Entries by Utah Geological Survey

Dinosaur National Monument Jones Hole Trail reopens after rock slide

deseretnews.com The Jones Hole Trail at Dinosaur National Monument reopened last week after being closed due to a massive rock slide in June. Superintendent Mary Risser said a portion of Jones Hole Creek will remain closed from the National Park Service/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fish hatchery boundary to downstream of the rock slide zone. […]

POTD August 12, 2013: Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, Garfield County, Utah

Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, Garfield County, Utah Photographer: Michael Vanden Berg Sausageleaf talinum finds suitable habitat in sand and spherical concretions eroded from the lower part of the Jurassic-aged Navajo Sandstone. The concretions (about half an inch in diameter) formed when iron-oxide minerals precipitated out of ground water that flowed through the sandstone.

Special POTD submission! August 9, 2013: San Rafael Swell, Emery County, UT.

This photo was submitted to us by Mike McCandless of Emery County. The San Rafael Swell is an eroded anticline approximately 600,000 acres in size inside the Colorado Plateau contained entirely in Emery County. The Swell exposes many different types of colorful sedimentary rocks that have been eroded into beautiful valleys, canyons, gorges, mesas and […]

Bioherms in the Great Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake is a modern hypersaline lake and a remnant of freshwater Pleistocene Lake Bonneville.  It serves as a modern analogue to the Uinta Basin’s lacustrine Green River Formation and lacustrine microbial formations worldwide, including several recent very large oil discoveries in the deepwater offshore Brazil (pre-salt Santos Basin and others).  Actively forming microbial […]

POTD August 8, 2013: Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, Grand County, Utah

Arches National Park, Grand County, Utah Photographer: Michael Vanden Berg A small window in the Slick Rock Member of the Entrada Sandstone frames a view of Utah’s most famous landform, Delicate Arch. The arch is composed of Jurassic-aged sandstone including the Slick Rock Member (base and  pedestals) and Moab Member of the Curtis Formation (bridge). […]

Africa's ups and downs

esa.int The East African Rift is an area where two tectonic plates are moving apart, making it a region of high geological activity, home to a number of volcanoes. READ MORE