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Field Trip

Your are required to attend one of the field trips.

Dates: May 8-10 or May 15-17

Each student must attend one (and only one) of the two field trips. The field trip is to Grand Canyon and surrounding areas in Arizona, and will familiarize students with a broad range of concepts covered in lecture. The first day will include examination of Sunset Crater, AZ, a recently active volcano, and walking through the Permian Coconino, Toroweap and Kaibab Formations that rim Grand Canyon. The second day will include examination igneous and metamorphic rocks and an ancient erosion surface called the Great Unconformity west of Seligman, AZ, followed by study of a volcanic formation called the Peach Springs Tuff near Kingman, AZ, which records a gigantic, explosive volcanic eruption that occurred 18 million years ago. More details are provided below.

  
  View of Grand Canyon, from the South Rim, looking northwest, near the first stop on the 2009 Ge 1 field trip this May. The horizontal layering are strata deposited during the Paleozoic Era, between 543 and 250 million years ago. The dark cliffs in the deepest part of the canyon in the lower left part of the photo are the eroded remains of a mountain belt that formed 1.7 billion years ago.    
     
 
 
 
Background:
The primary activities at each stop on the field trip will be:
(1) to listen to the instructor introduce the geologic features and phenomena at each stop;
(2) mark on your copy of the Geologic Map of Arizona with the location of the stop, and
(3) take a photograph of at least two of the features at each stop, as listed on the itinerary below, with a total of not less than 20 photos.

Your field report will be 12 pages total, including
(1) your annotated copy of the map;
(2) a ten-page section including two photographs on each page presented in the order of the stops, with a caption of less than 50 words below each photo; and
(3) a 1-page essay (<250 words) on the significance of one stop of your choosing. Each photo caption should include the stop number, geographic location, direction of view, description of scale (for view shots where scale cannot be included), the names and ages of key rock formations if they are defined, and lastly a very brief explanation of what appears in the photo. Where appropriate, you should annotate the photo itself, either by hand or using Photoshop or equivalent.
2009 Field Trip Itinerary

Friday 9 p.m.: Depart from Arms Circle on the Coconino Redeye Express

DAY 1 (Saturday)

Breakfast in Flagstaff, AZ

Stop 1-1, Mafic Volcanism (Bonito Flow)
1. Basalt (Aa lava)
2. Basalt (Pyroclastic fall)

Stop 1-1, Mafic Volcanism (Sunset Crater, AZ)
3. Basaltic cinder cone
4. Basalt (pahoehoe lava)
5. Caldera

Stop 1-3, Erosion and Sedimentation (Yaki Point, South Rim of Grand Canyon, AZ)
6. Disconformity (Redwall on Muav)
7. Angular unconformity (Tapeats on Unkar)
8. Nonconformity (Tapeats or Unkar, on Vishnu)

Lunch at Grandview Point, Grand Canyon, AZ

Stop 1-4, Sedimentation and Stratigraphy (Hermit Trail, Grand Canyon, AZ)
9. Chert nodules in dolostone
10. Sponge (Actincoelia sp.) preserved in chert nodule
11. Productid brachiopod (Penciculauris sp.)
12. Spar-filled vug
13. Convoluted bedding in evaporite
14. Conformable contact between sandstone and dolostone
15. Eolian cross stratification
16. Wavy-bedded cross stratification

Dinner and accommodations in Williams, AZ

DAY 2 (Sunday)

Stop 2-1, Intrusion and Metamorphism (Cross Mountain Road on-ramp to I-40, AZ)
17. Amphibolite gneiss
18. Metamorphic foliation and lineation
19. Porphyritic gneiss
20. Pegmatite
21. Intrusive contact (porphyritic gneiss into amphibolite gneiss)
22. Intrusive contact (leucogranite into amphibolite gneiss)
23. Intrusive contact (pegmatite into leucogranite)


Stop 2-2, Weathering, Erosion, Unconformities (I-40 roadcuts near Cross Mountain, AZ)
24. Fluvio-marine cross-stratification in sandstone
25. Graded bedding
26. Nonconformity (sandstone on leucogranite)
27. Spherical weathering of granite
28. Pyroclastic fall (air-fall tuff)
29. Angular unconformity (pyroclastic fall on sandstone)
30. Basalt flow

Lunch in Kingman, AZ

Stop 2-3, Faulting, Paleosols, Silicic Volcanism (Cook Canyon I-40 roadcuts, Kingman, AZ)
31. Pyroclastic surge deposit
32. Inverse grading
33. Pumice lapilli
34. Pyroclastic flow (ignimbrite or ash flow)
35. Paleosol
36. Normal fault
37. Drag folding

Stop 2-4, Silicic Volcanism (Cunningham Estate, Kingman, AZ )
38. Flattened pumice (fiamme)
39. Welded tuff
40. Sheeted joints
41. Columnar joints
42. Chatoyant sanidine

Dinner in Barstow, CA

Arrive 10 p.m., Arms Circle
 
Last Update: 06/10/2009
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