Greetings from the Land of Enchantment and Colorful Colorado!

 

 

This is the semi-official blog following the adventures of a group of graduate students and professors from the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Oregon (UO). We are also privileged to be in the company of USGS researchers from the “Cenozoic Landscape Evolution of the Southern Rocky Mountains” project, who are highlighting their latest findings which are transforming our understanding of this region of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado.

This is a Staples’ Field Trip, which is supported by a fund in honor of Dr. Lloyd W. Staples, who spent his career as a Professor of Geological Sciences at UO, and has supported UO excursions to incredible geologic locations near and far. From the mouths of our esteemed trip leaders, the aim of this trip is to provide

a  synthesis of  accumulated knowledge and our collective contributions  to an understanding  of  the  Oligocene‐to‐present‐day  evolution  of  the  northern  Rio  Grande  Rift  and  the voluminous Oligocene calc‐alkaline volcanism that preceded the onset  of rifting. The underlying theme of this trip is how volcanism and tectonic setting changed in relation to each other over the last 35 Ma, and  this  will  be  explored  on  the  basis  of  physical  volcanology,  rift‐basin  structure  and  volcano‐sedimentary  stratigraphy,  a  wealth  of  new  geochronologic  and  geophysical  constraints,  landscape evolution, and igneous petrology. This trip will feature the integration of different types of information to develop a regional perspective, and insights gained from iconic examples of geologic phenomena.

Whew – quite a endeavor!    Follow this blog to see how our geologic enlightenment turns out!

Return to our main page here: https://blogs.uoregon.edu/staples2016/

Visit the rest of our department at: http://earthsciences.uoregon.edu/