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AN
AMATEUR GEOLOGY
ROAD TRIP
My travels through the Colorado Plateau of southern Utah and northern Arizona. by John Fuhring June, 2010 Introduction
About five years ago it was my good
fortune to go
with the instructors and students of Allan Hancock College on a
geology field trip through select portions of the Colorado Plateau.
I had studied geology at the University of Nevada (Reno), but
had
made my career working in electronics. When I
studied
geology all those
many years ago at the University of Nevada (Reno) I was always eager to
go on field trips and, as a Graduate Teaching Fellow, led several
myself, but my University never offered anything nearly as extensive as
this trip offered by Allen Hancock College. Looking back it
seems
amazing that, with all my studies, I had never seen any of the marvels
of the Colorado Plateau (except in text books) and really had no idea
of how beautiful and utterly fascinating this region of the world is,
especially to the geology student. For the first time I
learned
that there exists a place on Earth where the geology is laid out like a
multi-layered cake or the pages in a book for all to study and to
experience an overwhelming sense of reverence for Nature.Over the years I had kept my interest in geology and I thought I had been keeping up with new developments, but I was both amazed and a bit overwhelmed by what I saw and learned on that field trip with Hancock College. Looking back now, I regret that I wasn't more familiar with the formation names, their relationship with each other and the environments in which they formed because if I had been, I'm sure I would have gotten even more out of the trip. On this second trip, I made sure that I had a pretty good idea about what I was seeing and what formations they belonged to and why the formations cropped out where they did. In that, I was greatly helped by two very excellent books: "Geologic History of Utah" by Lehi Hintze and the beautiful "Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau" by Ron Blakey and Wayne Ranney. There is a tremendous amount that a student learns when taking a trip through the Colorado Plateau either with a commercial guide or by taking a geology class for credit. If one does their homework, even going by yourself without the aid of guides and instructors can be extremely worthwhile. That's what this story is all about, how I went on a self-guided tour and how I found it to be very educational and satisfying. As implied, there are different ways to experience the Colorado Plateau and many levels at which it can be studied and appreciated. There are also various levels of comfort and luxury that people can subject themselves to while exploring this region. This story is written from my perspective and its approach is what I consider rather hard-core. My luxuries were few, I had no companionship and I was perhaps in too big a hurry to get on to the next location. I realize that my liking for tent camping and my level of interest regarding the geology is certainly not shared by many people. I rather suspect that this story will be of little interest even to arm-chair travelers, but perhaps there are a few who will like it and be inspired to take their own road trip. The basic thread of this story will trace my recent trip through southern Utah and northern Arizona and I will describe and show pictures from each of the places I stopped at and found interesting. In addition to that, I will also describe and show pictures of all the nearby areas that I visited on an earlier geology field trip put on by Allan Hancock College, but that I hadn't stopped at on this trip. I had originally had planned to revisit all these earlier sites, but while on my trip it occurred to me that, with all the photos I already have, this would have been a poor use of my travel time. If you decide to continue on with this story, I sincerely hope you find something in it that you will find interesting and entertaining. |