Stop 1: The Chalk Bluffs, where students described individual fall horizons, identified key features, especially lithic types, and created stratigraphic columns. These then became the basis for the next stops where further stratigraphic relations provided additional clues as to the complexities associated with the eruption of the Bishop Tuff. Our goal was to provide field tools that can be used to decipher the intricacies of large caldera-forming eruptions.
Stop 2: The iconic Chalfant Quarry, where every person who visits the Bishop Tuff must go for two reasons: 1. To take their picture in front of the beautifully exposed fall and ignimbrite sequence; and 2. To understand that the simple model of fall-then-flow deposition during caldera-forming eruptions is a drastic oversimplification, as ignimbrite interfingers with fall unit F8 before the deposits of fall unit F9.
Stop 3: The plot (or in this case, the ignimbrite) thickens as one goes north closer to source. We also experienced the heatwave that was gripping southern California and the rest of the southwest (“Wow, look at this great layering in the shady areas…”).
