Tag Archive for: UGS

Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah.
Photographer: Don Clark

Locally known as Devils Postpile, this andesite intrusion in the southern Cedar Mountains displays well developed columnar cooling joints.

On April 18, 2013, four geologists from the Hazards Program of the Utah Geological  Survey flew along the Wasatch Front in a Utah Air National Guard Blackhawk helicopter. The flight was part of the Great Utah ShakeOut 2013 earthquake drill, as well as an opportunity to take high-resolution photos  of the fault scarps along the Front from the air. The four geologists were Adam Hiscock, Gregg Buekelman, Mike Hylland, and Adam McKean. It was a freezing cold day in April! Over 1200 photos were taken from the air.


Adam McKean, Mike Hylland, Gregg Buekelman, and Adam Hiscock


Mt Timpanogos

 Southeast of Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah
Photographer: Michael Vanden Berg

The White Pine rock slide covers the floor of Little Cottonwood Canyon with boulders of granitic rock of the Tertiary-age Little Cottonwood stock. These rocks broke loose from the north side of the glacially-carved canyon several thousand years ago.

North of Moab, Grand County, Utah
Photographer: Carole McCalla

A 15-inch-long theropod dinosaur track at the Copper Ridge Sauropod Tracksite. This Jurassic-age site includes the first sauropod tracks reported in Utah.

Fishlake National Forest, Piute County, Utah
Photographer: Tyler Knudsen

Storm clouds gather over Mount Belknap (12,137 feet) in the Tushar Mountains, Utah’s third-highest range. The smooth, rounded slopes of this summit ridge are composed of easily eroded volcanic ash and lava flows. The mountains are part of the eruptive center of the Marysvale volcanic field, an area of intense volcanic activity between 32 and 22 million years ago.

Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Box Elder County, Utah.
Photographer: Ken Krahulec

The 1500-foot-long Spiral Jetty, built in 1970 of black Tertiary-age basalt, is the  principal earthwork of the  prominent American sculptor Robert Smithson.

San Rafael Swell, Sevier County
Photographer: Robert F. Biek

Alluvial and wind-blown sediment partly conceals the Jurassic-age Entrada Sandstone in the Last Chance Desert, which occupies the axis of the Last Chance anticline. The narrow, jagged, black ridge at the center of the photo is a basaltic dike of probable late Tertiary age (3 to 5 million years old) that intrudes the Entrada Sandstone.

Bryce Canyon National Park, Garfield County, Utah
Photographer: William Lund

The Pink Cliffs (Eocene-age Claron Formation) form the uppermost step of southwestern Utah’s spectacular Grand Staircase.

nationalgeographic.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little more than a year ago, in the corner of a Salt Lake City tattoo parlor spattered with sci-fi ephemera and fantasy art, I watched as artist Jon McAffee inked an Allosaurus onto my arm. The bloody art was a celebration of a dream realized and a promise to myself.
The giant, sauropod-rending theropod Allosaurus is the state fossil of Utah, and a symbol of why I transplanted myself to the state. I moved west for the dinosaurs. But the tattoo represents more than that. I’m not content only writing about dinosaurs. I need to seek them out; to dig them from their resting places and contribute something to our understanding of prehistory. Allosaurus – the most common terror of 150 million year old Utah – was at the top of the list of the dinosaurs I wanted to meet among the badlands.

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