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Great little trek - I always appreciate your showing us what is in the roadcuts as well as close by. Pointing out the layers helps train the eye to look at the cuts more closely, rather than just whizzing by.
John Fremont was a 19th century explorer who'd been tasked with discovering if any rivers connected the Mississippi and its tributaries to the Pacific Ocean. His "Memoirs of My Life and Times" is a jaw-dropping account of his group's explorations in the 1840's up the Missouri River to the Platte, along the Oregon Trail, along the Snake River to the Columbia River, then down the eastern Sierra, across them in winter while near starvation, into California, and back. An amazing journey.
Thank You for posting this during your "time-off" from teaching. Please be safe and I really appreciate it when you let us know how careful you are being. Rocks are not always as solid as they seem! Says the flat lander to the geologist! 😁
I grew up in Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. As a scout and then a USFS firefighter and Geography major,I got to see so much of what you have shown us. Only wish I knew then what I now know, thanks to you. Antelope Island, I've seen the sign a million times, this time I stopped and knew what a special place it is. Thank you.
Nice narrow canyon, & it's always a thrill to encounter the ancient basement. Then- the drama of a 2billion year gap/juxtapositon makes the mind swirl-
I believe you're correct. According to Don Brownlee, a Snowball Earth event happened about 2.1 billion years ago, which I think Shawn said is about the age of this unconformity. Check out Rare Earth and also The Life And Death of Planet Earth (I think it should have been The History and Future of Planet Earth) for more info on this, Ward and Brownlee, 2001.
I've seen the Great Unconformity in the Grand Canyon on a raft and on Frenchman Mountain in Las Vegas after taking a small somewhat rugged hike. In Wyoming I can just drive up to it.
I sure hope so visit Wyoming this summer. I haven’t been there for a couple of decades and only to YNP and the migmatite of the Wind River Range. Wonderful glaciers there.
The river did not cut the canyon as no erosional features are present . The land itself split open and separated which created a natural channel for the water.
A strikingly pretty area and I'm glad you're describing it. That would have been hard to figure out otherwise. Gruce is a new word. 👍🏻 Again, your mineral and rock identification series is SO helpful! Thank you!
My dad was a soft rock geologist and turned to crystallography in his retirement (a lot of stuff on MinDat), so watching your stuff gives a bit of nostalgia. Thanks for doing these videos. Sandy (get it? Sandy...soft rock, he did his PhD on some sort of clam) in VA.
Shawn, I spend most of my summers on my boat at Alcova and Pathfinder Reservoirs. To really appreciate the canyon, you need to take a boat trip up the 2 1/2 mile canyon to the power plant from the main body of Alcova Reservoir. There is also a smaller but very unusual canyon on the North Platte River arm of Pathfinder Reservoir. During your next trip that you plan to the Casper Area you have to try and see both of these canyons. I am not a geologist but there appears to be some rather large lava dikes in the rose granite that run through the canyon all the way up to the Marina area and Sweetwater River arm area of Pathfinder Reservoir.
Hi, Shawn. We just had an earthquake here in NYC. I'd be so grateful if you do a piece about the splitting up of Pangea and how that created different fault lines throughout the NYC/east coast. NYC geology is very exciting but also VERY confusing at times. From the eastcoast - Happy New Year!
That is a really eye-opener of a roadcut professor. There are different unconformities around but it really takes a geologist to decern the area of the Great Unconformity. Check out any videos that mention Snowball Earth for more on that.
We've found the excuse Jeff Lynne can use for what he said was just a made-up word to fill a hole in the song (it appears grus can indeed "bring you down"). Beats singing "Bruce" just because the audience does. "Bruce" makes zero sense whatsoever within the context of the rest of the lyrics.
I had never considered looking for the great unconformity here. Would be interesting to map other good exposures in Wyoming and further your observations of the nature of the contact.
Wikipedia has a short, non specific list. Nothing definite enough for me to find on the ground. Roadside geology books might have it. But it seems small exposures only and widely dispersed across our continent. Unless a real geologist like Willsey corrects me as I’m an amateur.
Reminds me of the contact between the granitic core rocks of the Black Hills and the Cambrian Deadwood Sandstone in Reaves Gulch in Wind Cave National Park southeast of the “Pigtail Bridge” on Highway 87. Very coarse and pebbly bottom beds of weathered quartz unconformably on the pegmatites and schists.
I am always blown away by things I find in our geology. Especially, when I went to work in a coal mine in central Utah and when walking into the mine about a thousand feet and saw dinosaur footprints in the ceiling of one of the tunnels. Something amazing had to have happened to bury those so far into mountain that sat on top of this.🤔
Anyone remember Ernie Shirley who had a rockshop in Hanksville? Shirley's Rocks and Indian Artifacts. I got some great Fremont pottery from him, and a few points. He passed about 2009, I think. He had some huge dino bones in the back, too, he showed me.
I see the Great Unconformity often referred to and I pretty much know what it is, but I would really like an in depth look into it, like where it is all seen and the age differences between the rocks and more.
the Great Unconformity is found nearly everywhere across the globe. It's a gap in the geologic record that represents a long span of time, ranging from 100 million to 1 billion years. The Great Unconformity is marked by a massive surface of erosion that appears all over the world at about the same time. There is so much info found on google with this.
You can tell that the limestone and the material underneath with pebbles, was the river banks, before the uplift had accorded, did you dig up any samples of the pebbles, for gold ??
Love it Shawn! Can you tell from drill cores whether heavies are of natural erosional source vs artificial source? Nile delta cores 8-14 kya show a significant spike which, to my untrained eye, don't appear to be natural black sand deposits. Also. the population density along the Nile Valley goes from "normal" to zero at 14 kya. Repopulation happens after 7.5 kya at 5,500 years ago with the predynastics. My research is leading me toward looking at core samples from the mouth of the following rivers: Mississippi, Amazon, Boyne (Ireland), Thames, Seine, all of which have large complexes of neolithic architecture. Looks like they may have had a little more than copper and iron.
On a here and now note, a multi-year gps chart for the Reykjanes Peninsula shows the dramatic tectonic shift that just happened over the past few months with the prior twelve years having a smooth and steady progression. More lava coming?
Thanks Shawn. That really is spectacular. 🙂👍 It would be interesting to take a Geiger counter or other radiation detector, and to see how radioactive that pink granite is. I'm in the U.K., and red or pink granite here is known for its radioactivity, from Radon gas which is a fission product of Uranium and other unstable elements. Interestingly, the Precambrian, then the Cambrian and Devonian eras / rocks are named after parts of Great Britain (the correct name of the main island of the U.K.). Devon is a county in the Southwest of England and Cambria is the Latin name of Cymru, or in English, the principality of Wales, which lies to the West of Central England. Both regions are where rocks of the appropriate ages are found.
The color banding, lighter/darker sedimentary layers remind me of soil cores taken to survey local ancient climates. Is that the same for the sedimentary layers, light = drier climate, dark = warmer climate?
One fun thing to think about is that in places like this where the Great Unconformity is exposed at the surface: presumably in time the top layers will be completely lost to erosion and we will end up with an even greater unconformity when the surface is buried again.
Nice video, brings back old memories. did you get to climb there? there are some 4-500 ft walls about 1/2 mile downstream, 2-3 pitches, which are really cool, but you can't go wrong climbing near the bridge. A question: Is the pink granite the same as you find in Vedauvoo, south-east of Lararmie off of I-80? it has really big crystals. Have a happy new year!
Did the river actually cut this canyon or is the canyon a fault that a river utilized with the path of least resistance? The vertical walls without the common U or V erosion that occurs with water. With the fracturing, or possible faulting in the granite, could this be indicative for the presence of a fault? Looking at the strata layers, some shows possible uplifting.
So is this "Great unconformity" the floor of the inland sea? I'm also curious about the Red desert, where does it lay in comparison to the Great unconformity?
Shawn, Very interesting video. I assumed the strata at stop 2 was Cambrian Flathead Fm. I would like to read the reference you mentioned where they think it is now Devonian. The white rocks are Madison Formation Limestones. They are across the road and up a little like you mentioned. The mapping does not show Precambrian rocks at Stop #2, so you might be on to something. I was hoping you were going to throw your climbing rope over the edge and then film from above so we can watch you execute your 5.9 moves.
🇺🇸🖍📗🔨Dear teacher Sham I've been watching many video from you where you give us so much pleaser to know more about Geology study out of classroom. You are very good MD. I do enjoy to hear from you❤; any time, everyday I can.🔨💚🖍📗🇺🇸
You can support my educational videos by clicking on the "Thanks" button just above (right of Like button) or by going here: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=EWUSLG3GBS5W8
or here: buymeacoffee.com/shawnwillsey
Academic geology and rock climbing. (Signs of finger jams…) perfect synchrony! Love all these videos!
Great little trek - I always appreciate your showing us what is in the roadcuts as well as close by. Pointing out the layers helps train the eye to look at the cuts more closely, rather than just whizzing by.
Thank you.. 2 billion year unconformity is a bit humbling.
Yes, it is a great unconformity alright.
John Fremont was a 19th century explorer who'd been tasked with discovering if any rivers connected the Mississippi and its tributaries to the Pacific Ocean. His "Memoirs of My Life and Times" is a jaw-dropping account of his group's explorations in the 1840's up the Missouri River to the Platte, along the Oregon Trail, along the Snake River to the Columbia River, then down the eastern Sierra, across them in winter while near starvation, into California, and back. An amazing journey.
Wyoming, ya gotta love it. Far less traffic, but the hazards of grus.
Thank You for posting this during your "time-off" from teaching. Please be safe and I really appreciate it when you let us know how careful you are being. Rocks are not always as solid as they seem! Says the flat lander to the geologist! 😁
This was a beautiful and interesting outcrop! The Great Unconformity is something I need to read more about. Thank you and Happy New Year’s!
Grus. New geo word day for me.
I grew up in Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. As a scout and then a USFS firefighter and Geography major,I got to see so much of what you have shown us. Only wish I knew then what I now know, thanks to you. Antelope Island, I've seen the sign a million times, this time I stopped and knew what a special place it is. Thank you.
Thanks again Shawn.
Nice narrow canyon, & it's always a thrill to encounter the ancient basement. Then- the drama of a 2billion year gap/juxtapositon makes the mind swirl-
As I understand it, it is the Great Unconformity that led to the Snowball Earth hypothesis. Grus, don't bring me down...
I believe you're correct. According to Don Brownlee, a Snowball Earth event happened about 2.1 billion years ago, which I think Shawn said is about the age of this unconformity. Check out Rare Earth and also The Life And Death of Planet Earth (I think it should have been The History and Future of Planet Earth) for more info on this, Ward and Brownlee, 2001.
I have always love history and to throw in geology it is my passion!
I've seen the Great Unconformity in the Grand Canyon on a raft and on Frenchman Mountain in Las Vegas after taking a small somewhat rugged hike. In Wyoming I can just drive up to it.
Oh wow. I've been waiting for this one for a while and I didn't even know it.
I sure hope so visit Wyoming this summer. I haven’t been there for a couple of decades and only to YNP and the migmatite of the Wind River Range. Wonderful glaciers there.
The river did not cut the canyon as no erosional features are present . The land itself split open and separated which created a natural channel for the water.
thanks Shawn
A strikingly pretty area and I'm glad you're describing it. That would have been hard to figure out otherwise. Gruce is a new word. 👍🏻
Again, your mineral and rock identification series is SO helpful! Thank you!
The river is diverted through a tunnel to a power plant. 1958 OR SO. I fished it with my dad before it was Opened. Amazing place.
My dad was a soft rock geologist and turned to crystallography in his retirement (a lot of stuff on MinDat), so watching your stuff gives a bit of nostalgia. Thanks for doing these videos. Sandy (get it? Sandy...soft rock, he did his PhD on some sort of clam) in VA.
Another road cut and an exquisite canyon (loved that phrase for some reason). Thank you.
A great little excursion thanks very interesting
Another excellent roadcut. I was expecting you to say the overlying strata was Cambrian age so it was interesting to hear it was Devonian.
Shawn, I spend most of my summers on my boat at Alcova and Pathfinder Reservoirs. To really appreciate the canyon, you need to take a boat trip up the 2 1/2 mile canyon to the power plant from the main body of Alcova Reservoir. There is also a smaller but very unusual canyon on the North Platte River arm of Pathfinder Reservoir. During your next trip that you plan to the Casper Area you have to try and see both of these canyons. I am not a geologist but there appears to be some rather large lava dikes in the rose granite that run through the canyon all the way up to the Marina area and Sweetwater River arm area of Pathfinder Reservoir.
Oooh! this canyon was exactly what I needed to see for a project I'm working on (not geology) ... now I have to drive down there and take pictures. :)
Hi, Shawn. We just had an earthquake here in NYC. I'd be so grateful if you do a piece about the splitting up of Pangea and how that created different fault lines throughout the NYC/east coast. NYC geology is very exciting but also VERY confusing at times. From the eastcoast - Happy New Year!
That is a really eye-opener of a roadcut professor. There are different unconformities around but it really takes a geologist
to decern the area of the Great Unconformity. Check out any videos that mention Snowball Earth for more on that.
"Don't bring me down...grus!"
🤣🤣
We've found the excuse Jeff Lynne can use for what he said was just a made-up word to fill a hole in the song (it appears grus can indeed "bring you down"). Beats singing "Bruce" just because the audience does. "Bruce" makes zero sense whatsoever within the context of the rest of the lyrics.
This was so interesting! I have always enjoyed looking at cutouts driving by and wondering about the different layers. I will stop more often now!
I had never considered looking for the great unconformity here. Would be interesting to map other good exposures in Wyoming and further your observations of the nature of the contact.
Wikipedia has a short, non specific list. Nothing definite enough for me to find on the ground.
Roadside geology books might have it. But it seems small exposures only and widely dispersed across our continent.
Unless a real geologist like Willsey corrects me as I’m an amateur.
Reminds me of the contact between the granitic core rocks of the Black Hills and the Cambrian Deadwood Sandstone in Reaves Gulch in Wind Cave National Park southeast of the “Pigtail Bridge” on Highway 87. Very coarse and pebbly bottom beds of weathered quartz unconformably on the pegmatites and schists.
I am always blown away by things I find in our geology. Especially, when I went to work in a coal mine in central Utah and when walking into the mine about a thousand feet and saw dinosaur footprints in the ceiling of one of the tunnels. Something amazing had to have happened to bury those so far into mountain that sat on top of this.🤔
Thx Prof ✌🏻 Happy New Year everyone
Anyone remember Ernie Shirley who had a rockshop in Hanksville? Shirley's Rocks and Indian Artifacts. I got some great Fremont pottery from him, and a few points. He passed about 2009, I think. He had some huge dino bones in the back, too, he showed me.
I see the Great Unconformity often referred to and I pretty much know what it is, but I would really like an in depth look into it, like where it is all seen and the age differences between the rocks and more.
the Great Unconformity is found nearly everywhere across the globe. It's a gap in the geologic record that represents a long span of time, ranging from 100 million to 1 billion years. The Great Unconformity is marked by a massive surface of erosion that appears all over the world at about the same time. There is so much info found on google with this.
It's so Pretty Shawn , One day it's all going to Blow .
Looks like a fun little crag.
You can tell that the limestone and the material underneath with pebbles, was the river banks, before the uplift had accorded, did you dig up any samples of the pebbles, for gold ??
Another good 'un, Shawn! I think the great unconformity is seen in the western half of Glenwood Canyon on I-70, also.
Layers and waves , big part of a large part of a big picture
I love you man! So cool
Love it Shawn! Can you tell from drill cores whether heavies are of natural erosional source vs artificial source? Nile delta cores 8-14 kya show a significant spike which, to my untrained eye, don't appear to be natural black sand deposits. Also. the population density along the Nile Valley goes from "normal" to zero at 14 kya. Repopulation happens after 7.5 kya at 5,500 years ago with the predynastics. My research is leading me toward looking at core samples from the mouth of the following rivers: Mississippi, Amazon, Boyne (Ireland), Thames, Seine, all of which have large complexes of neolithic architecture. Looks like they may have had a little more than copper and iron.
Let's not ignore the Tigris and Euphrates, Yangtze, Mekong etc.
Ps I flunked out of math and am a hammer swingin' carpenter.
On a here and now note, a multi-year gps chart for the Reykjanes Peninsula shows the dramatic tectonic shift that just happened over the past few months with the prior twelve years having a smooth and steady progression. More lava coming?
Thanks Shawn. That really is spectacular. 🙂👍
It would be interesting to take a Geiger counter or other radiation detector, and to see how radioactive that pink granite is. I'm in the U.K., and red or pink granite here is known for its radioactivity, from Radon gas which is a fission product of Uranium and other unstable elements.
Interestingly, the Precambrian, then the Cambrian and Devonian eras / rocks are named after parts of Great Britain (the correct name of the main island of the U.K.). Devon is a county in the Southwest of England and Cambria is the Latin name of Cymru, or in English, the principality of Wales, which lies to the West of Central England. Both regions are where rocks of the appropriate ages are found.
Shawn, have you ever been to the Sideling Hill road cut on I-70 in Maryland? It is huge for a road cut. Richard West
The color banding, lighter/darker sedimentary layers remind me of soil cores taken to survey local ancient climates. Is that the same for the sedimentary layers, light = drier climate, dark = warmer climate?
One fun thing to think about is that in places like this where the Great Unconformity is exposed at the surface: presumably in time the top layers will be completely lost to erosion and we will end up with an even greater unconformity when the surface is buried again.
Nice video, brings back old memories. did you get to climb there? there are some 4-500 ft walls about 1/2 mile downstream, 2-3 pitches, which are really cool, but you can't go wrong climbing near the bridge.
A question: Is the pink granite the same as you find in Vedauvoo, south-east of Lararmie off of I-80? it has really big crystals.
Have a happy new year!
Yes, similar age and composition to Vedauvoo.
❤ sounds like you're doing unconformity.... I'll come back and watch this in a little bit, I bet it's good!
Gravel is called "grus" in Swedish, any connection?
Is that part of the flaming gorge complex?
just wondering when granite is considered basement rock, even though it must have intruded older rock
Did the river actually cut this canyon or is the canyon a fault that a river utilized with the path of least resistance? The vertical walls without the common U or V erosion that occurs with water. With the fracturing, or possible faulting in the granite, could this be indicative for the presence of a fault? Looking at the strata layers, some shows possible uplifting.
So interesting. Do you ever come upon snakes? And if so, which ones. Greetings from South Africa
Very rarely. I am often out in cooler weather.
So is this "Great unconformity" the floor of the inland sea? I'm also curious about the Red desert, where does it lay in comparison to the Great unconformity?
Shawn, Very interesting video. I assumed the strata at stop 2 was Cambrian Flathead Fm. I would like to read the reference you mentioned where they think it is now Devonian. The white rocks are Madison Formation Limestones. They are across the road and up a little like you mentioned. The mapping does not show Precambrian rocks at Stop #2, so you might be on to something. I was hoping you were going to throw your climbing rope over the edge and then film from above so we can watch you execute your 5.9 moves.
Ha. I wish. This was a solo trip so no climbing at this spot (sadly).
The rocks at stop 2 look very much like the Cambrian Flathead Formation in the Teton Range. Basal layer of pebbly conglomerate and a purple layer.
Wouldn’t Free ont canyon’s steep sides In resistant rock imply it was formed by tectonic forces rather than erosion?
It was already gone when I got there.
I’m going to have to look up the Great Unconformity in some sources. “Grus” = be careful out there! TX!
I don’t think the water cut that. Maybe a fault line?
Time passes with or without rocks.
You need a head/shoulder mount camera
Some say Great Unconformity is from Snow Ball Earth. Do you agree? Nice pink granite at contact with unconformity.
Glacial till found at the GU around the world strongly supports the hypothesis.
quarter inch pellets seem to be from a ball mill. expand on this please.
"Pea gravel" from stream erosion.
First shot on second stop looks like face in lower frame.
6:28 looks like giant feet
This canyon was probably an old earthquake falt line!
Parts of that canyon, look like it could collapse at any moment.
Have they cracked the case and arrested the thieves yet?
❤❤
The GREATER Unconformity!!!
👍
Get ready for another Iceland update.
Something hit and formed the moon maybe that erased some history.
Now don't fall down while filming :)
🇺🇸🖍📗🔨Dear teacher Sham I've been watching many video from you where you give us so much pleaser to know more about Geology study out of classroom. You are very good MD. I do enjoy to hear from you❤; any time, everyday I can.🔨💚🖍📗🇺🇸
👍