Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau

As a frustrated geologist of years too many to mention, I have an almost unquenchable thirst for knowledge on the subject, particularly since my family’s trip to Grand Canyon last year. But for the keen beginner or ‘interested layman’ it can be a struggle to find books on the subject that adequately help. Yes, there are plenty of geology books, but all too often the infamous ‘geo-jargon’ is there to stop the wanabee geologist in his tracks.

As I’ve mentioned before, I needed a book on Grand Canyon that went some way to answering the myriad of questions I needed answering when I returned home to ‘Blighty’. Wayne Ranney’s book, ‘Carving Grand Canyon’ answered my prayers by laying out all the theories and mysteries surrounding the canyon and it’s history in a highly enjoyable and understandable way. It’s a book that will work for anyone with a modicum of interest in the subject.

Such was the impact of this book on me personally, it caused me to look beyond Grand Canyon and outwards to the Colorado Plateau as a whole. The more you look around Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico and the staggering geological wonders to be found there, the more fascinating the American south-west becomes.

So, right on cue, Wayne in collaboration with his old college lecturer, Ron Blakey, last year published a truly stunning book entitled ‘Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau’.

Viewers of this blog will hopefully have noticed the little slideshow (in the right hand column) of Ron’s palaeogeograhical maps of the world. These have been available on his own web site for some time, but this book at last brings his ground breaking maps to a wider audience.

Above: An example of one of Ron Blakey's palaeogeographicalmaps to be found on his web site (See link on right hand column of this blog!)

Palaeogeographical maps are strangely absent from many geology books these days and I find this odd. For me and I’m sure many others, it is difficult to visualise when looking at a geological formation, just what the region looked like at the time of deposition. Throw plate tectonics into the mix and the job becomes even harder. ‘Ancient Landscapes’ is an absolute triumph in this respect.

The book is split into the essential periods starting with the early Proterozoic (1,750 million years ago) through to the Cenozoic (65 million years ago) and to the present, with each chapter readable on its own. Each period includes varying numbers of truly stunning maps that along with Wayne’s typically understandable text really bring it all to life. As Ron himself explains, the maps have to involve a degree of ‘artistic licence’. Obviously, no one can know for sure what the area really looked like at these points in time, but the maps are based on thorough and accepted research that Ron Blakey has seemingly spent his life drawing together. It is fascinating to read that he created the stunning images from numerous satellite images of modern comparable landforms that he ‘cut and pasted’ together on his computer!

The book finishes with a summary of the historical geology of Grand Canyon and the Grand Staircase followed by a chapter on ‘Where to see the rocks’, covering such locations as Sedona, Petrified Forest, Zuni Cliffs, Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, Arches National Park and many, many more. I've learnt so much already, such as the effect of repeated transgressions and regressions has on the pattern of strata. So far, I feel I've barely scratched the surface of what this publication contains so it's certainly a book that I will repeatedly return to over the months and years.
In short, a quite magnificent book and possibly the best £25 I have spent in a long while!

As well as buying the book, it is also worth taking a wander over to ‘You Tube’ and having a look at a series of films of Ron and Wayne’s joint lecture at the Grand Canyon Field Institute last year all about the book, the making of the maps and the Colorado Plateau story . Click Here.

Enjoy!

Until next time!

Cheers,
Alyn

Earth After Us Humans!

Hi there!

Education is a wonderful thing, particularly when one feels inspired to learn for its own sake, rather than at the start of that quest for a vocation. Having 'dipped my toe' in the educational waters earlier this year, I have felt a little lost since it all ended in June!

Time to get back in the saddle I think, so I have enrolled on 'S193: Fossils and the History of Life'. This is a short 10 point Level 1 course which should be a useful introduction to the subject and build on what I learnt on the previous course. It will set me up nicely either for the MGeol course at Leicester or be another 10 points towards an OU Geosciences degree, whatever I choose to do. Leicester is the ultimate goal but such are the financial implications, it may well prove out of reach. We'll see, but what is important is that I keep studying, learning and growing as a human being. The quest for knowledge is what keeps one 'alive' I think. If we're not learning anything, what is the point of it all?

Anyway, going back to a book I mentioned last time - 'Life After Us' by Jan Zalasiewicz, ironically, a lecturer at Leicester University. I've often wondered how our planet would react to the disappearance of us humans. What, if anything, would remain millions of years from now to show future inhabitants of Earth that an intelligent life form once existed in the past? We like to think man's miracles of engineering will survive long into the future, but in reality, what will last longer than say a few hundred years?

In 'Earth After Us', Zalasiewicz gives us his take on what evidence we are likely to leave behind for some alien visitors to discover 100 million years from now. What evidence will there be for such structures as roads and motorways, 100 million years from now? A thin layer of rock with traces of hydrocarbons, found in long narrow lines over hundreds of miles? What evidence will there be for them to deduce that this former dominant lifeform on Earth propelled itself across its surface by some form of powered transportation?

And what about fossilization of humans? I've always quite fancied the idea of being fossilised for some future life on Earth to find me million years from now! But then, as my daughter Aimee frequently tells me, I'm 'weird'! But how could this immortality be achieved? Most fossilisation occurs in shallow marine environments and it seems to take something exceptional for preservation in other environments to occur. So I won't hold out much hope there!

One heartening thought raised by Zalasiewicz is the fate of those millions of tonnes to human detritus buried on landfill sites. All those supermarket shopping bags, shampoo bottles and innumerable plastic containers thoughtlessly dumped, buried and forgotten about. Out of sight . . .? Well, perhaps millions of years from now, after subsequent buriel under layers of fresh sediment and in the right circumstances, these former hydrocarbons may once again be transformed by pressure and heat to form once again, oil and gas reserves for future life forms to exploit! The ultimate in recycling perhaps! Hopefully, if this were to happen, these future beings will use it somewhat more wisely than we have done.

All in all, a fascinating and thought provoking read. It was interesting to see on the books cover, an interpretation of what Earth may look like 100 million years from now rather like Ron Blakey's maps (see the link elsewhere in this blog site!). However, Zalasiewicz says in his book, "unfortunately, we cannot predict where the Earth's continents will be in one hundred million years time". He believes there are so many uncertainties that "detailed prediction becomes useless". I'm not sure I agree with that. Surely there's always room for prediction whatever the variables? In fact, in 'Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau', Blakey and Ranney present a suggestion as to what the Earth may look like for exactly this time period!

I'll delve more into this latter book next time!

Cheers!

Alyn

Palaeogeographical maps of the world

The Earth as it is today.
Taken From Dr Ron Blakey's web site

A while ago I included a link on the blog to Ron Blakey's web site. This includes amongst other great stuff, a series of fascinating maps of the world as it looked at significant points in time. These illustrate superbly the concept of plate tectonics and the drift of continents over huge spans of time.

Today I've added a small slideshow of this series of maps towards the bottom of the right hand column. While being a bit small, it does show how the continents moved around the planet, going back in time from the present back to 600 million years ago and the Late Cambrian period. Clicking on any individual slide will take you to a full size image with a brief caption illustrating its place in geological time.

It's always worth keeping in mind whenever one looks at a particular bed of rock that the environment in which it was laid down was very much different to its current situation. These superb representations certainly help me to grasp how environments change over time. It's amazing to think when looking at a certain geological feature that where you are standing was once ocean or was once subjected to a great out pouring of lava from a nearby volcano!

Incidentally, a series Dr Blakey's images will feature in a soon to be published book written in collaboration with Wayne Ranney, author of 'Carving Grand Canyon' which I've mentioned several times. The new book is entitled 'Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau' and will shed some more light upon the complex story of how the Colorado plateau evolved over time and contributed to the formation of Grand Canyon.

Geology eh? Don't ya just love it?

Enjoy!

Cheers for now!

Grumpychops.

The Earth some 600 million years ago! So which bit became Britain?

Image from Dr Ron Blakey's excellent web site