Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and the Middle Rocky Mountains
Route
Start point
Casper, WyomingEnd point
Salt Lake City, UtahRoads
Wyoming 120, Wyoming 296, U.S. 212Total distance
152.8 milesGeology
Summary
This trip is designed to show participants the granite-cored Laramide (Late Cretaceous-earliest Eocene) mountain ranges in the middle Rocky Mountains, and their various stages of burial by Cenozoic deposits and subsequent Quaternary exhumation. Mountain-flank structures involving Precambrian, Paleozoic, and Mesozoic rocks, the classic Heart Mountain detachment fault complex, and the rootless overthrust mountain ranges of the Wyoming-Utah-Idaho thrust belt are traversed.The features listed below are limited to those in Montana and NW Wyoming (in or near Yellowstone National Park).
Key Lithologic Features
- Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Tertiary stratigraphy in the area of the Heart Mountain detachment
- Stratigraphy of east margin of Beartooth Mountains
- Eocene volcanics (Absaroka volcanic field)
- Soda Butte travertine cone
- travertine terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs
- volcanic rocks associated with Yellowstone caldera
- Quake Lake landslide deposits
Structures
- Heart Mountain detachment fault
- Yellowstone caldera
Landforms
- Dead Indian Pass
- Clark Fork Canyon
- Beartooth Plateau / Beartooth Mountains
- Beartooth Pass
- Bearthooth Butte
Other Features
- Mammoth Hot Springs
- Norris Geyser Basin
