Uinta Formation | |
---|---|
Stratigraphic range: Eocene | |
Type | Formation |
Lithology | |
Primary | mudstones and sandstone |
Other | gilsonite |
Location | |
Region | Utah |
Country | United States |
The Uinta Formation is a geologic formation in northeastern Utah. The name appears on a geologic map accompanying the Clarence King Fortieth Parallel report for 1876 [1] but not defined until 1878 [2] as the Uinta Group. As defined, it consisted of all Tertiary strata overlying the Green River Formation and was composed of coarse, conglomeratic sandstones, passing up into finer-grained sandstones and calcareous mudstones. Numerous vertebrate fossils were collected and described by Othniel C. Marsh of Yale University. The formation was subsequently subdivided into three informal horizons (A, B, C) based on mammalian fossils. [3] Horace Wood [4] proposed the name Wagonhound Member (from Wagonhound Canyon) for Uinta A+B and Myton Member (from the town of Myton) for Uinta C. However, these names are not based on lithology, but on mammalian vertebrate faunas. For that reason, they have not been accepted as proper lithostratigraphic names.
Members of the Uinta Formation
Today the formation is subdivided into three informal members: [5]
Member A: Yellowish-gray and yellowish-brown, fine- to very fine grained sandstone and siltstone, with minor amounts of conglomerate, shale, and tuffaceous beds. It intertongues with the underlying Parachute Creek Member of the Green River Formation. It has produced a K-Ar radiometric date 43 Ma.
Member B: Light-gray, light-greenish-gray, light-brown, and light-purple, mudstone and claystone with interbeds of greenish-gray, yellow, and brown fine-grained sandstone, and minor conglomerate and tuffaceous beds. Much of the gilsonite comes from this member in the southern part of the Uinta Basin.
Member C: Soft, light-gray, greenish-gray, white, grayish-purple, red, and pale-yellow shale, mudstone, claystone, and minor sandstone with local tuffaceous interbeds. The eroded sandstones form the strange shaped hoodooes at Fantasy Canyon.
Mammalian Biostratigraphy
Fossil mammals from the Uinta formation define the Uintan North American Land Mammal Age. [6] The index taxa include: Achaenodon , Amynodon, Diplacodon , Eobasileus , Leptotragulus , Oxyaenodon, Oromeryx , Prodaphaenus , Protitanotherium , Protoptychus, Dolichorhinus (= Sphenocoelus), Ourayia, Procynodictis , Metarhinus , Mesomeryx, Bunomeryx, Hylomeryx, and Mytonomeryx. [7] During this interval, primates decline in diversity and relative abundance, primitive perissodactyls were replaced by more advanced forms, such as the Amynododontidae, new artiodactyls appeared, including Oromerycidae, Camelidae, Agriochoeridae, and Protoceratidae. Among rodents, Cylindrodontidae and Eomyidae replaced the Ischyromydidae, and rabbits make their first appearance as the tropical and subtropical habitats began to be replaced by more open habitats.
More recent research has subdivided the Uintan into smaller intervals called biochronological zones (biochrons) based on distinctive suites of mammalian species: early (Ui1), middle (Ui2) and late (Ui3). [7] [8] These biochrons are based on taxa and do not correspond to the three informal members listed above.
The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a group of intermountain lakes in three basins along the present-day Green River in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The sediments are deposited in very fine layers, a dark layer during the growing season and a light-hue inorganic layer in the dry season. Each pair of layers is called a varve and represents one year. The sediments of the Green River Formation present a continuous record of six million years. The mean thickness of a varve here is 0.18 mm, with a minimum thickness of 0.014 mm and maximum of 9.8 mm.
The exposed geology of the Capitol Reef area presents a record of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in an area of North America in and around Capitol Reef National Park, on the Colorado Plateau in southeastern Utah.
The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock found in the western United States which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandstone, siltstone, and limestone and is light gray, greenish gray, or red. Most of the fossils occur in the green siltstone beds and lower sandstones, relics of the rivers and floodplains of the Jurassic period.
The Moenkopi Formation is a geological formation that is spread across the U.S. states of New Mexico, northern Arizona, Nevada, southeastern California, eastern Utah and western Colorado. This unit is considered to be a group in Arizona. Part of the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range, this red sandstone was laid down in the Lower Triassic and possibly part of the Middle Triassic, around 240 million years ago.
The Chinle Formation is an Upper Triassic continental geological formation of fluvial, lacustrine, and palustrine to eolian deposits spread across the U.S. states of Nevada, Utah, northern Arizona, western New Mexico, and western Colorado. In New Mexico, it is often raised to the status of a geological group, the Chinle Group. Some authors have controversially considered the Chinle to be synonymous to the Dockum Group of eastern Colorado and New Mexico, western Texas, the Oklahoma panhandle, and southwestern Kansas. The Chinle Formation is part of the Colorado Plateau, Basin and Range, and the southern section of the Interior Plains. A probable separate depositional basin within the Chinle is found in northwestern Colorado and northeastern Utah. The southern portion of the Chinle reaches a maximum thickness of a little over 520 meters (1,710 ft). Typically, the Chinle rests unconformably on the Moenkopi Formation.
The Laramie Formation is a geologic formation of the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) age, named by Clarence King in 1876 for exposures in northeastern Colorado, in the United States. It was deposited on a coastal plain and in coastal swamps that flanked the Western Interior Seaway. It contains coal, clay and uranium deposits, as well as plant and animal fossils, including dinosaur remains. The formation contains some of the oldest records of Grass in western North America.
The Uinta Basin is a physiographic section of the larger Colorado Plateaus province, which in turn is part of the larger Intermontane Plateaus physiographic division. It is also a geologic structural basin in eastern Utah, east of the Wasatch Mountains and south of the Uinta Mountains. The Uinta Basin is fed by creeks and rivers flowing south from the Uinta Mountains. Many of the principal rivers flow into the Duchesne River which feeds the Green River—a tributary of the Colorado River. The Uinta Mountains form the northern border of the Uinta Basin. They contain the highest point in Utah, Kings Peak, with a summit 13,528 feet above sea level. The climate of the Uinta Basin is semi-arid, with occasionally severe winter cold.
The Paskapoo Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Middle to Late Paleocene age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. The Paskapoo underlies much of southwestern Alberta, and takes the name from the Blindman River. It was first described from outcrops along that river, near its confluence with the Red Deer River north of the city of Red Deer, by Joseph Tyrrell in 1887. It is important for its freshwater aquifers, its coal resources, and its fossil record, as well as having been the source of sandstone for the construction of fire-resistant buildings in Calgary during the early 1900s.
The Enon Formation is a geological formation found in the Eastern and Western Cape provinces in South Africa. It is the lowermost of the four formations found within the Uitenhage Group of the Algoa Basin, its type locality, where it has been measured at a maximum thickness of 480 metres (1,570 ft). Discontinuous outcrops are also found in the Worcester-Pletmos and Oudshoorn-Gamtoos Basins, including isolated occurrences in the Haasvlakte, Jubilee, and Soutpansvlakte Basins near the small town Bredasdorp.
The Brule Formation was deposited between 33 and 30 million years ago, roughly the Rupelian age (Oligocene). It occurs as a subunit of the White River Group in South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, and Wyoming.
The Wasatch Formation (Tw) is an extensive highly fossiliferous geologic formation stretching across several basins in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and western Colorado. It preserves fossils dating back to the Early Eocene period. The formation defines the Wasatchian or Lostcabinian, a period of time used within the NALMA classification, but the formation ranges in age from the Clarkforkian to Bridgerian.
The San Pedro Arroyo Formation is a geologic formation in south-central New Mexico. It preserves fossils dating back to the late Triassic period.
The Duchesne River Formation is a geologic formation in the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah. It was originally named the Duchesne Formation by Carnegie Museum paleontologist OA Peterson, and modified to the Duchesne River Formation by Carnegie Museum paleontologist JL Kay because Duschesne Formation was previously used for a Jurassic limestone. In naming the formation, no type section was given, only that it is named for the Duchesne River, which flows roughly southeast and east to join the Green River.
The Mint Canyon Formation (Tm) is a Miocene geologic formation in the Sierra Pelona Mountains of Los Angeles County, southern California. The formation preserves fossils dating back to the Middle to Late Miocene.
The Blairmore Group, originally named the Blairmore Formation, is a geologic unit of Early Cretaceous age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin that is present in southwestern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia. It is subdivided into four formations: Cadomin Formation, Gladstone, Beaver Mines and Ma Butte, all of which are defined by type sections, most of which contain plant fossils. In some areas the Blairmore contains significant reservoirs of natural gas.
The Morawan Formation is a Chattian age siliceous marine geological formation of the Oligo-Miocene Japanese Kawakami Group of eastern Hokkaido prefecture. The formation is fossil rich and contains source units where toothed baleen whales (Aetiocetidae) and Desmostylians have been discovered.
Ilocos-Central Luzon Basin is a sedimentary basin and stratigraphic formation in the Ilocos Region and Central Luzon Region, Philippines. It is one of the 16 major sedimentary basins in the country and stretches from the vicinity of the Manila metropolitan area in the south to Ilocos Norte in the north.
The geology of Utah, in the western United States, includes rocks formed at the edge of the proto-North American continent during the Precambrian. A shallow marine sedimentary environment covered the region for much of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, followed by dryland conditions, volcanism, and the formation of the basin and range terrain in the Cenozoic.
The Picuris Formation is a geologic formation exposed in the eastern flank of the Rio Grande rift in northern New Mexico. It was deposited from the late Eocene to Miocene epochs.
Owl Rock is a 6,547-foot elevation sandstone summit located south of Monument Valley, in northeast Arizona. It is situated 7 miles (11 km) north of Kayenta on Navajo Nation land, and can be seen from Highway 163 perched on the east edge of Tyende Mesa, where it towers 1,000 feet above the surrounding terrain. Its nearest higher neighbor is Agathla Peak, 1.4 miles (2.3 km) to the east-northeast, on the opposite side of this highway. Precipitation runoff from this feature drains into El Capitan Wash, which is part of the San Juan River drainage basin. The first ascent of Owl Rock was made in April 1966 by Fred Beckey and Harvey Carter by climbing cracks on the west face, and then bolting up a smooth south nose to the summit. They employed 20 pitons and 14 bolts on this route called Warpath. The descriptive name stems from its uncanny resemblance to an owl when viewed from the east. This feature is known as Bee 'Adizí in Navajo language meaning "spindle", and this sacred place is considered to be a spindle left behind by the Holy People. A newer name for it is Tsé Ts'óózí, meaning "Slim Rock".