Bragdon Formation | |
---|---|
Stratigraphic range: Carboniferous | |
Type | Formation |
Location | |
Region | California |
Country | United States |
The Bragdon Formation is a geologic formation in California. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period. Its sandstones may be rich in quartz, chert and sedimentary rock fragments, or volcanic rock fragments, or volcanic ash (tuff) containing abundant crystals. [1] Gravelly, loamy brown soils of the Hugo series are commonly developed on Bragdon parent material in the Trinity Lake area. [2] [3]
In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", which leaves room for interpretation and is easier to apply to Precambrian times. To separate supercontinents from other groupings, a limit has been proposed in which a continent must include at least about 75% of the continental crust then in existence in order to qualify as a supercontinent.
The Wilcox Group is an important geologic group in the Gulf of Mexico Basin and surrounding onshore areas from Mexico and Texas to Louisiana and Alabama. The group ranges in age from Paleocene to Eocene and is in Texas subdivided into the Calvert Bluff, Simsboro and Hooper Formations, and in Alabama into the Nanafalia and Hatchetigbee Formations. Other subdivisions are the Lower, Middle and Upper Wilcox Subgroups, and the Carrizo and Indio Formations.
Fission track dating is a radiometric dating technique based on analyses of the damage trails, or tracks, left by fission fragments in certain uranium-bearing minerals and glasses. Fission-track dating is a relatively simple method of radiometric dating that has made a significant impact on understanding the thermal history of continental crust, the timing of volcanic events, and the source and age of different archeological artifacts. The method involves using the number of fission events produced from the spontaneous decay of uranium-238 in common accessory minerals to date the time of rock cooling below closure temperature. Fission tracks are sensitive to heat, and therefore the technique is useful at unraveling the thermal evolution of rocks and minerals. Most current research using fission tracks is aimed at: a) understanding the evolution of mountain belts; b) determining the source or provenance of sediments; c) studying the thermal evolution of basins; d) determining the age of poorly dated strata; and e) dating and provenance determination of archeological artifacts.
The Jack Hills are a range of hills in Mid West Western Australia. They are best known as the source of the oldest material of terrestrial origin found to date: Hadean zircons that formed around 4.404 billion years ago. These zircons have enabled deeper research into the conditions on Earth in the Hadean eon. In 2015, "remains of biotic life" were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks there. According to one of the researchers, "If life arose relatively quickly on Earth ...then it could be common in the universe."
The La Boca Formation is a geological formation in Tamaulipas state, northeast Mexico. It was thought to date back to the Early Jurassic, concretely the Pliensbachian stage epoch. Although, the latest studies had proven that the local Vulcanism, related to the aperture of the Atlantic Ocean and the several Rift Events, that continue until the Bajocian, while the unit itself was likely deposited between the earliest Pliensbachian, as proven by zircon with the fossil taxa deposited on the rocks above, likely of Late Pliensbachian-Lower Toarcian age, and the upper section of Late Toarcian-Late Aalenian age. Due to successions of Aalenian depositional sistems on the upper layers of the Huizachal Canyon, has been delimited the formation to the Toarcian stage, being the regional equivalent of the Moroccan Azilal Formation. Deposits of Late Triassic Age referred to this unit have been reclassified in a new formation, El Alamar Formation. In North America, La Boca Formation was found to be a regional equivalent of the Eagle Mills redbeds of southern United States, the Todos Santos Formation of southern Mexico and the Barracas Group of the Sonora desert region.
The geology of Uruguay combines areas of Precambrian-aged shield units with a region of volcanic rock erupted during the Cretaceous and copious sedimentary facies the oldest of which date from the Devonian. Big events that have shaped the geology of Uruguay include the Transamazonian orogeny, the breakup of Rodinia and the opening of the South Atlantic.
The Sixtymile Formation is a very thin accumulation of sandstone, siltstone, and breccia underlying the Tapeats Sandstone that is exposed in only four places in the Chuar Valley. These exposures occur atop Nankoweap Butte and within Awatubi and Sixtymile Canyons in the eastern Grand Canyon, Arizona. The maximum preserved thickness of the Sixtymile Formation is about 60 meters (200 ft). The actual depositional thickness of the Sixtymile Formation is unknown owing to erosion prior to deposition of the Tapeats Sandstone.
The De Queen Formation, formerly known as the DeQueen Limestone Member is a Mesozoic geological formation located in southwestern Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. Fossil sauropod and theropod tracks have been reported from the formation. It preserves fossils dating back to the Cretaceous period, particularly the Albian age.
The Malone Formation is a geologic formation in Texas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Jurassic period.
The Hoback Formation is a geologic formation in west-central Wyoming, located within the Hoback Basin. It formed as a result of increased sedimentation rates from the Laramide Orogeny and preserves fossils dating back to the late Paleogene period, through the early Eocene.
The Zabriskie Quartzite is a Cambrian Period geologic formation of the northern Mojave Desert, in Inyo County, California and Nye County, Nevada.
The Turlock Lake Formation is an Early Pleistocene geologic formation in the Sierra Nevada foothills in Sacramento County, California. Cities in/over the formation's area include Citrus Heights, Carmichael, and Roseville.
The Dent Group is a group of Upper Ordovician sedimentary and volcanic rocks in north-west England. It is the lowermost part of the Windermere Supergroup, which was deposited in the foreland basin formed during the collision between Laurentia and Avalonia. It lies unconformably on the Borrowdale Volcanic Group. This unit was previously known as the Coniston Limestone Group or Coniston Limestone Formation and should not be confused with the significantly younger Coniston Group.
The Pettycur Volcanics is a geologic formation in Scotland. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.
The Lhasa terrane is a terrane, or fragment of crustal material, sutured to the Eurasian Plate during the Cretaceous that forms present-day southern Tibet. It takes its name from the city of Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China. The northern part may have originated in the East African Orogeny, while the southern part appears to have once been part of Australia. The two parts joined, were later attached to Asia, and then were impacted by the collision of the Indian Plate that formed the Himalayas.
Pre-collisional Himalaya is the arrangement of the Himalayan rock units before mountain-building processes resulted in the collision of Asia and India. The collision began in the Cenozoic and it is a type locality of a continental-continental collision. The reconstruction of the initial configuration of the rock units and the relationship between them is highly controversial, and major concerns relate to the arrangements of the different rock units in three dimensions. Several models have been advanced to explain the possible arrangements and petrogenesis of the rock units.
Detrital zircon geochronology is the science of analyzing the age of zircons deposited within a specific sedimentary unit by examining their inherent radioisotopes, most commonly the uranium–lead ratio. Zircon is a common accessory or trace mineral constituent of most granite and felsic igneous rocks. Due to its hardness, durability and chemical inertness, zircon persists in sedimentary deposits and is a common constituent of most sands. Zircons contain trace amounts of uranium and thorium and can be dated using several modern analytical techniques.
Archean felsic volcanic rocks are felsic volcanic rocks that were formed in the Archean Eon. The term "felsic" means that the rocks have silica content of 62–78%. Given that the Earth formed at ~4.5 billion year ago, Archean felsic volcanic rocks provide clues on the Earth's first volcanic activities on the Earth's surface started 500 million years after the Earth's formation.
The Picuris orogeny was an orogenic event in what is now the Southwestern United States from 1.43 to 1.3 billion years ago in the Calymmian Period of the Mesoproterozoic. The event is named for the Picuris Mountains in northern New Mexico and interpreted either as the suturing of the Granite-Rhyolite crustal province to the southern margin of the proto-North American continent Laurentia or as the final suturing of the Mazatzal crustal province onto Laurentia. According to the former hypothesis, this was the second in a series of orogenies within a long-lived convergent boundary along southern Laurentia that ended with the ca. 1200–1000 Mya Grenville orogeny during the final assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia, which ended an 800-million-year episode of convergent boundary tectonism.
The La Tuna Formation is a geologic formation in the Franklin Mountains of southern New Mexico and western Texas and the Hueco Mountains of western Texas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Bashkirian Age of the early Pennsylvanian.