Spinners Reservoir, Wasatch Plateau, Sanpete County, Utah
Photographer: Greg McDonald
Spinners Reservoir in the Muddy Creek drainage basin, Wasatch Plateau, Sanpete County, Utah
Tag Archive for: utah
By: V. E. Langenheim, N.D. Athens, B.A. Churchel, H. Willis, N.E. Knepprath, J. Rosario, J. Roza, S.M. Kraushaar, and C.L. Hardwick
A new isostatic residual gravity map of the Newfoundland Mountains and east of the Wells 30×60 quadrangles of Utah is based on compilation of preexisting data and new data collected by the Utah and U.S. Geological Surveys. Pronounced gravity lows occur over Grouse Creek Valley and locally beneath the Great Salt Lake Desert, indicating significant thickness of low-density Tertiary sedimentary rocks and deposits. Gravity highs coincide with exposures of dense pre-Cenozoic rocks in the Newfoundland, Silver Island, and Little Pigeon Mountains. Gravity values measured on pre-Tertiary basement to the north in the Bovine and Hogup Mountains are as much as 10mGal lower. Steep, linear gravity gradients may define basin-bounding faults concealed along the margins of the Newfoundland, Silver Island, and Little Pigeon Mountains, Lemay Island and the Pilot Range.
A cast of part of the track slab showing several trackways of two different sizes of pterosaurs.
A 900 lb. slab of rock with some of the best preserved pterosaur (flying reptile) tracks ever recognized was discovered on State Land in the San Rafael Swell near the town of Ferron by a team from Marietta College (Ohio). This slab of rock from the Jurassic Summerville Formation preserves at least 9 separate trackways of 2 different sizes of pterosaurs that were walking along a tidal flat near the shore of the Curtis Sea. We know the tracks were made by pterosaurs because, in addition to the hind foot prints, there are tracks made by the wings. So, unlike birds that walk bipedally on their hind feet while folding their wings against their bodies, pterosaurs walked quadrupedally using their folded up wings to support the front of their bodies. This site and the tracks were documented in a scientific publication in 2004 (Mickelson and others, 2004).
Because of the scientific importance of this slab, a team from the Utah Geological Survey (UGS) collected it in 2004 so that it could be placed in the Natural History Museum of Utah (the repository for all of the fossils collected by the UGS from public lands in Utah). Due to its large size, this slab has been stored at the UGS’s Utah Core Research Center since collection.
Recently, the Natural History Museum of Utah agreed to loan the slab to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for display in a new exhibit on pterosaurs. On November 14, a team from Terry Dowd Inc. (a fine art packing company) came to the UGS to package the slab in a custom crate so that it could be transported by truck to New York. The slab was cradled in ethafoam so that it will be well protected during the long drive to New York which began on November 19. Eventually, the slab will be returned to the Natural History Museum of Utah for display.
Twelvemile Canyon, Wasatch Plateau, Sanpete County, Utah.
Photographer: Rich Giraud
Island Lake at the head of Twelvemile Canyon, Wasatch Plateau, Sanpete County, Utah.
Mirror lake, Uinta Mountains, Duchesne County, Utah
Photographer: Ken Krahulec
Mirror Lake nestles among 11,000-foot peaks of the western Uinta Mountains. The rocks of the Uintas, consisting largely of sandstone and shale of the Precambrian-age Uinta Mountain Group, contain microscopic bacteria nearly 800 million years old that likely represent Utah’s oldest fossils.
By: Robert F. Biek and Janice M. Hayden
The Kanarraville quadrangle includes the southern part of Cedar Valley and parts of the adjacent Kolob Terrace, Harmony Mountains, and North Hills. It straddles a particularly instructive area of structural overlap between the Sevier fold thrust belt-represented by the overturned, east limb of the Kanarra anticline exposed at the west edge of the Kolob Terrace-and the Basin and Range physiographic province, whose east margin corresponds to the Hurricane fault zone at the base of the plateau. Regional ash-flow tuffs erupted from calderas in western Utah and eastern Nevada are present in the Harmony Mountains and North Hills; in the Harmony Mountains, these tuffs are involved in a large gravity slide shed off the nearby Stoddard Mountain laccolith, which erupted to produce an ash-flow tuff now partly buried by the gravity slide.
This CD contains the geologic map at 1:24,000 and a 31-page booklet describing the geology of the Kanarraville 7.5-minute quadrangle. All of the files are in PDF format. The latest version of Adobe Reader is required to view the PDF files.
Spring-fed Pruess Lake, Snake Valley, Millard County, Utah.
Photographer: Matt Affolter
Middle Springs, Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Juab County, Utah
Photographer: Matt Affolter
Great Salt Lake, Tooele County, Utah
Photographer: Tom Dempster
Solar evaporation pond at Great Salt Lake, Tooele County, Utah
Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Juab County, Utah.
Photographer: Michael Vanden Berg
Baked by the summer sun, clay on the floor of an ephemeral pond in Utah’s west desert produces an expanse of mud cracks. Such playas, or pans, are common throughout the Great Basin; many, like the Bonneville Salt Flats, are floored by saline minerals.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE UTAH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
The Utah Geological Survey (UGS) is a division of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Several specialized programs comprise the UGS: Data Management, Energy & Minerals, Geologic Hazards, Geologic Information & Outreach, Geologic Mapping, Groundwater & Wetlands, and Paleontology.
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1594 West North Temple, Suite 3110
Salt Lake City, Utah 84116
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Mailing Address:
PO BOX 146100
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114
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