FIELD TRIP: A TOUR OF JURASSIC LAKE T’OO’DICHI: ALKALINE, SALINE WETLANDS OF THE MORRISON FORMATION IN THE FOUR CORNERS AREA

Dates:  September 22-24^th 

Leaders: Dr. Christine Turner and Neil Fishman, Retired USGS

Price: TBD

Limit: 25 including leaders

Registration:  opens this summer. Watch this space for news. FCGS members will receive email updates.

Description:

What rock formation is green, purple, orange and blue, known for dinosaur fossils and hosts uranium?  The Morrison Formation!  It’s all around us in the Four Corners Area, but how much do we really know about the depositional systems that formed it? Join us as we travel from the interior to the margins of the oldest, largest, alkaline, saline wetland in the geologic record with retired USGS geologists Dr. Christine Turner and Neil Fishman. In their interpretation, unusual pore water chemistry related to the alteration of silicic ash from calderas to the west resulted in a diagenetically zoned distribution of zeolitic minerals in the Brushy Basin Member only found west of the Uncompahgre uplift. We will also observe and discuss the tectonic, stratigraphic and sedimentologic aspects of the entire Morrison (including the Salt Wash and Bluff Sandstone Members) as we traverse the depositional basin in the greater Four Corners region.

For more information open this pdf: Morrison Field Trip