Detrital sanidine 40Ar/39Ar dating confirms <2 Ma age of Crooked Ridge paleoriver and subsequent deep denudation of the southwestern Colorado Plateau

Crooked Ridge and White Mesa in northeastern Arizona (southwestern United States) preserve, as inverted topography, a 57-km-long abandoned alluvial system near the present drainage divide between the Colorado, San Juan, and Little Colorado Rivers. The pathway of this paleoriver, flowing southwest toward eastern Grand Canyon, has led to provocative alternative models for its potential importance in carving Grand Canyon. The ∼50-m-thick White Mesa alluvium is the only datable record of this paleoriver system. We present new 40Ar/39Ar sanidine dating that confirms a ca. 2 Ma maximum depositional age for White Mesa alluvium, supported by a large mode (n = 42) of dates from 2.06 to 1.76 Ma. Older grain modes show abundant 37–23 Ma grains mostly derived ultimately from the San Juan Mountains, as is also documented by rare volcanic and basement pebbles in the White Mesa alluvium. A tuff with an age of 1.07 ± 0.05 Ma is inset below, and hence provides a younger age bracket for the White Mesa alluvium. Newly dated remnant deposits on Black Mesa contain similar 37–23 Ma grains and exotic pebbles, plus a large mode (n = 71) of 9.052 ± 0.003 Ma sanidine. These deposits could be part of the White Mesa alluvium without any Pleistocene grains, but new detrital sanidine data from the upper Bidahochi Formation near Ganado, Arizona, have similar maximum depositional ages of 11.0–6.1 Ma and show similar 40–20 Ma San Juan Mountains–derived sanidine. Thus, we tentatively interpret the &lt;9 Ma Black Mesa deposit to be a remnant of an 11–6 Ma Bidahochi alluvial system derived from the now-eroded southwestern fringe of the San Juan Mountains. This alluvial fringe is the probable source for reworking of 40–20 Ma detrital sanidine and exotic clasts into Oligocene Chuska Sandstone, Miocene Bidahochi Formation, and ultimately into the &lt;2 Ma White Mesa alluvium. The &lt;2 Ma age of the White Mesa alluvium does not support models that the Crooked Ridge paleoriver originated as a late Oligocene to Miocene San Juan River that ultimately carved across the Kaibab uplift. Instead, we interpret the Crooked Ridge paleoriver as a 1.9–1.1 Ma tributary to the Little Colorado River, analogous to modern-day Moenkopi Wash. We reject the “young sediment in old paleovalley” hypothesis based on mapping, stratigraphic, and geomorphic constraints. Deep exhumation and beheading by tributaries of the San Juan and Colorado Rivers caused the Crooked Ridge paleotributary to be abandoned between 1.9 and 1.1 Ma. Thermochronologic data also provide no evidence for, and pose substantial difficulties with, the hypothesis for an earlier (Oligocene–Miocene) Colorado–San Juan paleoriver system that flowed along the Crooked Ridge pathway and carved across the Kaibab uplift.

Magmatic evolution of zoned and unzoned ignimbrites: evidence for a complex crustal architecture feeding four rapid-sequence, caldera-forming eruptions in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado

The last four caldera-forming ignimbrites in the central San Juan caldera cluster, Colorado, erupted 1,400 km3 in ≤ 80 k.y. and alternated between zoned crystal-poor rhyolite to crystal-rich dacite and unzoned, crystal-rich dacite. The zoned 150 km3 Rat Creek Tuff (26.91 Ma), unzoned 250 km3 Cebolla Creek Tuff, and zoned 500 km3 Nelson Mountain Tuff (26.90 Ma) formed the nested San Luis caldera complex with slightly offset calderas, and the unzoned 500 km3 Snowshoe Mountain Tuff (26.87 Ma) formed the Creede caldera to the south. The Rat Creek Tuff, Nelson Mountain Tuff, and Snowshoe Mountain Tuff have similar mineral assemblages of plagioclase, sanidine, quartz, biotite, hornblende, clinopyroxene, Fe-Ti oxides, and accessory zircon, titanite, and apatite. The Cebolla Creek Tuff differs from the other three ignimbrites with more abundant hornblende and lack of quartz and sanidine. Trace element compositions of interstitial glass are unique to each ignimbrite, correlating with mineral assemblages and inferred crystallization depths. Glass, feldspar, hornblende, and clinopyroxene thermobarometry calculations provide evidence for vertically extensive crustal magma reservoirs with a common magmatic zone at ∼435-470 MPa (∼16-17 km) transitioning into shallow pre-eruptive reservoirs between ∼110-340 MPa (∼4-13 km), similar to the estimated magma reservoir architecture of the Altiplano Puna Volcanic Complex. The upper portions of the eruptible parts of the magma reservoirs of the Rat Creek Tuff (215 ± 50 MPa/∼810-820 °C), Cebolla Creek Tuff (340 ± 20 MPa/∼860-880° C), Nelson Mountain Tuff (215 ± 20 MPa/∼745-800 °C), and Snowshoe Mountain Tuff (110 ± 40 MPa/825 ± 10 °C) occupied shallow levels in the crust similar to other magma reservoirs of the central San Juan caldera complex. Trace element modelling correlates with a deep crystallization signature in the unzoned Cebolla Creek Tuff and Snowshoe Mountain Tuff, typified by a flat trend in Ba versus Sr whole-rock and glass chemistry. The zoned Rat Creek Tuff and Nelson Mountain Tuff are typified by a steep trend in Ba versus Sr chemistry interpreted as a shallower crystallization signature. Similarly, the unzoned Cebolla Creek Tuff and Snowshoe Mountain Tuff have flatter slopes in FeO versus An space of plagioclase chemistry interpreted as more abundant deep plagioclase crystallization and a difficulty to physically mix with Fe-rich mafic recharge magma due to higher viscosity. The zoned Rat Creek Tuff and Nelson Mountain Tuff have higher slopes in FeO versus An space of plagioclase chemistry interpreted as more abundant shallow plagioclase crystallization and more feasible mixing with Fe-rich mafic recharge magma due to lower viscosity. The eruption of the Rat Creek Tuff was likely triggered by mafic injection, but the other three ignimbrites lack mingling textures in pumice, suggesting that other mechanisms were important in causing such large eruptions. After a prolonged period of mantle-derived magma injection and crustal heating (∼25,000 km3 Conejos Formation erupted during ∼35-29 Ma), the San Juan magmatic body became a robust and versatile producer of diverse eruptible magmas in short time periods during its Oligocene ignimbrite flare-up.

Re-evaluation of exotic gravel and inverted topography at Crooked Ridge, northern Arizona: Relicts of an ancient river of regional extent

An ancient drainage, named Crooked Ridge river, is unique on the Colorado Plateau in extent, physiography, and preservation of its alluvium. This river is important for deciphering the generally obscure evolution of rivers in this region. The ancient course of the river is well preserved in inverted relief and in a large valley for a distance of several tens of kilometers on the Kaibito Plateau–White Mesa areas of northern Arizona. The prominent landform ends ∼45 km downstream from White Mesa at a remarkable wind gap carved in the Echo Cliffs. The Crooked Ridge river alluvium contains clasts of all lithologies exposed upstream from the Kaibito Plateau to the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, so we agree with earlier workers that Crooked Ridge river was a regional river that originated in these mountains. The age of Crooked Ridge river cannot be determined in a satisfactory manner. The alluvium now present in the channel is the last deposit of the river before it died, but it says nothing about when it was born and lived. Previous research attempted to date this alluvium, mostly indirectly by applying a sanidine age obtained ∼50 km away, and directly from six sanidine grains (but no zircon grains), and concluded that Crooked Ridge river was a small river of local significance, because the exotic clasts were interpreted to have been derived from recycling of nearby preexisting piedmont gravels; that its valley was not large; and that it only existed ca. 2 Ma. Our proposition in 2013 was that Crooked Ridge river came into being in Miocene and possibly Oligocene time, which is when the very high San Juan Mountains were formed, thus giving rise to abundant new precipitation and runoff. To address some of this ambiguity, we examined all available evidence, which led us to conclude that several of the interpretations by previous researchers are not tenable. We found no evidence for a preexisting piedmont from which the Crooked Ridge river exotic clasts could be recycled. Furthermore, the principal advocate of the piedmont discounted it in a later publication. Tributaries to Crooked Ridge river in the White Mesa area contain no exotic clasts that could have been derived from a local clast-rich piedmont; only the Crooked Ridge river channel contains exotic clasts. So, we conclude that Crooked Ridge river was the principal stream, that it was of regional significance, that it was headed in the San Juan Mountains, and that it existed long before it died, perhaps as early as Oligocene time, until it was captured by the San Juan River, maybe ca. 2 Ma. West and downstream from The Gap, no deposits or geomorphic features attributable to the Crooked Ridge river have been preserved, but we infer that the river joined the Colorado and Little Colorado paleorivers somewhere on the east side of the Kaibab Plateau, and then crossed the plateau along a paleovalley that approximated the present alignment of the eastern Grand Canyon. West of the Kaibab Plateau, the combined rivers perhaps flowed in a northwest-trending strike valley to an as-yet-unknown destination.

Variable Forest Structure and Fire Reconstructed Across Historical Ponderosa Pine and Mixed Conifer Landscapes of the San Juan Mountains, Colorado

Late-1800s land surveys were used to reconstruct historical forest structure and fire over more than 235,000 ha in ponderosa pine and mixed conifer landscapes of the San Juan Mountains, Colorado, to further understand differences among regional mountain ranges and help guide landscape-scale restoration and management. Historically, fire-resistant ponderosa pine forests with low tree density and relatively frequent fire, the most restorable forests, covered only the lower 15%–24% of the study area. The other 76%–85% had dominance by mixed- to high-severity fires. Both ponderosa pine and dry mixed conifer had generally pervasive, often dense understory shrubs, and ~20% of pine and ~50%–75% of mixed conifer forests also had high historical tree density. Intensive fuel reduction and mechanical restoration are infeasible and likely ineffective in the upper part of the pine zones and in mixed conifer, where restoring historical fire and creating fire-adapted communities and infrastructure may be the only viable option. Old-growth forests can be actively restored in the lower 15%–24% of the montane, likely increasing landscape resistance and resilience to fire, but mixed- to high-severity fires did also occur near these areas. This imperfect resistance suggests that fire-adapted human communities and infrastructure are needed throughout the study area.