Rock Formations
The Flatirons in Boulder, CO were formed in the Pennsylvanian Period approximately 280 million years ago.
What is the Fountain Formation?
This fault type is predominant in the Laramide Orogeny.
What is a thrust or reverse fault?
This mountain range has the tallest mountains in the the Colorado Rockies and is part of the mineral belt.
What is the Sawatch Range?
These mountains were formed ~80-55 million years ago.
What are the Rocky Mountains?
This rock type is commonly formed in shallow marine environments and can contain many fossils.
What is Limestone?
Known for having dinosaur tracks and fossils from the Jurassic Period.
What is the Morrison Formation?
After the Farallon plate fully subducted what major event was triggered?
What is a rift?
The tallest mountain on the Continental Divide.
What is Grays Peak?
Two ways to know the age of rocks.
What is isotopic geochronology?
What is Stratigraphy?
What are Fossils?
What are cross cutting relationships?
The 2,300 foot thick, 90 million year old Western Colorado shale has ammonites, clams, oysters, scallops, and snail fossils. Part of the Book Cliffs.
What is the Mancos shale formation?
A 1.08 billion year old Late-Precambrian formation that comprises a 14,115 foot Front Range peak.
What is the Pikes Peak Granite?
This steeply dipping reverse fault near the Colorado School of Mines has seen some recent Quaternary movement.
What is the Golden Fault?
Inverse topography made these iconic Golden, CO mountains.
What is Table Mountain?
A gap of time in the geologic record.
What is an Unconformity?
The first Stegosaurus fossil ever found.
What is Dinosaur Ridge?
This marble was used to build the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.
What is the Yule Marble?
Extension creates faults that typically form 60° from horizontal.
What is a normal fault?
The East Face of Longs Peak was formed by glacial erosion.
What is The Diamond?
The age of the Earth
What is 4.5 - 4.6 billion years old?
This national park has an incredible concentration of dinosaur fossils. Specifically the "Quarry Exhibit".
What is Dinosaur National Monument?
A generic term used to describe an old metamorphic complex.
What is the Basement?
Basalt flows on Table Mountain have some unique features that result from cooling.
What is Columnar Jointing?
10.9 and 9.6 million years ago, volcanic eruptions produced basalt flows in Western Colorado that produced the now tallest flat top mountain in the world.
What is the Grand Mesa?
A mountain building event that defines the Rocky Mountain range.
What is the Laramide Orogeny?
This major seaway existed 100 million years ago.
What is the Western Interior Seaway?
Cretaceous Seaway