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Geology 1010
Mr. Johnson
Park city/Heber Valley
Investigating geology of Park city and Heber valley has been a fascinating experience.
Observing rock formations, landscapes, minerals, and other geological events in person has made
me gain more knowledge than staying in a classroom and lecturing about it. This self-guided
field trip was at the Park city area as well as Heber Valley. Both sites are not big geological sites
but after observation I have found that there is more to a site than meets the eye. In this
investigation I will highlight the mountain ranges, history, rocks, and other geological events at
the sites.
Heber Valley is a small urban town surrounded by old stores and small businesses. The
mountain ranges are smaller compared to Salt Lake City and the Wasatch front. I found Old
mining sites when I traveled down the highways. By observing the valley that had constisted of
multiple formations throughout geologic history, I assumed that this town was once a goldmine
for coal or other minerals. Park city was no different. As we made our way into the mountains
they got smaller but still had some visible history.
In Park city, the mountains seemed to crisscross each other. Along the mountain sides
there were massive rock formations. I found them to be sedimentary rocks. Not only were they
sedimentary, but they also were in ragged layers. Weathering and erosion must have compacted
these rocks together on top of each other. The rocks seemed to have multiple colorings where
multiple sedimentary deposits must have come together and formed into one rock.
In Heber Valley, the rock formations were gone. All that the small mountains had were
grass and small pebbles. These hills got smaller and smaller with no rock formations to be found.
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I found only a few hills and mountain sides that had little rock formations. These rocks also were
made from sedimentary deposits. This lead me to believe that there was less geological activity
in Heber than in Park City.
The rocks I observed on both sites were mostly sedimentary rocks. They were mostly
silica based rocks along with some biotite and layered rocks. The rocks in Park city were big and
dense compared to Heber Valley. Heber valley had small sandstone and Granite rocks. Some
rocks were red color and had smooth texture compared to the hard pointy rocks that were found
in Park City.
Heber Valleys landscape had small hills that were formed like slicing a pizza. It was very
beautiful to see the hills align with each other almost in perfect harmony. There were a lot of
farms in Heber because the soil is rich for crops. Some of the soil had traces of minerals that
helped the crops grow which why there were lots of large fields that had been plowed. The hills
looked they were dry and bare. I could only see small amounts of grass and a lot of dirt. Most of
the dirt looked like crushed sedimentary deposits.
On the final stretch of the trip I managed to come across two lakes. One was rather small
and was surrounded by grass and mostly hay from the farmers using the land. There were small
little pebbles along the edge of the lake. The other lake I observed was Jordanelle Lake. It was a
massive lake rich in sedimentary deposits most of which came from the road that was made. The
road had mostly crushed sediments that were pushed into the lake but there were also rocks by
the lake that were weathered in. Manmade gravel was also by the lake and some deposits were
pushed into the lake. A dam was made to use hydroelectric power since Heber is a small town.
Research shows that this water and groundwater soil had been contaminated at one point.
Since mines had been in operation the drilling into the groundwater had made the water
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contaminated. Small seismic activity in the area has produced cracks in the Jordanelle dam.
Sediments went into these cracks to cover them up.
There was also a canyon and a slope that I couldn’t observe in Park City. According to
Miriam Bugden, an information geologist, there is a slope that has Limestone on the north side of
the canyon. They were deposited from shallow seas and contained many marine life fossils. In
the Triassic period these canyons had marine life. Because of this there were a lot of limestone,
sandstones, siltstones, and conglomerates.
In conclusion, this trip was very informative. The kinds of observations made it easier to
identify the geology around an area. Seeing geology with your own eyes is much more helpful to
understand these structures and formations. Geologists therefore need to spend large amounts of
time outside in the open to fully understand the geological powers on earth. I learned that just by
observing from what my eyes tell me is not the entire purpose of geology, but looking closely
and examining these structures and formations gives a broader idea of what is occurring around
us.