Back to the butte. Tuesday took us back to Hayden butte, but this time to stratorgaph the lower sedimentation layers (notably from the base up to the ash layer from the superstition caldera eruptions. This lab took a bit longer than usual, however it was great to get up close and personal with various rock outcropping. Generally speaking, the bedding we looked at consisted of about 70 layers of alternating sandstone and shale. Only 3 of of the layers contained trace fossils. The oldest layer had trace fossils of worm burrows, which was again repeated in a layer about 10 meters above. The other trace was the mudcracks. Upon closer inspection it appears that the mud cracks formed on several sandstone layers in superpositioned horizons, in my estimations there were 4 distinct horizons that them. I'm gonna try and get a scan or two of the hand drawn stratographic sections that we did (about 6 pages in all). I'm looking forward to Oct 27, when we will be on a fieldtrip to south mountain to checkout some sweet synclinic action. ohh yeah.
In a lighter note, I really enjoy the names geologists come up with for things. For example gneiss (pronounced nice) is a common metamorphic rock. Schist is another common metamorphic rock. Anyway there are many others with strange and unusual names. But i couldn't leave these two alone. So i came up with an idea for a t-shirt:
4 comments:
Hey Honey,
I'll leave a comment for you!! I like the Metamorphics thing you did. I still think you should put it on a t shirt. For those of you who don't know, schist metamorphoses into gneiss. That's why metamorphics is so funny. Remember baby, dumb it down for the rest of us. I love you. Keep posting!!
Cool T-shirt. It may not sell to everyone, but I bet it would be a hit at the geologist conventions!
I agree the T shirt would be way cool! I loved it. You can tell that you absolutely love this field of study. Who knew how much rocks can tell us =)
Mom B
Oh man that is hilarious! I think I'll have to send that to my geology professor! By the way your information is helping me a lot with my geology essay! Thank you and don't worry you'll be in my works cited! :D
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