain Pennsylvanian clastics that survived the washing out of the Illinois River at the end of the Ice Age. Evidence for swift, turbulent, and deep water includes gravel bars and erosional features as high as 160 feet above the current level of the river, massive cross bedded sand, and gravel deposits along the river course.

The Lynne deposit lies within the early Proterozoic Penokean fold belt of the southern province of the Precambrian Shield. The fold belt is divided into two major terranes in Wisconsin (Sims 1989). The first is the northern Penokean terrane, which contains major oxide facies iron formations and granitic intrusions (DeMatties 1989). The second major terrane, separated from the Penokean terrane by the Niagara fault zone, is the Wisconsin magmatic terrane, characterized by a volcanic island arc-basin assemblage (Sims 1989). This southern terrane lacks major oxide facies iron formations, but contains abundant tonalite-granite intrusions (DeMatties 1989). The Wisconsin magmatic terrane is further subdivided into the northern Pembine-Wausau terrane and the southern Marshfield terrane, which are separated by the Eau Pleine shear zone, a north-dipping subduction zone (Sims 1989).

The youngest of these rocks are dated at about 220,000 years ago. Rhyodacties and quartz latites in the modern caldera area extruded from about 320,000 years ago to 260,000 years ago, and then silica-rich rhyolites at Glass Mountain northeast of the caldera erupted from about 210,000 years ago to 80,000 years ago. The scattered distribution of the initial mafic eruptions indicates that they were erupted from the mantle, while the slightly younger domes and flows were from a deep-crustal source. The youngest rhyolite eruptions erupted at the northeast rim of the caldera at Glass Mountain and were the first activity of the silicic Long Valley magma chamber (Bailey, et. al., 1989).

A description of the grand canyon rock layers would include the Colorado River running at the bottom of the inner gorge with flats on both sides which consist of tapeat sandstone layers. There is also the Vishnu Complex, consisting of rocks that have been changed by heat and are buried at the lowest layers. These are tilted and are called the “Grand Canyon Supergroup” the Grand Canyon supergroups are at least 12,000 ft in thickness. These rocks or (the “Inner Gorge”) are usally steep and narrow with hard deep cuts in the lower tilted layers which raise above sea level.

Silicious lava, forced up from deep down below. Soda trachytes extruded in a highly viscous state, building the steep-sides mametons we see in Hanging Rock. And quite young, geologically speaking. Barely a millions years old. (Greene, 11)

The land rose up and created a precipitous eastern edge of the batholith and a gentle western edge. 10 million years ago, uplift, which is the vertical rise of Earth’s surface due to natural causes, started to occur and accelerated quickly. Soon, the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range that we know today towered 14,000 feet in elevation. Throughout uplift, cracks formed in the granite of the mountains. They formed due to the pressure that came with the uplift. The erosion that stripped away most of the overlying rocks caused the remaining rock to expand and crack. These cracks are still forming today and they provide a template for future erosion.

The objective of the trip to Blount Springs, Alabama was to observe and gather data on the geological structure of the area. Blount Springs is located in the northern part of Alabama just 33 miles north of Birmingham, and lies on the southernmost part of the Appalachian fold belt. The field work began on the morning of Saturday April, 7th at 8:50am. The weather was cloudy with temperatures in the mid 40’s, and the area was wet from rain the previous night. Our materials included a map of the area, list of formations, a Brunton compass, and a Rite in the Rain field book. The procedure of the field work involved 12 stops at outcrops to gather data, one stop was omitted from the original plans. This data gathered included bedding and joint orientations

It is currently the largest exposed granite in the world weighing approximately one trillion pounds; although, only one third of the mountain can be seen as a majority of the mountain expands below ground as far as North Carolina. The enormous pluton mountain, as scientifically identified by geologist, was formed by a complex folding and faulting that had subsequently created the Blue ridge mountains. Though what remains as a mystery to many geologist is as to how such a massive granite mountain has become exposed. Although there are several theories that have been publicated to explain such a phenomena none are substantial or advocated the most. While the origins of Stone Mountain are elusive, the correlations of this landmarks with american history are intricately

The Raton-Clayton volcanic field is about 20 000 km2 in size, and has been active periodically for the past 9 million years. The area is filled with peaks, cones, and lava-capped mesas. The mesas developed as lava flowed into valleys and depressions, cooled off and formed a resistant top layer over sedimentary rocks. As the surrounding rock eroded, the lava protected the underlying stratigraphy from erosion. This caused todays topography, where that which was once the lowest point, is now the highest. There is some disagreement over why the volcanic field is here, one possible cause is that it is near the end of the Jemez Lineament, which has numerous volcanic centers along its reach, possibly

The Grand Canyon has plenty of volcanic rocks near the bottom and the top. ICR, Institute for Creative Research, has been involved in a project for years to date these volcanic rocks. this study has come a long way to show that many of the Grand Canyon strata could have formed rapidly, and that the erosion of the Canyon by the Colorado River has not been going on for millions of years.

The geology history of the northern Bonaparte Basin have been described by [12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21] and are summarised by [22] and is associated with three main phases of rifting. The oldest was initiated in the Paleozoic and has a northwesterly trend. Overprinting this is a Permo-Carboniferous episode of rifting, which created a northeasterly structural grain. A later phase of rifting related to ‘break-up’, was initiated as early as the Late Triassic, but has its main expression from the Callovian to Kimmeridgian syn-rift (Figure 2). A number of significant regional discontinuities are recognized in the Middle, Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous sequences, related to the effects of sea level fluctuations and ‘break-up’ along the north-western

The upper Miocene strata are conformable, with no evidence for faulting or extensive erosion during the intervening period (~24 to ~11 Ma). The pre-rift flood volcanics and syn-rift units show a regional SE dip. The contact between Megezez and flood volcanics can be traced in imagery throughout the region (from Wolfenden et al, 2004).

“The Three Rondavels are located in the Blyde River Canyon region” Anon (2006). These Three Rondavels are round mountains with peaks that are formed in a shape of an African Hut. They attained this shape as a result of erosion agents. The soft rocks that are found on the upper surface are removed leaving the tough rocks such as quartzite shown,

A seismic section shows the appearance of the SGA-A across (Figure 23) that goes across a salt dome inducing faults (Figure 23b) that go through the Chalk group and segments the accumulation of gas within the shallow sub-section below Quaternary incised Tunnel Valleys. There seems to be a seismic indication of a vertical migration of hydrocarbons along faults reaching the SGA - A accumulation that may indicate migration pathways for fluids above a salt diapir – C.