Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and the Middle Rocky Mountains

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Route

Start point

Casper, Wyoming

End point

Salt Lake City, Utah

Roads

Wyoming 120, Wyoming 296, U.S. 212

Total distance

152.8 miles

Geology

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

Reference

Love, J.D., 1989, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and the Middle Rocky Mountains : 28th International Geological Congress, Field Trip Guidebook T328: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, 93 p.

Availability

Order from the American Geophysical Union Bookstore. Go to the AGU On Line Book Catalog for ordering information.