Tag Archive for: utah

Utah Geological Survey

M-243DM

M-243DMSURFICIAL GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE SALT LAKE CITY SEGMENT AND PART OF ADJACENT SEGMENTS OF THE WASATCH FAULT ZONE, DAVIS, SALT LAKE, AND UTAH COUNTIES
(digitized from U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigation Series map I-2106, 1992)
Stephen F. Personius and William E. Scott

This map shows the surficial deposits and the faults that offset them along the Salt Lake City segment and adjacent parts of the Weber and Provo segments of the Wasatch fault zone in north-central Utah.  The map area includes the central and eastern parts of the Salt Lake Valley, including metropolitan Salt Lake City and its southern suburbs.  Although a major surface-faulting earthquake has not occurred on the Wasatch fault zone since the state was settled in 1847, the geologic record contains abundant evidence of large earthquakes during Holocene and late Pleistocene time.  The size, age, and distribution of fault scarps produced by these prehistoric earthquakes can be used to determine the most likely sites for future earthquakes, and are therefore the principal focus of the map.

CD (2 pl., 1:24,000 [contains GIS files])

M-243DM……….$24.95

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Salt Lake County Geologic Hazard Maps

Utah Geological Survey

Glad You Asked—Why Does A River Run Through It?

river-runs-through-it Jim Davis

Even though we are a “desert” state, Utah’s rivers are world-renowned among river runners and geoscientists. Several of America’s early geologists, including G.K. Gilbert, W.M. Davis, C.E. Dutton, and J.W. Powell contributed to theories of stream evolution from observations made in Utah.

Rivers typically originate in the mountains, flow away from them in a more-or-less constant direction, enter increasingly broad river plains, and terminate at an ocean. But many rivers in Utah flow toward and across mountains, run contrary to valleys, make U-turns, and many never reach the ocean.

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Utah Geological Survey

Glad You Asked—Glacial Striations and Slickensides

slickensidesWhat are those groovy rocks and how did they get that way?
Carole McCalla

On a hike around Lake Blanche below Sundial Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon, a group of hikers came across long, straight, parallel grooves on a smooth, polished rock surface. Recalling another location where they had seen similar features at the foot of the mountains north of downtown Salt Lake City, they wondered if these markings were formed in the same way. Indeed, what exactly are they and how were they formed?

Although the smooth, grooved surfaces at these two locations are similar, they were actually formed in very different ways.

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Utah Geological Survey

Snake Valley Well Data Now Online

snake-valley-drillA new interactive map of Snake Valley with all of the well data, has recently been added to the Utah Geological Survey (UGS) Web site.  The West Desert Ground-Water Monitoring Network is almost complete and updates are available on a newly developed Google Earth™ interactive map.  The network will monitor ground water for more than 50 years in Snake Valley, western Millard County and adjacent areas.  The $3.5 million network is a response to planned ground-water development in east-central Nevada.  The Utah Geological Survey will upload data onto its Web site.

Objectives included: assessing the potential impacts of pumping on ground water and spring flow in Utah; evaluating flow patterns in the aquifer from Snake Valley to Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge; determining baseline water-level and chemical trends in local and regional ground-water flow systems; and, measuring the capacity of the aquifers to transmit and store ground water.

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Utah Geological Survey

Calendar of Utah Geology 2010

The 2010 calendar from the Utah Geological Survey is now available. The ‘Calendar of Utah Geology 2010’ features photographs of geologic vistas from around Utah. UGS staff took all of the photos in the Calendar.

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Utah Geological Survey

SPECIAL STUDY 130

ss-130PALEOSEISMIC INVESTIGATION OF THE NORTHERN WEBER SEGMENT OF THE WASATCH FAULT ZONE AT THE RICE CREEK TRENCH SITE, NORTH OGDEN, UTAH
Christopher B. DuRoss, Stephen F. Personius, Anthony J. Crone, Greg N. McDonald, David J. Lidke

This report presents new paleoseismic information for the northern Weber segment of the Wasatch fault zone, collected as part of a joint Utah Geological Survey and U.S. Geological Survey fault-trench investigation at Rice Creek. This research, which was partially funded through the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, expands the record of Weber-segment paleoearthquakes into the early Holocene, provides new timing and displacement data for the most recent earthquake, and helps reduce uncertainties in earthquake timing, recurrence, displacement, and vertical slip rate. These results are important for understanding segmentation of the northern Wasatch fault zone and for improving earthquake-hazard evaluations of the region.

CD (27 p. + 9 p. appendices, 2 pl.)

SS-130……….$19.95

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Utah Geological Survey

OPEN-FILE REPORT 556

ofr-556INTERIM GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE EPHRAIM 7.5-MINUTE QUADRANGLE, SANPETE COUNTY, UTAH
Hellmut H. Doelling, Paul A. Kuehne, and Douglas A. Sprinkel

The Ephraim quadrangle is located about 140 miles south-southeast of Salt Lake City in Sanpete County in central Utah. A diagonal line, extending NE-SW across the quadrangle, divides Sanpete Valley to the northwest, from the Wasatch Plateau. Sanpete Valley is a structural feature in which the San Pitch River flows south along its west margin. Quaternary fans form a gently sloping surface from the plateau front to the floodplain of the river.

Bedrock units are mostly of early Tertiary age. These include the (ascending) North Horn Formation (1100+ feet thick), Flagstaff Limestone (500–1000 feet thick), Colton Formation (1400+ feet thick), Green River Formation (620+ feet exposed), and the Crazy Hollow Formation (less than 50 feet exposed). Of these, the North Horn Formation may also have some Late Cretaceous strata at the base. The older three units are exposed in the Wasatch Plateau, the other two along the plateau-valley margin.

35 p., 1 pl., scale 1:24,000

OFR-556……… $9.95

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Utah Geological Survey

SURVEY NOTES volume 41, number 3

snt41-3GEOLOGIC HAZARDS IN UTAH

This issue contains:

    New Geologic Hazards Mapping in Utah

*Landslide Inventory Mapping in Twelvemile
Canyon, Central Utah
*Second Damaging Y Mountain Rock Fall in
Four Years
*Large Rock Fall Closes Highway Near
Cedar City, Utah
*Logan Landslide
*Teacher’s Corner
*GeoSights: Utah’s belly button, Upheaval Dome
*Glad You Asked: What should you do if you find a fossil?
Can you keep it? Should you report it?
*Energy News: Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Demonstration
Project Underway in Utah!
*Survey News
*New Publications

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Utah Geological Survey

OPEN-FILE REPORT 550

ofr-550SNOWMELT-INDUCED GROUND-WATER FLUCTUATIONS IN SELECTED NORTHERN UTAH LANDSLIDES—PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM THE 2007–08 LANDSLIDE WATER YEAR
Francis X. Ashland

The relationship between ground-water levels and late winter/early spring snowmelt was evaluated at selected northern Utah landslides where ground-water observation wells had previously been installed. The period of investigation between September 2007 and August 2008 was characterized by generally wetter-than-normal conditions in the fall and early winter and subsequent drier-than-normal conditions. Snowfall in early winter resulted in a sustained snowpack that lasted through early 2008 at low elevation and into the spring at higher elevation. Ground-water levels predictably rose with melting snow, but the proportion of the rise attributable to melting of the winter snowpack varied. Peak  ground-water levels consistently followed the onset of snowmelt, and locally occurred subsequent to local snowmelt around the vicinity of the observation well. At some locations, high ground-water levels were sustained for weeks or longer despite dry conditions in the spring and early summer.

print on demand (19 p.)

OFR-550……….$8.95

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Utah Geological Survey

A Tale of Two Breccia Types in the Mississippian Leadville Limestone, Lisbon and Other Fields, Paradox Basin, Southeastern Utah

David E. Eby, Thomas C. Chidsey, Jr., Douglas A. Sprinkel, & Michael D. Laine

Presented at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists annual convention, Denver, CO, June 2009.

ABSTRACT

Breccia associated with sediment-filled cavities is relatively common throughout the upper third of the Mississippian Leadville Limestone in Lisbon and other fields, Paradox Basin, southeastern Utah. These cavities or cracks are related to karstification of the Leadville during exposure in Late Mississippian time. Infilling of the cavities by detrital carbonate and siliciclastic sediments occurred before deposition of the Pennsylvanian Molas Formation. The transported material consists of poorly sorted detrital quartz grains, chert fragments, and clasts of carbonate and clay. The carbonate muds infilling the karst cavities are very finely crystalline and non-porous dolomites.

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