scholarly journals Landscape Arch, Delicate Arch, and Double Arch in Arches National Park, Southeastern Utah

Geosites ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Thomas, Jr. Chidsey ◽  
Grant Willis
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Sand Dunes ◽  
Sedimentary Rocks ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Flowing Water ◽  
Paradox Basin ◽  
Natural Rock ◽  
The World ◽  
Rock Exposure ◽  
Fault Belt

Arches National Park in southeastern Utah has the greatest concentration of natural rock arches in the world. The park is located in a geologic region called the Paradox fold and fault belt in the northern Paradox Basin and showcases spectacular and classic Colorado Plateau geology with its colorful sedimentary rocks, ancient sand dunes, cliffs, domes, fins, and pinnacles, as well as the arches. The arches in the park and the surrounding region were formed by a unique set of circumstances involving Middle Pennsylvanian (about 308 million years ago [Ma]) to Late Triassic (200 Ma) movement of subsurface salt layers, Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Cretaceous (about 70 Ma) deposition, and Tertiary and Quaternary (23 Ma to the present) folding, faulting, erosion, and salt dissolution. Massive, hard, brittle sandstones jointed by folding, resting on or containing soft layers or partings, and located near fold structures such as salt-cored anticlines undergoing dissolution, and a dry climate, all favor the formation of arches. Rarely do all these phenomena occur in one place, but they do in Arches National Park.The Natural Arch and Bridge Society (NABS) stated, “A natural arch is a rock exposure that has a hole completely through it formed by the natural, selective removal of rock, leaving a relatively intact frame.” They also make it clear that a natural bridge (which is at least partially formed by flowing water) is one type of natural arch (NABS website) (see A Bit of Perspective, below, for more explanation). Using their own criteria, Stevens and McCarrick (1988) catalogued over 2000 natural arches in Arches National Park; most have unique characteristics that could qualify them as geosites. However, the three most famous arches in the park, and perhaps the world, are Landscape Arch, Delicate Arch, and Double Arch, and thus these were selected as the geosites for this paper.

Sediments and Sedimentary Rocks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Maltman
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Sedimentary Rock ◽  
Sedimentary Rocks ◽  
Rock Weathering ◽  
Flowing Water ◽  
Organic Sediment ◽  
The World ◽  
Sediment Sorting ◽  
Geological Origin ◽  
The Individual

We are on more familiar ground in this chapter, looking at processes and materials found in the world all around us. Even the names of sedimentary rocks are well known—sandstone, shale, limestone, and so on. Clearly, these materials are highly relevant to vineyard geology because more than three-quarters of the land surface is sedimentary in origin: most of the world’s vineyard areas are underlain by sedimentary rocks. Sediment is the detritus produced from the weathering of already existing rocks. (I explore the process in Chapter 9.) Usually, wind, ice, or water soon moves the debris away, eventually to be deposited and then buried beneath further sediment and with time hardened into sedimentary rock. Weathering can also dissolve material, later to be precipitated. And, needless to say, all the sediment in question here is of geological origin; it has nothing to do with the organic sediment that is thrown, say, in a bottle of vintage port! Wind and flowing water may be able to pick up sediment and move it, depending on the size of the fragments. Faster-moving currents can carry bigger particles: it’s to do with energy, as discussed in the context of rivers in Chapter 8 (see Figure 8.8). The result is sediment sorting. We can easily see the results on a beach—a sandy spot here, a pebbly patch there—because the tides and shore currents have moved the sediment around and sorted it. Thus, most detrital sediments have a characteristic grain size, and we use this to classify the material. The terms for the different sizes are pretty much in line with everyday language: sand, silt, clay, and so on (Figure 5.1). Clay is the finest sediment. It’s composed mainly of the tiny clay minerals that we met in Chapter 3 and has the smooth, slippery feel and handling properties we’re all familiar with; the individual constituent particles are far too fine to see, even with a powerful hand lens. Imagine: if we scaled up a grain of sand to the size of a wine cask, then an individual clay flake would be smaller than a coin.

Upper Triassic lithostratigraphy, depositional systems, and vertebrate paleontology across southern Utah

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 99-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Martz ◽  
James I. Kirkland ◽  
Andrew R.C. Milner ◽  
William G. Parker ◽  
Vincent L. Santucci
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Zion National Park ◽  
Chinle Formation ◽  
Depositional Systems ◽  
Wingate Sandstone ◽  
San Rafael ◽  
San Rafael Swell ◽  
Petrified Forest ◽  
Moenave Formation

The Chinle Formation and the lower part of the overlying Wingate Sandstone and Moenave Formation were deposited in fluvial, lacustrine, paludal, and eolian environments during the Norian and Rhaetian stages of the Late Triassic (~230 to 201.3 Ma), during which time the climate shifted from subtropical to increasingly arid. In southern Utah, the Shinarump Member was largely confined to pre-Chinle paleovalleys and usually overprinted by mottled strata. From southeastern to southwestern Utah, the lower members of the Chinle Formation (Cameron Member and correlative Monitor Butte Member) thicken dramatically whereas the upper members of the Chinle Formation (the Moss Back, Petrified Forest, Owl Rock, and Church Rock Members) become erosionally truncated; south of Moab, the Kane Springs beds are laterally correlative with the Owl Rock Member and uppermost Petrified Forest Member. Prior to the erosional truncation of the upper members, the Chinle Formation was probably thickest in a southeast to northwest trend between Petrified Forest National Park and the Zion National Park, and thinned to the northeast due to the lower Chinle Formation lensing out against the flanks of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains, where the thickness of the Chinle is largely controlled by syndepositional salt tectonism. The Gartra and Stanaker Members of the Ankareh Formation are poorly understood Chinle Formation correlatives north of the San Rafael Swell. Osteichthyan fish, metoposaurid temnospondyls, phytosaurids, and crocodylomorphs are known throughout the Chinle Formation, although most remains are fragmentary. In the Cameron and Monitor Butte Members, metoposaurids are abundant and non-pseudopalatine phytosaurs are known, as is excellent material of the paracrocodylomorph Poposaurus; fragmentary specimens of the aetosaurs Calyptosuchus, Desmatosuchus, and indeterminate paratypothoracisins were probably also recovered from these beds. Osteichthyans, pseudopalatine phytosaurs, and the aetosaur Typothorax are especially abundant in the Kane Springs beds and Church Rock Member of Lisbon Valley, and Typothorax is also known from the Petrified Forest Member in Capitol Reef National Park. Procolophonids, doswelliids, and dinosaurs are known but extremely rare in the Chinle Formation of Utah. Body fossils and tracks of osteichthyans, therapsids, crocodylomorphs, and theropods are well known from the lowermost Wingate Sandstone and Moenave Formation, especially from the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm.

scholarly journals Structure, Diversity, and Environmental Determinants of High-Latitude Threatened Conifer Forests

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 775
Author(s):  
Carlos Esse ◽  
Francisco Correa-Araneda ◽  
Cristian Acuña ◽  
Rodrigo Santander-Massa ◽  
Patricio De Los Ríos-Escalante ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Table ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
National Park ◽  
High Water ◽  
Forest Communities ◽  
Competitive Effect ◽  
Forest Patches ◽  
Last Glaciation ◽  
The World ◽  
Local Topography

Pilgerodendron uviferum (D. Don) Florin is an endemic, threatened conifer that grows in South America. In the sub-Antarctic territory, one of the most isolated places in the world, some forest patches remain untouched since the last glaciation. In this study, we analyze the tree structure and tree diversity and characterize the environmental conditions where P. uviferum-dominated stands develop within the Magellanic islands in Kawésqar National Park, Chile. An environmental matrix using the databases WorldClim and SoilGrids and local topography variables was used to identify the main environmental variables that explain the P. uviferum-dominated stands. PCA was used to reduce the environmental variables, and PERMANOVA and nMDS were used to evaluate differences among forest communities. The results show that two forest communities are present within the Magellanic islands. Both forest communities share the fact that they can persist over time due to the high water table that limits the competitive effect from other tree species less tolerant to high soil water table and organic matter. Our results contribute to knowledge of the species’ environmental preference and design conservation programs.

Provenance of Jurassic sedimentary rocks of south-central Quesnellia, British Columbia: implications for paleogeography

2004 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan T Petersen ◽  
Paul L Smith ◽  
James K Mortensen ◽  
Robert A Creaser ◽  
Howard W Tipper
Keyword(s):  
Detrital Zircon ◽  
Middle Jurassic ◽  
Sedimentary Rocks ◽  
Source Area ◽  
Lower Jurassic ◽  
Early Jurassic ◽  
Late Triassic ◽  
Nd Isotopes ◽  
South Central ◽  
History Of

Jurassic sedimentary rocks of southern to central Quesnellia record the history of the Quesnellian magmatic arc and reflect increasing continental influence throughout the Jurassic history of the terrane. Standard petrographic point counts, geochemistry, Sm–Nd isotopes and detrital zircon geochronology, were employed to study provenance of rocks obtained from three areas of the terrane. Lower Jurassic sedimentary rocks, classified by inferred proximity to their source areas as proximal or proximal basin are derived from an arc source area. Sandstones of this age are immature. The rocks are geochemically and isotopically primitive. Detrital zircon populations, based on a limited number of analyses, have homogeneous Late Triassic or Early Jurassic ages, reflecting local derivation from Quesnellian arc sources. Middle Jurassic proximal and proximal basin sedimentary rocks show a trend toward more evolved mature sediments and evolved geochemical characteristics. The sandstones show a change to more mature grain components when compared with Lower Jurassic sedimentary rocks. There is a decrease in εNdT values of the sedimentary rocks and Proterozoic detrital zircon grains are present. This change is probably due to a combination of two factors: (1) pre-Middle Jurassic erosion of the Late Triassic – Early Jurassic arc of Quesnellia, making it a less dominant source, and (2) the increase in importance of the eastern parts of Quesnellia and the pericratonic terranes, such as Kootenay Terrane, both with characteristically more evolved isotopic values. Basin shale environments throughout the Jurassic show continental influence that is reflected in the evolved geochemistry and Sm–Nd isotopes of the sedimentary rocks. The data suggest southern Quesnellia received material from the North American continent throughout the Jurassic but that this continental influence was diluted by proximal arc sources in the rocks of proximal derivation. The presence of continent-derived material in the distal sedimentary rocks of this study suggests that southern Quesnellia is comparable to known pericratonic terranes.

scholarly journals FITOPLANKTON DAN SIKLUS KARBON GLOBAL

OSEANA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Mochamad Ramdhan Firdaus ◽  
Lady Ayu Sri Wijayanti
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Primary Productivity ◽  
Net Primary Productivity ◽  
Sedimentary Rocks ◽  
Global Carbon Cycle ◽  
Biological Pump ◽  
Large Role ◽  
The World ◽  
Pump Mechanism ◽  
Global Carbon

PHYTOPLANKTON AND GLOBAL CARBON CYCLE. Scientists around the world believe that phytoplankton, although microscopic, have a large role in the global carbon cycle. Various research results show that the net primary productivity of all phytoplankton in the sea is almost as large as the net primary productivity of all plants on land. Phytoplankton through the process of photosynthesis absorbs 40-50 PgC / year from the atmosphere. Also, phytoplankton is known to be responsible for transporting carbon from the atmosphere to the seafloor through the carbon biological pump mechanism. Phytoplankton from the coccolithophores group is known to play a role in the sequestration of carbon on the seabed through the carbonate pump mechanism. The mechanism is capable of sequestering carbon for thousands of years on the seabed in the form of sedimentary rocks (limestone).

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