Field trip that takes you through the towns of Morrison Colorado and ending in Golden, Colorado. We will start at Dinasaur Ridge, walk a few trails, look at fossils and trace fossils that are at these locations. From here, we will do a quick tour of Red Rocks and study the geology of the fountain formation. We will then head to golden to to walk the Triceratops Trail.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Our first stop will be Dinosaur Ridge. Dinosaur Ridge is an area just off Hwy C-470 that have trace fossils in plain sight along the mountain side. Take I-70 East to exit 259 and take a left heading toward Red Rocks. Turn left onto CO-26/W Alameda Pkwy. End at 16831 W Alameda Pkwy Morrison. About 18 miles from Kipling and I-70

The Dinosaur Ridge area is one of the world's most famous dinosaur fossil areas. Several entire dinosaur skeletons were unearthed here and taken to eastern museums for exhibit. Some of the remains that were here include the largest "thunder lizard" known as Apatosaurus, better known as Brontosaurus. Some of other fossils that have been found here include; Diplodocus; Stegosaurus, the Colorado State Fossil; and Allosaurus. These animals lived during the Late Jurassic Epoch about 145 million years ago. This strata, known as the Morrison Formation is across a large part of the Rocky Mountain region. Many museums are now stocked with the fossils found in this area.














This pictures above shows trace fossils of dinosaurs that once roamed this area.
In the 1930s, during the construction of West Alameda Parkway, dinosaur tracks were discovered on the east side of Dinosaur Ridge in the 100-million year-old rocks of the Dakota Group, representing the Cretaceous Period. The tracks are those of Iguanodon-like plant-eating - or herbivorous - dinosaurs and ostrich-sized meat-eating - or carnivorous - dinosaurs. Recent research has revealed that these tracks represent only a small part of the extensive track-bearing beds that can be traced along the Colorado Front Range. Because this strata represents the shoreline sediments of an ancient seaway that was frequently trampled by dinosaurs, these beds have been called the "Dinosaur Freeway."

After the Morrison formation was deposited, the sea crept across this part of the continent creating a thin layer of river and beach sand, the Cretaceous Dakota sandstone, marks the sea's departure. You can walk along the beds of the Dakota sandstone at Dinosaur ridge and see footprints, ripple marks, and root patterns left by mongrove swamps. (Roadside Geology of Colorado P. 27)




This area where we took the picture is a trail that is located along the road while walking the Dinosaur Ridge road. We only hiked this trail for about 15 minutes and the views from here were fabulous.





Further up the road, we found this interesting
egg like looking rock. This is a concretion formed when mineral growth cemented sand grains around a central nucleus. Geologist aren't sure why this one had formed here.








We are searching for any signs of fossils in this shale along the mountainside. We found none, and even if we did, it is against the law to take any from this site.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Red Rocks Park

Our second stop will be Red Rocks Park. From Dinosaur Ridge, head south on W. Alameda
Pkwy. End at Red Rocks Park. Distance is 2 miles.

Red Rocks Parks is an area that consists of layers of coarse, brick red sandstone and conglomerate separated by thinner layers of dark red siltstone and are eroded into spectacular red monoliths. Part of the apron of debris washed off the eastern flank of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains nearly 300 million years ago, these Pennsylvanian and Permian rocks are part of the Fountain formation. [Roadside Geology of Colorado, P24]

At the western edge of the park, you can span with one hand between Pennsylvanian sedimentary rock and the steeply rising Precambrian metamorphic rocks, a 1.4 billion year time span. This area represents an unconformity, which is where rocks from that interval of time is erased away by erosion (missing time). This unconformity is one of the largest known on earth.

After these rocks were tilted by the Laramide mountain uplift, erosion shaped these great monoliths. These rocks stand so tall because they were cemented a little better here than anywhere else.

The rocks are red due to the presence of the mineral hematite.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Triceratops Trail

Our next stop will be the Triceratops Trail. From Red Rocks take a left out of the park onto
CO 26, CO 26 becomes US 40 E. Turn left onto Heritage Road, then left on 6th Ave and then a slight right onto 19th Street. Turn right on the first street which is Jones Street and follow that road until you reach the parking for the trail.

The Triceratops Trail is a 1/2 mile hike that leads you on a walk through 68 million years of Colorado History. Along this trail you can see footprint, traces, and impressions left by dinosaurs and many other creatures that lived 68 million years ago.




The picture on the left are called "bulges". These of impressions of dinosaurs walking in the area. When the dinosaur walked here, he was so heavy that he left big impressions in the mud. Very neat to see.This picture on the right is a left foot of the Triceratops.


The picture on the left gives a brief overview of Golden's landscapes. The picture on right, you can see palm impressions here. This wall was so amazing to see. Many, many fossil impressions here.





The picture on the left you can see from this picture the extreme uplift of the Rock Mountains. This is a near vertical uplift. The picture on the right, there are small animal trails and burrows.









I thought this was a pretty picture of the surrounding area.

At the end of this trip we also went into the School of Mines Museum. This is a great museum and I highly recommend going. We also stopped at another museum in the town of Morrison that was very small, but had some great dinosaur fossils on exhibit. I might put those pictures up at a later time on this blog.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Side Trips



Here are some random side trips we took along our journey. I actually had to do the field trip in three days due to our great Colorado weather. Everytime I planned for the a certain day, it snowed or rained or was foggy. Most pictures on all previous posts came from the one sunny hour of one of the trips. The museum photos are when I gave up because of weather.

Nevermind! I can't upload any pictures. I keep getting the box with the red X in it when I try to upload photos. Urgh. Maybe these links will work.



http://picasaweb.google.com/michellezale/UntitledAlbum02

http://picasaweb.google.com/michellezale/TownOfMorrisonAndGoldenFieldTrip