Trip Description:
Travel with us to explore the complex legacy of geologic fluids in the Paradox Basin, and the role that faults and fractures played as conduits and hosts for alteration, especially ore deposits. Since Pennsylvanian time, basin subsidence, deposition, burial, and mobilization of hydrocarbon and metal-bearing fluids have selectively reduced and oxidized sandstones and other strata, many of which now serve as hosts for uranium, vanadium, copper, and manganese. From 2018 through 2022, faculty and student researchers from the University of Arizona, New Mexico Tech, and Fort Lewis College investigated ancient and modern fluids, structural systems, burial history, tectonic events, ore deposits, and geochronology in order to tease out overall basin evolution. We will visit several key locations and share some new insights and evidence for this complex history.
Dates:
April 11-12, overnight in Moab, UT
Leaders:
Dr. Bob Krantz, FLC, U.Az. and GeoStructure LLC, and hopefully Dr. Eytan Bos Orent, U.Az, ExxonMobil.
Organizers:
David Schiowitz and Jim Corken
Limit: 20 (18 participants plus 2 leaders )
Transportation: Carpools from Durango.
Registration Fee:
TBA. Registration fee covers Saturday lunch, Sunday breakfast & lunch, snacks, gas for drivers, permits, and printed handouts.
Lodging and Saturday Dinner:
Participants must reserve and pay for their own hotel rooms in Moab from a list that will be provided. These hotels have a range of room costs and are centrally located for easy access to restaurants, and for group travel logistics. Participants pay for their own dinners in Moab on Saturday night.
Registration Opens:
Friday, March 13th at 8am here.
Itinerary
Saturday: Leave Durango by 8am and drive to the Lisbon Valley copper Mine. We will have a mine tour with Chief Geologist, Brian Sparks, then lunch with a presentation. From LVM we drive to Moab to see the Moab Fault and 1950’s uranium mines at Corral Canyon, a splay of the fault and copper mineralization at Mill Canyon, then a quick stop at the nearby dinosaur trackway. We should arrive at our hotels by 6:30pm.
Sunday: The final agenda is still TBD, but will definitely include exploring copper deposits and sturctures at the historic Cashin Mine, along with time for rock hounding. We will also visit either the Morning Star uranium mine or the Flat Iron Mesa manganese deposits. We will arrive back in Durango around 5pm.
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