Geologic Field Trips to the Basin and Range, Rocky Mountains, Snake River Plain, and Terranes of the U.S. Cordillera

The combination of a long geologic record and stunning scenery has attracted geologists to the Rocky Mountain and Cordilleran regions for two centuries. Past and ongoing geologic research in this region has resulted in a wealth of significant observations and paradigm shifts in interpretations. This field guide, compiled for the 2011 joint meeting of the GSA Rocky Mountain and Cordilleran Sections, provides a small and succulent appetizer to the full menu of remarkable geology of the Rocky Mountain and Cordillera regions. Field trips presented in this volume span geologic topics from Neoproterozoic deposits, late Paleozoic—early Mesozoic terrane accretion, Eocene mammals and climate, Eocene to middle Miocene extension, late Miocene and younger basin and river system evolution, and Pleistocene glaciers and pluvial lakes.
Middle Cryogenian (“Sturtian”) Pocatello Formation: Field relations on Oxford Mountain and the Portneuf area, southeast Idaho
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Published:January 01, 2011
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CiteCitation
Joshua A. Keeley, Paul K. Link, 2011. "Middle Cryogenian (“Sturtian”) Pocatello Formation: Field relations on Oxford Mountain and the Portneuf area, southeast Idaho", Geologic Field Trips to the Basin and Range, Rocky Mountains, Snake River Plain, and Terranes of the U.S. Cordillera, Jeffrey Lee, James P. Evans
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Abstract
Detailed mapping along the east face of Oxford Ridge in the southern Bannock Range, southeast Idaho determines the stratigraphic placement and lateral extent of strata in the Scout Mountain Member of the Neoproterozoic Pocatello Formation. The lower “transitional unit” overlies the Bannock Volcanic Member and consists of 70 m of massive diamictite with argillitic and vesicular basaltic clasts up to cobble size intercalated with thin metabasalt and hyaloclastite units. Overlying the transitional unit is a 150–190-m-thick, massive, brown-green to purple sandy diamictite with dominantly quartzose cobble clasts. Interbedded with this middle unit is a 60-m-thick epiclastic volcanic interval informally named the Oxford Mountain tuffite. An upper sandstone unit up to 100 m thick lies above the diamictite at the head of Fivemile Creek in the southern portion of the map area.
The volcanic interval contains plagioclase-phyric volcanic lithic sandstone, porphyritic volcanic lithic fragments and rounded cobbles in tuffaceous diamictite and a reworked stratified lapilli-tuff. It is interstratified with quartzose and volcanogenic diamictite and can be traced along 5.5 km of strike. On Oxford Mountain, laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry U-Pb zircon ages presented here and additional sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe ages constrain the underlying Bannock Volcanic Member to be 717–686 Ma and require that the overlying Scout Mountain Member is younger than 685 Ma.
- absolute age
- Bannock Range
- clastic rocks
- Cryogenian
- dates
- diamictite
- field studies
- field trips
- ICP mass spectra
- Idaho
- mass spectra
- Neoproterozoic
- nesosilicates
- orthosilicates
- Pocatello Formation
- Precambrian
- Proterozoic
- road log
- sedimentary rocks
- silicates
- spectra
- stratigraphic units
- Sturtian
- U/Pb
- United States
- upper Precambrian
- volcaniclastics
- zircon
- zircon group
- southeastern Idaho
- Scout Mountain Member
- Oxford Mountain
- Bannock Volcanic Member