The Kane Wash Tuff was erupted from a vent area in the southern Delamar Range, Nevada, at lat 37°14′ N., long 114°47′ E. The source location is shown by distribution, thickness, and facies variations of individual cooling units, field evidence for caldera collapse, and petrographic and chemical similarity of pre- and post-collapse rocks. The Kane Wash Tuff, with a K/Ar age of 14 m.y., is the youngest ash-flow sequence in south-central Lincoln County. It covered an area of 3000 to 4000 sq miles. Original volume was > 200 cu miles. Correlations of tuffs in Nye County, Nevada, Washington County, Utah, and the north Pahranagat Range with the type formation are not considered valid. Activity of the Kane Springs Wash center began with eruption of lavas. Six or more Kane Wash ash-flow cooling units, at least three of which are multiple-flow, were then emplaced, followed by collapse forming an E.-W. elongated, scalloped caldera 8 by 12 miles in diameter. The depression was filled to overflowing by a complex sequence of welded and nonwelded tuff, lava flows and intrusives, and talus. No resurgence is apparent. Rocks erupted from the center are mainly comendites, but include trachytic soda rhyolite, trachyte, basalt, and silicic rocks without obvious peralkaline affinities. The peralkaline rocks contain phenocrysts of alkali feldspar, clinopyroxene, fayalite, ± quartz and have the high, B, Be, Ga, Nb, Zr, rare-earth, and halogen contents typical of the comendite-pantellerite-trachyte suit. Basin-range faulting has only slightly disturbed and tilted the caldera area. Subsequent erosion has magnificently exposed geologic relations.

ABSTRACT Two sites in Kane County, south-central Utah, were selected for this two-day field trip. Stunning outcrop examples of the internal structure of eolian, wadi, and microbialite beds are accessible in the Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation at White House camp along the Paria River, and outcrop details of deformed bedding are accessible in the Lower Jurassic Navajo Sandstone on Wire Pass/Coyote Wash trail. Respective facies are described and interpreted within a theme of “back to basics in sedimentology” and within a landscape framework of the Grand Staircase and the East Kaibab monocline. A tan, cross-bedded facies of coastal eolian origin and a red lenticular facies of wadi origin in the Thousand Pockets Member, Carmel Formation, were coeval with a wavy laminated facies of organo-sedimentary origin in the Judd Hollow Tongue of the Carmel Formation. Grainflow, wind-ripple, and grainfall processes conspired on Jurassic dunes to deposit a cross-bed array of eolian sandflow, wind-ripple, and grainfall foreset strata, and wind-ripple and possibly grainfall toeset strata in the tan cross-bedded facies. Episodes of wadi flooding are preserved in the red lenticular facies as cyclical, upward-fining sandstones-mudstones punctuated by exposure and mudcrack fills. They locally and temporarily interrupted eolian sedimentation before being overrun and buried by eolian dunes. Ripples and microbes built up the wavy laminated facies at a supratidal marine shoreline of the Middle Jurassic seaway. Ground-shaking from an earthquake or extraterrestrial impact triggered severe deformation of eolian dune sand in the disturbed facies of the Navajo Sandstone.

Abstract The main part of this chapter describes a geological journey westwards from central to SW Japan and is specically aimed at the overseas visitor new to Japanese held geology. This is followed by a brief overview of the Japanese geopark system and museums with geological exhibits. There are currently over 30 geoparks in Japan, providing one of the most dense networks in the world of sites of special geological interest.