Upcoming Field Trips

Lemhi Mountains, Idaho

Upcoming posts in 2019-2020 will include:
USA:  
More about Yellowstone and its neighborhood (several trips)
The Alps of Switzerland (several trips)
Geology of The Matterhorn
Geology of Germany's Rhine River
In the Footsteps of William Smith - Geology of England
Geologic sites in England
Geologic sites in Scotland
Newberry Caldera 
Donner Pass
Bryce Canyon National Park
the Wasatch Front, Utah
Wind River Mtns Wyoming
The Sinks State Park, Wyoming
Hamilton Dome, Montana
... and more!

Pompeii, Italy

Tidbits to Wet Your Appetite:

• Some of the best things to visit at Yellowstone are outside the park -- I'll show you!
• The Cascades volcanoes are a lot more dangerous than they look.  It is nearly certain that you will see another eruption or two there during your lifetime.
• There is a chunk of oceanic crust and mantle sitting along the Smith River in northern California!
• The lower half of The Matterhorn in Switzerland is oceanic crust.
• You won't believe how close homes and businesses are to the San Andreas on the San Francisco peninsula!
• Much of the Coast Ranges of California originated in an ancient subduction zone, where the ocean floor was scraped off and plastered onto the continent.  No wonder there are so many landslides!
• One of California's biggest earthquakes was not on the San Andreas -- it was on the east side of the Sierra Nevada in Owens Valley.
• Death Valley is a hole that is literally still opening in the earth's crust.
• Near Las Vegas, you can walk on ancient thrust faults that shoved the continental shelf up onto the continent.
• The topography at St. George, Utah is inverted -- what was low is high, and what was high is low.
• The Popo Agie River at Lander, Wyoming, does a 360 degree loop and disappears under the canyon, only to reappear a quarter mile farther down the canyon.
• Fremont Lake on the western Wind River Mountains was formed by a glacier more than 1800 feet thick.
• The best caldera to see at Yellowstone is outside the park at Island Park, Idaho.
• In the Beaverhead, Lemhi, and Lost River mountains, Idaho, the ancient continental shelf was folded like an accordion and shoved onto the continent.  The folds are spectacular!

Trail to the Burgess Shale, British Columbia