The Geologic Record

To begin, the mouth of the canyon features a hilly landscape with scars from landslides created from the uplifting of land by the Wasatch Fault. The fault, responsible for the creation of the Wasatch Mountains 25 million years ago, is a normal fault (Eldredge, 2014). Unlike some faults, vertical movement of the terrain is limited and slippage only occurs every several hundred or thousand years. Signs of the fault at work can be seen through the mouth of the canyon with the orange Tintic Quartzite which is dated back to the Cambrian Age. Layered beneath the quartzite is tillite from the Precambrian Age. To the west and separate from the Quartzite and tillite by the Wasatch Vault are limestone sections from the Missippian Age. (Rigby, Hintze, 1968, pg 23).

Next, these rocks undergo erosion, which is the process of moving sediments from one place to another. Then, these sediments are deposited all at one place and over time they start to converge and cement as layers which are also known as strata. As time keeps going, new sediments deposit and cement together over old ones forming new layers. This is a repetitive process that eventually build up layers to make up a Sedimentary rock. Approximately 40 major sedimentary rock layers exposed in the Grand Canyon National Park area range in age from about 200 million to nearly 2 billion years old. As you can see, sedimentary rock formation takes an excessive amount of time.

First, we must examine the sedimentary formations; when they were formed, how they were formed, and what materials they consist of. About ninety-three to one hundred million years ago, the Western Interior Seaway rolled through the North American continent, eventually reaching the geographical area of today’s Mesa Verde National Park (National Park Service 2005). This sea deposited a thick, hard sandstone base that is called Dakota Sandstone, although this layer is not exposed in the park

| |sequences of events thus telling|sediment stacked on top of each |and the determining how old |

Sedimentary rocks interpret dinosaur habitats through encased environmental structures of the past. Through sedimentary rocks, paleoecologists’ can examine the arranged formation of sedimentary structures to specify what type of environment the dinosaurs’ lived in. An example of a specific sedimentary rock structure can be seen through formed weathering and ripple marks by how wind and sand formed distinct patterns in the past layered sediment. These arrangements provide interpretations on the structure of the sediment and the habitat of encased fossils, through modern day comparisons

The sedimentary layers of rock and soil are used by the evolutionists to argue that the layers of rock would have gradually built up over millions of years. Paul D. Ackerman in his book, It’s a Young World After All: Exciting Evidences for Recent Creation, argues that if it took millions of years to build the rock layers found in the Grand Canyon, then scientists should be able to encounter countless numbers of meteors. “With the passage of vast amounts of evolutionary time, these accumulating meteorites would be incorporated into the geologic column, and there should be many of them contained in the rock layers today.” Geologists should be coming across chunks or at least pieces of meteors when digging or observing the layers. However, they do not; which means that there must have been a catastrophic event that laid down the geologic column quickly. This would explain why there are not any indications of meteors in the geological column. Ackerman ends the chapter with a clear cut conclusion: “What do the data show? A clear result in favor of a recent creation. One survey of the literature a few years ago failed to turn up a single case of a meteorite being found in the geologic column. The meteorite clock reads clearly to the effect that the earth is not very old.”

A period of volcanism resulted in igneous intrusions within the Raton Basin-Sierra Grande Uplift Province that was sourced from the upper mantle about 26. 6 billion years ago and is associated with parallel dikes and sills (Higley, 2007). Igneous rocks are common within the Raton Basin and include Tertiary dikes and sills that range in age from 6.7 to 29 5 million years ago (Flores and Bader, 1999). One of the main differences between dikes and sills is that dikes are longer lived magma conduits and sills are features that form when magma is in neutral buoyancy with the surrounding rock (Rooper et al., 2006). These volcanic events are associated with hydrothermal alteration of coal within the basin (Higley, 2007).

During the late Holocene, the Cienega Amarilla and nearby Cottonwood Canyon floodplains underwent dramatic geomorphic changes, experiencing periods of rapid high-energy deposition, slow low-energy deposition, stability and soil formation, and deep channel entrenchment and subsequent infilling. Many of these shifts likely represent geomorphic responses of hillslope and valley subsystems to climate change and variability. Cienega Amarilla became a groundwater discharge dominated system from ~2.3–1.6 ka, and then transitioned back to a runoff-dominated system by ~1 ka. In this section, I examine possible linkages between these hydrological and geomorphic changes and paleoclimatic variation.

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

They documented a flight of six terrace surfaces rising above the modern floodplain of Carrizo Wash. The highest and oldest surface (T6) consists of Pleistocene gravel, and the lowest three surfaces (T1–T3) date to the historical period. The remaining two terraces (T4 and T5) were formed during the prehistoric portion of the Holocene. Anderson and Edwards differentiated the alluvium into four stratigraphic units, and seven radiocarbon dates on detrital charcoal provided temporal control. The oldest deposits, designated Garcia Ranch I, underlie the T5 tread and are associated with radiocarbon dates of 7090 and 6132 14C yr BP. Anderson and Edwards believed that stream down-cutting followed the deposition of Garcia Ranch I deposits. Garcia Ranch II deposits are inset into the older Garcia Ranch I alluvium, but also form part of the T5 surface. The lower portion of this unit contained charcoal that yielded dates of 4250 and 3780 14C yr BP. The upper part of the Garcia Ranch II unit includes paleochannel fill dated at 3890 14C yr BP. Garcia Ranch III deposits contained charcoal dated at 2410 and 2520 14C yr BP. Pueblo I and II materials on the surface of this unit suggest that Garcia Ranch III deposition ended prior to about 1,200 years ago. The youngest prehistoric deposits are inset into T5 and consist of

The canyon walls have been eroded through landslides and rock fall which dump debris into the Colorado River. Unlike most erosion, these processes are rapid and sudden. Much of the erosion has taken place by the five tons of debris per second that flow down the river through the canyon. The river gains most of its power from the steep descent into the canyon which falls ten feet per mile which gives it the momentum to move all of the debris. If the river did not flow through the canyon clearing the debris, it would stack up and fill the canyon. During the last million years, volcano eruptions have also played their part in shaping the canyon. At Toroweap Point there are cone shaped mountains lining the top of the canyon and black rock where lava flowed down the canyon sides. At some points, lava flows poured into the canyon resulting in a dam that stopped the river. Once enough pressure built up, the river swept the dam away. Geologist estimate it has been a hundred thousand years since the last lava flow into the canyon, but are not completely convinced that there will not eventually be more eruptions as there is evidence of an eruption that happened about a thousand years ago. In the last eruption, the lava flow did not make it into the canyon.

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 Mesozoic Era was from 248 mya to 65mya. The previous era was Paleozoic and the era after was Cenozoic. The cretaceous period: Upper 96-65 mya, high tectonic and volcanic activity. Primitive marsupials develop. Continents have a modern day look. Minor extinction 82 mya. Ended with large extinction, lower 146-98 the heyday of the dinosaurs. First crocodiles and feathered dinosaurs appear. Jurassic: 208-146 many dinosaurs there's, sauropods,Archaeopteryx, flowering plants,Ammonites, pterosaurs.Triassic: 248-208 mya first dinosaurs appear, mammals, and crocodile forms appear. True flies appear. The temperature in both land and water were much higher than during the Paleozoic period. Climates were more tropical in nature. There were desserts

When we think of history, we think of important people, places, cultures, events, and much more. The backbone of history rests on its chronology. It gives us the "when" of basic analysis. It gives us a frame of reference, the order of things. Before having an "absolute" way of determining dates, history was based in guesses and assumptions. Many attempts were made to organize the dates of the past. Some of these attempts were made by geologist. Geologist used the idea of "stratigraphic succession" (Renfrew, 1973) which is based on the "principle that when successive layers or strata are observed in position, the underlying ones are the earliest." (Pg. 23 Renfrew, 1973) By setting the layers in

Sequence stratigraphy is a discipline studying the linkages within the chronostratigraphic framework of sequences which is bounded by unconformities and correlative conformities. It enables interpretation of sedimentary strata as products of relative sea-level change. The sequence stratigraphy uses sub-dividing surfaces to provide a framework to the interpretation of the depositional settings of the sedimentary section and uses the interpretation for further prediction of the extent and character of the component sedimentary facies. Sequence stratigraphy was originally designed for seismic sections, but the principles can be applied to outcrop, core, and well logs. It now provides a powerful method and is widely used in the petroleum exploration and prospects.