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.

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.

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