The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the
Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Matthew Olah
Pennsylvania State University
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Abstract
The Denver trip for Geosc 204 served as an entire semesters worth of knowledge and field
experience. The focus of the trip was to see the evidence of Earth’s change through time, particularly in
the Denver Basin. In order to gain the most of the trip we often practiced note taking and field
observations to help us condense and organize the wealth of information before us. We carefully
examined many rocks and outcrops and used our hand lens and eyes to gather information that could
tell us about the rock’s depositional history. We were expected to form hypothesis on what we were
looking at and how these sedimentary rocks were deposited. Then using our evidence gathered and our
minds, we tested our theories to see if they were accurate. If they were proven false by the
introduction of evidence we found, we would try to form a new and better fitting hypothesis. From
these sedimentary layers we studied and recorded we could then begin to imagine what the ancient
environment and landscape looked like during the rocks deposition. We also practiced collecting fossils
in many locals and deposition environments in order to see how paleontologists do their work. We
were then tasked with relating these fossils we found to the types of environments and time periods
that they were likely to have lived in. With these newly tuned skills and a more attentive eye for detail
our understanding of the Denver Basin and its history grew in our minds.
Introduction
On April 4th 2014 Penn State’s Geoscience 204 class arrived in Denver Colorado to further
develop their knowledge of Earth history and particularly their understanding of the Denver basin. The
Denver basin serves as an excellent area of study for this course because the golden fault helped to
exposed many formations of sedimentary rocks representing the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and early
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Cenozoic. These sedimentary rocks provide the evidence of Colorado’s natural history and the
environments that supported the flora and fauna of these time periods.
The first day comprised of a visit to Red Rocks Park and Dinosaur Ridge at the edge of the
Rocky Mountains. The second day consisted of Highlands ranch overlook, Castle Rock, Kiowa, and West
Bijou Creek. These stops educated us on the water shortages of Denver, the D1 and D2 sequences, and
the K/T boundry. On the third day we traveled to the Pierre Shale outcrop, the Garden of the Gods, the
great unconformity at Manitou Springs, and Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. At the Pierre
Shale outcrop we hacked away to find ammonite and clam fossil. We continued our practice of closely
observing qualities of the rocks at both Manitou Springs and the Garden of the Gods. Florissant Fossil
Beds National Monument taught us the unique condition required in order to preserve the highest
quality fossils. On our last day we took ourselves on a tour through the Prehistoric Journey exhibit at
the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. This was the bookend to our semester of learning and as we
walked through the exhibit we witnessed the changing environments, flora, and the fauna through time
and Earth history.
Part 1. Red Rocks Park to Dinosaur Ridge (see Appendix A1-4 for more info)
Paleozoic section at Red Rocks Park (A1)
Red Rocks Park is located on the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains and is made up of over
1000 feet of reddish sandstone. The Fountain formation contains granitic fragments and cobbles that
eroded from the Ancestral Rockies during the Pennsylvanian to the Permian. This Formation has been
tilted and brought back to the surface from by the Golden Fault. The tilted rocks are exposed at the
surface and jut out of the ground at nearly a 45 degree angle some of this rock slabs are a hundred feet
or more in height (see pic #1). The first outcrop of rock our class examined was right by the entrance to
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre (see pic #2). This outcrop displayed the contact between the Fountain
formation and the Idaho Springs formation, this contact is called the Great Unconformity. The Great
Unconformity here is actually a nonconformity because it displays a younger sedimentary deposited on
an older eroded metamorphic layer of rock. The Fountain formation is about 300 million years old and
the Idaho Springs formation is 1.8 billion years old, this means that the nonconformity represents 1.5
million years of unobservable sedimentary history. This time period represents an environment with no
net deposition and lots of erosion.
The Fountain formation at the parking lot of Red Rocks Amphitheatre is an Arkosic
conglomerate with reddish color containing lots of feldspar and quartz. This layer is made up sand and
gravel that is angular and range in size from pebble sized to softball sized. This evidence tells us that
the sediments that created this layer are close to its source, the newly rising Ancestral Rockies. The
Idaho Springs formation here is made of gneiss that has lots of jointing and it highly fractured with some
concodial fracturing. The black minerals in the rock have a North West lineation and the alignment of
these minerals tells the observers that it is a metamorphic rock. The top of the Idaho Springs formation,
where it makes the contact with the Fountain, has scour marks left by rivers carving through and
carrying the first sediments downhill from the Ancestral Rockies. We can imagine Denver at this time to
have the Ancestral Rockies rising up and braided stream systems coming off its flanks carrying the
sediment downhill creating many channels that will be filled with sandstone later and make great
aquifers for the people of Denver.
Paleozoic section (A2)
The Lyons formation here is made of a very fine sandstone with well sorted sub angular quartz.
This white sandstone represents a stream system environment in the Permian consisting of sediment
shed off the Ancestral Rockies. The next stop of the day was at an outcrop at the bottom of the road
leading from the Red Rocks Amphitheatre to the base of Dinosaur ridge. This outcrop is part of the
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Lykins formation which was formed during the late Permian to early Triassic. The crinkly bedding layers
start flat on either side of the outcrop and sloped down to meet in the middle creating a U-shaped
(notes picture). The rock is very fine grained and seems to be part of a shoreline that once had
stromatolites. We also looked at the boulders on the side of the road to see what type of rock it was as
well as its qualities. The boulders are rhyolite and made up of fine grains with no bedding. These rocks
were definitely placed there by the road construction crew but practicing identifying qualities of rocks
was going to be crucial in understanding our next stops in Denver.
Mesozoic section (A3)
We make our way across the road from the Lykins formation to the base of the western side of
the road going up Dinosaur Ridge. The first stop on the way up is part of the Morrison formation which
corresponds to long neck meadows from Ancient Danvers, and contains bone fragments in the
sandstone that are a popular tourist site. This site represents a flat depositional environment after the
Ancestral Rockies in the late Jurassic. This outcrop has evidence of U-shape scours and well sorted fine
grained quartz and other minerals. This is evidence of a low energy stream system carrying sediment
from an unknown source very far away. We find evidence of the fauna of this environment from a
theropod track, in yellowish sandstone, which measures about a foot in length (pic in notes). As the
class continues up the road paleosols become obvious to the eye from their purple to yellow to grayish
colors. Higher up the road from the paleosols we stop at an impression of an Apatosaurus foot print
about one meter in length (Pic #3). This impression was made by an Apatosaurus stepping into soft
ground leaving an hole that would be filled with sediments later, and eventually harden into rock. The
sandstones, with the foot print of the Apatosaurus, indicate that the stream system has now migrated
back to this area of the basin were it once was. One hundred feet up the road from the foot print,
sandstones with purple coloring going through sections of the sandstone attract my attention and
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
require more diagnostic observation. After examination it is evident that the grain size of the
surrounding sandstone are the same as the purple sandstone indicating that these were deposited
together. By carefully examining the rocks of the Morrison formation we can now imagine a landscape
of streams in Denver that slowly migrate away leaving paleosols that are chemically altered. After more
time passes these streams then return, and the evidence of large animals indicates a requirement of a
large amount of vegetation to feed these behemoths.
At the top of dinosaur ridge the layers of rocks are slanted almost to the same angle as the
fountain formation across the valley. These rock layers are part of the Dakota formation and their
orientation shows that they were also uplifted and tilted by the golden fault, just the same as the
Morrison, Lykins, Lyons, and fountain formations. In this road cut at the top of Dinosaur Ridge there is a
layer of white ash 3 inches thick. This ash layer is rare because it is surrounded top and bottom by
sandstone and usually bioturbation messes up the ash layers integrity. Scientists used this ash bed to
get an accurate date of the deposition of the ash layer using radiometric dating techniques, most likely
Ar-Ar. There is also a ball shaped concretion formed from mineral growth cemented sand grains around
a central nucleus (pic #4).
On the back side of Dinosaur Ridge (the east side) we continue to walk down hill on the road
and observe the Dakota formation which is Cretaceous in age. The Dakota sandstone here has ripple
marks that indicate that it was deposited in a shallow beach like environment (see pic #5). Further down
the road the layer contains sand stones with marks of bioturbation, which consist of holes dug by
animals and then refilled and then these refilled sediments were oxidized giving it a brown coloring(see
pic #6). At the bottom of Dinosaur Ridge we came across fossilized foot prints of many dinosaurs (see
pic #7). These tracks were made by several dinosaurs walking along a soft sore line making indentation
in the ground then was filled in later by other sediments. The Dinosaurs foot prints here belong to
Ornithomimous (theropod), Acrocanthosaurs (theropod), Eolambia (ornithopod), and there is also
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
crocodile foot prints, but they aren’t dinosaurs. The absence of tail tracks indicates that these animals
held their tails up off of the ground as they walked. The space between the theropods tracks show that
they were bipedal and traveled at a much faster pace than the ornithopods.
Part 2. Denver Museum of Nature and Science(see appendix A4-A5)
Denver Museum of Nature & Science Day 1 (A-4)
We arrive at the Denver Museum at the end of the day as it is closing and meet Mr. Logan Ivy,
the Collections Manager of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He takes us back through a
restricted access door into the museum’s “Bone Room”. There we observe many fossil remains of
Mammoths and Mastodons that were recovered from the snow mass site. The snow mass site was an
incredible find because before there was a lack of high-elevation fossil sites that contained an ecosystem
and many species that made a recording of the aspects of the biotic community during the MIS 5[5].
The Mammoths found at this site are grazers and this trait can be determined by their teeth they have
high crowns on their teeth. This evolutionary advantage allows them to chew grass which contains
phytoliths, which are small pieces of silica that the plants incorporate into their bodies from the soil.
The Mastodons at snow mass were found beneath the Mammoths indicating they older. The
Mastodons were primarily browsers indicated by their large molars with low crowns, good for grinding
leaves from trees. The typically lived in woodlands based on their feeding behaviors. The order in which
these two giants were found shows a change in climate from semi rainy woodland during the earlier
Mastodons, to drier climate dominated by grasses and Mammoths. In the other room we got to see
fossils and skeletons from the beginning of complex life to the Pleistocene. There was also a display
drawer that we looked at extensively which contained the plant fossils from the Castle Rock Rainforest.
I never knew how many fossils the museums were kept in the back; it is greatly larger than the amount
in display in the museums exhibits.
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Denver Museum of Nature & Science Day 4 (A-5)
We return to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on the morning of our last day in
Denver to do a walkthrough of the Prehistoric Journey exhibit, as well as explore the other museum’s
exhibits. The first diorama was the Ediacarn Hills which had creative lighting that made the exhibit look
under water, and had sand ripples in the foreground that matched up perfectly with the ones painted on
the wall in the background. Next was Racine Wisconsin which represents a time period 425 million
years ago at a coral reef. The display itself is load with lots of corals in the foreground, as well as dead
cephalopods on the bottom showing the beginning of the fossilization process. The quarry in which
these fossils were removed in Racine Wisconsin contained a dome shaped limestone that indicated that
it was a fossilized reef in a warm shallow sea. The preservation of the fossils from this site is very good,
they can even tell that the trilobites hade multifaceted eyes like modern insects. We move through time
to 395 million years ago at Bear Tooth Butte which is in the Devonian period. The Devonian was a time
when the first arthropods move onto land, and the exhibits show a scorpion looking creature crawling
from the water’s edge onto land for the first time. It also shows a lot of animals close to the water’s
edge showing how they are becoming closer to finally colonizing the land. The next exhibit was
Hamilton Kansas and my favorite part of this exhibit was it was large and had changing lights to simulate
the night to day transition, which really made the viewer fell as if they were there watching it in person
295 million years ago. The foreground is covered with trees from the carboniferous and it even shows
the large insects of the time that grew do to the rise in atmospheric oxygen when the first land plants
began to dominate the Earth. The Triassic diorama, which was 251 million years old, was the least
impressive of the lot. It was small in size and most of the detail was in the background, and the
foreground was mostly just cracked mud. The dinosaurs in this one had a few Ceolophysis’ that were
scavenging and fighting over a bone. After this I moved on to the Late Jurassic 150 million years ago,
which had full size skeletons of Allosaursus and Stegosaurus fighting and this is a recreation of the cover
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
picture of the Prehistoric Journey book we read all semester. Next is the Cretaceous creek 66 million
years ago, it contains a rotting triceratops which helps the viewer think about the live and death cycle
and the fossilization process. The painting on the wall is extremely detailed and has thousands of leaves
painted on trees. Second to last on the journey was the Lost Cabin construction, from 50 million years
ago, which is created to give the viewer the perspective of being in the trees with the monkeys in the
foreground. It had a lot of plants and made the viewer fell like they were in a warm rainforest much like
the one in Wyoming 50 million years ago. Finally the Prehistoric Journey ends with a 360 degree the
Nebraska recreation from 20 million years ago. The man eye catcher of this exhibit is the gigantic
Dinohyus Hollandi which has drool coming out of its mouth and nose making it seem alive. After the
Prehistoric Journey walkthrough we went to the preparation lab to see what it looked like. We also
looked at the tools the volunteers and scientist used to prepare the large cast of materials containing
the fossils that are delivered to the museum. The lab tables have large suction vacuums above their
desks to remove dust from the lab so the workers don’t get healthy problems related to inhaling rock
dust.
Part 3. Castle Rock, Kiowa and West Bijou Creek (see appendix A6-A9)
Highlands Ranch Overlook (A6)
We are Highlands Ranch Overlook from which we can see out over thousands of half a million to
a million dollar homes that have just be built recently and some are still under construction. The
purpose of this stop was to talk about Denver’s water use and subsequent water shortage. Denver only
gets about 17- 20 inches of rainfall a year, which is very close to being classified as a desert if it were to
drop below 12 inches a year. Denver has experienced a 23% population increase since 2000, and is one
of the fastest growing cities in America still. This increasing population poses a problem for it residents
as they will be out of water from aquifers in 30 years if they continue to withdraw the same amount
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
from these unreplenishable aquifers. The water in these aquifers is of Pleistocene age and the recharge
rates of these aquifers takes thousands of years. Most of these housing developments have a built in
water tax when purchasing a house and an annual water tax in order to help raise money for water
conservation education. Some of the ideas proposed by the conservation are; removal of grass lawns,
switching water absorbing plants with native plants that require less water, and fines for those who over
water their lawns or landscape plants. There were even signs in our hotels urging us to reuse towels to
save on water that is used to wash them.
Castle Rock (A7)
The class gets off the bus with their feet still on D1 sediments and begin to hike 300 feet up hill
to the top of Castle Rock (pic #8). At the top after some huffing and puffing the class gathers their
breath and find that they are now standing in the D2 sequence. From the top we could see the site
where they uncovered the fossilized rainforest that was only a million and a half years younger than the
K/T. This rainforest had over 100 different morphotypes with drip tips indicating heavy rainfalls in this
area [3]. We then shift our focus to the rock face immediately in front of us, which is comprised of a
white matrix of Rhyolite. This rock face contains potassium feldspar and large angular inclusions that
range in size from a microwave to football to golf ball and some pebble and gravel sized inclusions as
well(pic # 9). This layer is very poorly sorted and the placement of the inclusions is very random. This
layer of rock would be considered a conglomerate. This indicates a very high energy environment
because a flood or river would need a lot of strength to move these boulders. Below this layer is an
Arkosic white sandstone that has smaller grain sizes then the layer above it, most are 1 cm or smaller
and are super angular but better sorted. This would mean that it was deposited in a mid to high energy,
much lower than the layer above it. The Arkosic sandstone contains quartz, feldspar, and biotite and
has cross bedding going through it. The buttes around Castle rock are all approximately the same height
and are capped by castle rock rhyolite that is 36.7 million years ago and was laid down as a flat layer
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
during a volcanic eruption. The land was then uplifted and the streams cut down through the rocks and
differential erosion created the buttes that we see today.
Kiowa(A8)
A research effort was coordinated by the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, in 1999, to drill a
hole into the earth to sample the uppermost Pierre Shale, fox hills Sandstone, Laramie formation, and
D1 and D2 formations [6]. This drill core contained 2,256 feet of continuous sediment underneath Kiowa
in a 2.5 in diameter core [6]. The interest of this drilling effort was to get a better understanding of the
under laying rock strata of the Denver basin and how it changes from on local to other. The ultimate
goal was to find the K/T boundary and be able to extrapolate from there to find a location which it might
be exposed at the surface. After the core was analyzed the K/T boundary was known to be 993 feet
below the surface of the Elbert county fairgrounds in the town of Kiowa. Scientist also compared this
drill core with other well cores and drill cores to help create a 3D model of the rock strata under the
ground.
West Bijou Creek (A9)
The first stop was at an area called Ian’s Orchard which was a treasure chest of plant and mostly
leaf fossils from the early Cretaceous. After finding about nine species of plants we went over the hill to
the next valley were the outcrop of the K/T was present. The recent floods had covered up the
exposure with sediment, but after a few minutes with a shovel we were able to place our fingers on the
K/T boundary. The K/T contains an iridium anomaly cause by the settling of dust from the Impact of a
bolide, rich in iridium compared to the curst that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. On the other
side of the hill we spent about an hour digging and looking for fossils in the late Cretaceous, a few
students found some interesting specimens.
Part 4. Colorado Spring and West(A10-A13)
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Uintah Street Pierre Shale Outcrop (A10)
The hillside on the side of the road is steep and the ground is very loose but we clamber to the
top in order to dig for fossils in the Pierre Shale. The Pierre Shale was deposited by and during the time
of the Western interior seaway. This seaway went from the Gulf of Mexico to the Artic and lasted for
about 30 million years. The Pierre Shale’s age dates from the late early Campaninan through the
Maestrichtian [7]. Ammonites were used for zoning the shale and showing the structural patterns of
the shale [7]. My digging partner Tim and I found a small U-shaped area in a layer of rock towards the
top of the hill. After much hammer work we were able to remove several ammonites and clams from
this U-shaped bone bed (picture in notes).
Garden of the Gods (A11)
The Garden of the Gods is well known for its beautiful towers and formations of red rocks that
were carved out by glaciation of the area and additional erosion [2]. The Rampart Range fault gives us
the tilted beds that we see here that were then eroded. The red rocks belong to the Fountain formation
and there are also exposures of the Lyons sandstone in the park. We took a look at one of the 30 foot
tall mushroom shaped pillars in the park (pic #10). It had tilted beds with alternating thickness from one
to the other. The rock was a poorly sorted conglomerate with angular grains up to 10 cm in width and
had evidence of a gneiss origin.
Great Unconformity at Manitou Springs(A12)
The road cut exposes a great view of the Great Unconformity at Manitou Springs. The layers are
tilted and to the eye appear different in composition(pic #11). The lower layer has large grain sized
crystals, which indicates that it is and inclusive granite. The outside of the rock has been weathered and
pieces fall off easily. This granite is part of the Pikes Peak granite and was formed deep underground
and cooled slowly enough to create the large crystals we see. The contact between the Pikes Peak
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
granite and the above Sawatch sandstone is flat and shows no scouring and no contact metamorphism;
it represent at gap of time of 500 million years. On top of the Pike Peak Granite is a fine to very fine
sandstone with non-synorogenic sediments, which indicates that it is very far from its source. There are
no ash layers to date the Sawatch sandstone so scientists use biostratigraphy, relying on trilobites and
other common fossils.
Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (A13)
Florissant is considered one of the richest fossil sites from its era for the quality and diversity of
preservation or over 1500 species of insects alone. Back in the late 1800’s many people called Florissant
valley home, including one homesteader turned naturalist Charlotte Hill. She helped out on her
husband’s ranch and helped raise seven children and also became an avid amateur fossil collector. She
is credited with the discovery of many of the first type fossil specimens that would be used to help
identify others later. After the Hayden survey in1873 many other scientists flocked the area to see what
they could fin. The pioneering American paleobotanist, Leo Lesquereux, was the first to publish a
scientific paper about Florissant, in 1873, entitled “Contribution to the fossil flora of the Western
Territories.” Samuel Scudder described 600 new fossil insects between 1876 and 1900. T.D.A. Cockerell,
of the University of Colorado, was the most prolific paleontologist to visit Florissant. He managed to
publish 140 papers on Florissant between 1906 and 1941, more than any other paleontologist. The key
to the fossil abundance and great preservation is its geologic history. In the Late Eocene, before the
volcanism, Florissant valley had a river system that cut through the valley which was lined with giant
redwoods [4]. A massive stratovolcano that erupted in the Late Eocene 34 million years ago that
belonged to a cluster of volcanoes called the Guffery volcanic center, which was part of the larger
thirtynine Mile volcanic field [1]. This eruption sent out ash and pumice which created the tuff layers
and blanked the plants and insects with ash preserving their form. The flanks of the volcano were now
covered with a layer of loosely consolidated ash and other debris. This ash and debris became saturated
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
by rainfall and perhaps melted snow as well, and created a lahar which rushed down the valley [4]. The
evidence we see today as a result of this lahar are the fossilized redwoods, the mudstones and boulder
sized conglomerates of the Florissant valley [4]. The Lahar also damn a river and created a 12 mile long
lake that became the preservation location of Florissants insects, fish, birds, leaves, and seeds [8].
Conclusion
In conclusion the amount of knowledge that we learned during those four days in Denver was
more than I have learn in an entire semester in other Geosc classes. The ability to see first-hand what
you’re learning and being able to practice your techniques right there in the field gives the students a
more well-rounded learning experience. The first skill that I developed on day one was being able to
identify grain size, angularity, and the degree of sorting of different sedimentary rocks. This then
allowed me to test hypothesis I conjured in my brain as to what environment I was looking at during
each stop of the trip. I have learned from these sedimentary rocks that the time before the Fountain
formation was one of high erosion or non-deposition as indicated by the great nonconformity at Red
Rocks Amphitheatre. Also I have learned that the Fountain formation is comprised of sediments from
the rising Ancestral Rockies 300 million years ago. The Morrison formation and it sediments tells me
that the Ancestral Rockies have long since eroded and now in their place exists low energy stream
systems with dinosaurs. The Dakota formation shows the transition to the Western Interior Seaway,
with evidence of ripple marks in sandstone and fish fossil, as well as dinosaur track ways through soft
mud on the shores lines. The Pierre Shale and its fossilized ammonites and clams tell us that the
Western Interior Seaway is in full swing and fish and other marine creatures rule this area of Colorado.
West Bijou creek aloud use to act like paleontologist for the day and find many plant fossils from the
Paleocene and some fossil from just before the end of the dinosaurs. With all of these stops synthesized
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
and well imagined one can now take themselves back through time using rocks and experience
something special that only a select few can.
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Bibliography
1. Chapin, C. E., & Epis, R. C. (1964). Some Stratigraphic and Structural Features of the Thirtynine
Mile Volcanic Field, Central Colorado. The Mountain Geologist, V. 1, p. 145-159
2. Hamill, T. (2012). Garden of the Gods. Arcadia Publishing.
3. Johnson, K. R., & Ellis, B. (2002). A tropical rainforest in Colorado 1.4 million years after the
Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Science, 296(5577), 2379-2383.
4. Meyer, H. W. (2003). The fossils of Florissant. Smithsonian Books.
5. Miller, Ian. (2013) An unprecedented, multi-proxy, High-Elevation Record of the Sangamon
interglacial in the Colorado Rockies. Geological society of Americas Abstracts with Programs.
Vol. 45, No. 7, p. 853
6. Raynolds, Robert G., and Kirk R. Johnson. "Drilling of the Kiowa Core, Elbert County, Colorado."
Rocky Mountain Geology 37.2 (2002): 105-109.
7. Scott, G. R., & Cobban, W. A. (1965). Geologic and biostratigraphic map of the Pierre Shale
between Jarre Creek and Loveland, Colorado. US Geological Survey.
8. Veatch, S. W., & Meyer, H. W. (2008). History of paleontology at the Florissant fossil beds,
Colorado. SPECIAL PAPERS-GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA, 435, 1.
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Appendix
A1.
Name: Great Unconformity at Red Rocks
Who: Dr. Wilf
When: 9:15am April 5 2014
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Basic geo: Idaho Spring formation – gneiss 1.7 billion years old
Fountain formation- sand and gravel the size of pebbles to softballs, angular- close to the source
A2.
Name: Paleozoic section
Who: Dr. wilf
When: 11:38 am April 5 2014
Where: dinosaur ridge
Basi geo: Lyons- sandstone with very fine well sorted sub angular quartz-further form source
Lykins formation- super fine grained crinkly bedding with possible stromatolites
A3.
Name: Mesozoic section
Who: Dr. wilf
When: 12:05 pm to 3 pm April 5 2014
Where: dinosaur ridge
Basic Geo: Morrison formation- low energy flat stream system with well sorted fined grains.
Dakota formation- Shoreline with ripple marks and dinosaur footprints
A4.
Name: Denver Museum of Nature and Science Day 1
Who: Mr. Logan Ivy
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
When: 4:08 pm April 5 2014
Where: Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Basic Geo: fossils from the snow mass site as well as a large collection of plants and fossil through time.
A5.
Name: Denver Museum of Nature and Science Day 4
Who: Dr. Wilf and mostly going around by ourselves
When: 8:57 am April 8th 2014
Where: Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Basic Geo: Prehistoric Journey walk through
A6.
Name: Highlands Ranch Overlook
Who: Dr. Wilf
When: 8:45am April 6th 2014
Where: Highlands Ranch housing development
Basic Geo: discuss water usage and where Denver’s water comes from
A7.
Name: Castle Rock
Who: Dr. Wilf
When: 9:27 am April 6th 2014
Where: Castle Rock
Basic Geo: Transition from D1 to D2
A8.
Name: Kiowa
Who: Dr. Wilf
When: 2:00pm April 6th 2014
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Where: Elbert county fairgrounds in town of Kiowa.
Basic Geo: discuss the importance of the Kiowa drill core.
A9.
Name: West Bijou Creek
Who: Dr. Wilf and Ms. Susan Smith and Ms. Tudi Arneil of the Plains Conservation Center
When: 4:00pm April 6th 2014
Where: West Bijou Creek
Basic Geo: Look for fossils in the Cretaceous and Paleocene as well as locate the K/T boundry
A10.
Name: Unintah Street Pierre Shale Outcrop
Who: Dr. Wilf
When: 9:34am April 7th 2014
Where: Unintah Street
Basic Geo: Look for fossils in the Pierre Shale
A11.
Name: Garden of the Gods
Who: Dr. Wilf
When: 11:28am April 7th 2014
Where: Garden of the Gods
Basic Geo: Fountain formation- poorly sorted conglomerate with angular grains up to 10 cm
A12.
Name: Great Unconformity at Manitou Springs
Who: Dr. Wilf
When: 12:48pm April 7th 2014
Where: side of the road in Manitou Springs
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Basic Geo: Sawatch sandstone on top of Pikes Peak granite creating an unconformity
A13.
Name: Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument
Who: Dr. Herbert Meyer, and Dr. Wilf
When: 2:16pm April 7th 2014
Where: Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument
Basic Geo: great preservation of fossil insects, birds, fish, plants, and seeds all from volcanic eruptions in
the area
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Pictures
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Pic #3
Pic #4
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Pic #5
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Pic #7
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Pic #9
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The Denver Basin: The Geology and Biology from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic
Pic # 11
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