Final Thoughts

....... I will add something later, just finished this so wanted to put it in ............. Working on this site........



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Picture from our last hotel before getting to College Station. Thanks to the people at Super 8 in Clayton, NM for the Welcome and those really are soft beds.

The Long Drive

On Sunday, we made the long drive from Clayton, NM to College Station. It was an interesting drive. A little bit of boredom ( what do you want its a long drive ), a little bit of napping, a couple of interesting videos on Rocks and the Earth, some questions from Jack to test our knowledge and some observations on more morphologies from Rick. No pictures. Reminded me of our first drive when leaving College Station though we now knew each other. Maybe a little too well :-)
We were also given instructions for our last meeting together for Monday morning. Too bad we can't keep rock hammers, they were fun to use.

Great Sand Dunes and Capulin Volcano

Very early morning today, we need to finish up at Sand Dunes then head to Spanish Peaks and finally to Capulin volcano.
We split up into groups and set about our experiments. We tested stream velocity and for surges.



Rick explained how to determine the slope of the dunes and the sections we needed to test.



We notices lots of patterns in the water and even some hematite flowing within it. We also saw where the vegetation began within this park.



We then headed off to the Spanish Peaks and to specifically look at the dykes that formed there. The dykes run vertically and have been weathered to a certain degree. One is called the Devil's staircase.



We then drove on to our final destination of the day. We were going to the Capulin Volcano. Along the way we saw outcroppings of lava. We were shown a video at the visitor center on how this region formed. Capulin Volcano is a cinder cone volcano. When we reached the top, we were able to go into the volcano, only a small amount, and then walked around the top of it. There were some great views from the top but only when I was able to get close to the edge :-)

Falls and Amethyst hunting and a taste of Great Sand Dunes

The day after visiting the Slumgullion Earthflow, Ron took us to the Continental divide. He talked about how one side leads to Pacific and other to Atlantic. He showed us a measuring station. Rick also mentioned how the water would travel ;-)



We then headed to a nearby waterfall. We talked about some of the morphology found at this location. We saw topple rocks and hexagonal configurations of the soil due to dessication. We saw some landslides and the waterfall. We looked around and noticed the whole section was within a caldera. Lake City and the surrounding areas are enclosed within several calderas in this region of the country.



We went for lunch in Creede, CO and visited a nearby close mine. There were quite a few mine leavings that we checked for amethyst. Rick was nice enough to let us try for a while. For the time we were there, you could hear the rock hammers at work. I was too busy breaking rocks that I did not take pictures but will try to get some from others. :-)
I got quite a few pieces with galina and pyrite. I was working with Kelly to find the elusive amethyst so we both got plenty of sample of those two minerals. She was the one that found our small sample of amethyst. Thanks Kelly. Quite a few of the others got the same minerals as we did, some in greater quantities than others.

The Great Sand Dunes were are next destination for the day. Fran and Carolyn talked about the experiments we would perform. We all wrote our instructions and data tables in our notebook. Unfortunately, our trip was rained out but we will try tomorrow. We did get a chance to visit the main building and found out a few things about the Great Sand Dunes.

Slumgullian Earthflow and Mine

We went to visit the earthflow in the morning. Ron Kaiser, from the Texas A&M Water Management Hydrological Science program, was our "tour guide" for Lake City. He took us by Lake San Cristobal and explained the importance of the water to Lake City.



The original plan was to use the Brunton compass to measure the slope when we got to the earthflow but it had been raining too much. We still went around the site and investigated the terrain and the resulting morphology. We could not believe that some people actually have built homes right at the foot of the earthflow. There is a very important reason for checking the geology of a given area whenever you plan on building.



When we left the Windy Pass Overlook, we stopped off at the foot of the earthflow to get samples of the soil. There were some nice crystals of selenite that we found in the soil.



After lunch, we were taken to the Hard Tack Mine. Robert took us through the mine and explained the different parts of it. He explained the different methods the miners used to get ore from the mine and transporting it out.

Visit to Black Canyon

Black Canyon was the destination of the day. Black Canyon was another awe-inspiring landscape but again a little unnerving. The bus took roads that seemed narrow and very far from the ground. But at the end, we were able to experience the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. This is a very deep and sometime narrow canyon. We visited several places to look down at the canyon and to discuss the intrusions found throughout the canyon. Rick explained how the canyon developed and the significance of the morphologies.



After Black Canyon, we headed to Lake City. We stopped along the road to discuss several landslides that had occurred in the region.



We also stopped to take pictures of the hoodoos and retrieved some rock samples. Several of us found some peacock ore, welded tuff, gneiss, and sedimentary rock. Closer to Lake City, Rick explained the calderas found in this region.

Grand Mesa and Netra's Crazy Landslide Tour

Today started off great. We went from Ouray and towards Grand Mesa. Along the way to our next destination, we stopped a couple of times to see deposits of Mancos shale. At one point, we were taken to Paradox basin which is made of shale and informed that there were probably fossils. We started searching everywhere almost like kids doing an Easter egg hunt :-)



Most of us found something that may have been fossils and for the ones that had not, Jack was nice enough to share some he had found. Thanks Jack!
Grand Mesa was spectacular. I think I am going to run out of adjectives on this trip. Dan drove the bus to the top and we were able to see the whole of Grand Mesa. We saw a landslide that had recently occurred from our vantage point along with other physical weathering.





We stopped by a lake for a group picture and a tribute to one of our sponsors.


We also stopped on the side of the road to investigate some debris flows.



Afterwards, we headed to Netra's landslide slide. It is one of his research projects. This was actually a grueling trek across scrub, stinging nettles, boulder fields, loose soil, then a "small" climb (150m?), across broken trees and finally the top, sort of. There were a few spills, a few scrapes but all in all in seemed my colleagues were happy of their reaching the top.

My Day at Ouray

I had most of Monday for myself. I ate a good breakfast and then basically just bummed around a bit. I worked on some picture captions and updated the previous post a little more. It wasn't really frightening on the 4X4 trip. It was more unnerving :-)
After working on pics, I headed out to walk by the stream that was right behind our rooms. I took a pleasant stroll and, now I can't help myself, collected some rocks. I think I found a few that had gold but of course it wasn't gold, it was pyrite :-( But it still looks cool!
At five, Rick showed us a few slides to help us comprehend a little more about systems and how they relate to what is around us and specifically for geology. Fascinating stuff! Will see if i can post his slides later.
Jim was able to share the picture of the bear we saw on our arrival to the hotel. Here it is along with a few other pictures of what we could see from our rooms.

4X4 Tour of the Red Mountains

After a frightening experience (at least for me ;-)) of hanging out of an open jeep to go up the side of a mountain, we reached a couple of summits and took some pictures. We took a group picture at our last stop, Lake Como

Location of Lake Como using Google Earth, click on it and you can see where it is and the dark blue dots indicate part of our path.

I took quite a few pictures as we went up. The views were AWESOME.



We were able to see a lot of mechanical erosion, especially paths left behind by glaciation and avalanches, that have taken place on the mountains.