The Montana Geological Society is thrilled to be publishing the very first edition of our new quarterly publication, the Montana Applied Geosciences MAgazine (MAGMA). This new publication is the result of our members’ feedback and interest in ongoing geoscience articles focused on Montana and Applied Geosciences. Inside this issue, you’ll find several articles featuring MGS…
Category: Geology field trip
Field Trip! Eocene-Oligocene Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology, Northern Jefferson Valley, Southwest Montana
Eocene-Oligocene Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology of the Northern Jefferson Valley, Southwest Montana Field Trip Sponsored by the Montana Geological Society Field Trip Information: Saturday July 8th, 2023 Trip Leaders: Deb Hanneman (Whitehall GeoGroup Inc., Whitehall, MT) Don Lofgren (Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, Claremont, CA) On this field trip we will visit: – Late…
Yellowstone National Park Winter Trackways and Feeding Traces
Being in Yellowstone National Park (YNP) in winter is always amazing. It’s a good time to watch animal behavior – minus the confusion of the many human interactions that one normally runs into during the summer season! It’s also a prime time to observe animal tracks in the snow and get insight into the movement…
Flagstaff Rim, Wyoming – A Classic Area of Continental Eocene Tuffs and Fossil Vertebrates
The Flagstaff Rim area in central Wyoming contains a classic geological section of Tertiary continental rocks that, for the most part, range in age from approximately 37 million years to about 35 million years. These strata are then capped by gravels that may be late Tertiary in age (probably younger than 20 million years in…
Welcome To My 2021 Field Office
My geological field work lately has taken me to several areas of western Montana, so I thought I’d do a visual collage of a few of the landscapes where I’ve been working. To start with, I’ve been spending time flying drones over Tertiary exposures in southwestern Montana, Great fun and good insight into Tertiary…
Working On High Elevation Tertiary Strata, Southwestern Montana
Working on Tertiary strata in the Gravelly Range, southwestern Montana, is sometime daunting to do. The Lion Mountain Tertiary section shown in the photo to the right is one of those places that makes for a grueling day or several days of field work. The Tertiary section unconformably overlies various Paleozoic units, such as Mississippian…
Tolting Around Pseudocraters at Lake Myvatn, Iceland
The Lake Myvatn area, located in northeast Iceland, has an amazing, and truly beautiful, volcanic landscape. This area lies within Iceland’s North Volcanic Zone, which is a part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – the spreading rift between the Eurasian and North American plates that slices through Iceland. Lake Myvatn is the fourth largest lake in…
Iceland Geology – Snorkeling the Silfra Fissure, Thingvellir National Park
I did a snorkel tour of the Silfra fissure with Dive.is while I was in Iceland a couple weeks ago. That is a very impressive way to view part of the mid-Atlantic ridge system! Here’s what Dive.is says about Silfra that makes it so unique: “Silfra is a fissure between the North American and Eurasian…
Yellowstone To Southwest Montana Autumn Field Photo Snaps
Montana’s autumn is my favorite time of the year to do field work. Daytime temperatures are usually cool enough to encourage one to keep moving and the lighting is simply gorgeous. It is also one of the best times to visit areas in and around Yellowstone National Park (YNP) because most of the tourists have…
Tertiary geology and paleontology of the central Gravelly Range – a project update
It’s time for our yearly update talk on field work and data compilation for the Tertiary geology and paleontology of the central Gravelly Range project in southwestern Montana. The Madison Ranger District in Ennis, Montana (5 Forest Service Road) will be hosting my talk on Monday, April 2nd at 10am in the Madison Ranger District conference room….
Cuban Geology – An Updated Resource List
Within the last few weeks I’ve had several requests for available resources on Cuban geology. The requests, of course, have come from individuals outside of the U.S.A. Guess that they sense opportunities for working with and understanding Cuba’s geology that we are backing away from. In any case, I’ve sent the requests on to Manuel…
Siccar Point: A Day In The Field At Hutton’s Unconformity
Siccar Point is unquestionably one of the most important geological sites in the understanding of geological time. It was here in 1778 that James Hutton, John Playfair, and James Hall contemplated the immensity of time needed to produce vertically oriented rocks overlain by gently-dipping rocks. The concept of geological time is so fundamental to the…
Canadian Rockies – Alberta Badlands Geology Guidebook
The Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG) published their first geology field trip guidebook in late 2016 and it is now available for sale to the general public. This guideboook is a collection of geology road logs, associated geological information, and local cultural history of areas within the Canadian Rockies and the Alberta Badlands. The following…
The Field Season Is Going Strong in Southwestern Montana
My field season is in full swing. I recently spent time with students from the Webb Schools in Claremont, CA, during their annual sojourn to southwestern Montana. We prospected a few Tertiary localities, with the students making some good fossil mammal and fossil invertebrate finds. We were also extremely lucky to have a southwest Montana…
Siccar Point – The Roots of Modern Geology
Siccar Point, located on the southeast coast of Scotland, is well revered in the geological community. Outcrops at this locale display ‘Hutton’s Unconformity’. This is an angular unconformity where tilted rock units of about 370 million years in age called the Old Red Sandstone (with a basal layer of conglomerate) lie atop nearly vertical strata of greywacke that…