Geologic Excursions in Southwestern North America
This volume, prepared as part of the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Phoenix, includes field guides covering aspects of the spectacular geology of southwestern North America. Field guides tackle the geology of the southern Colorado Plateau, from paleoenvironments of Petrified Forest National Park, to Jurassic sand dunes of southern Utah, to the San Francisco Volcanic Field, to awesome Grand Canyon. Appropriately for the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing, one trip visits sites in northern Arizona that helped prepare astronauts for their missions. Several guides address aspects of the Proterozoic to Cenozoic tectonic development of the Transition Zone between the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range. Exploring the Basin and Range, guides feature Laramide tectonism and ore deposit development, features associated with large-magnitude Cenozoic extensional tectonism, large Miocene volcanic centers in northwestern Arizona, and tectonism and development of the lower Colorado River. Three field guides explore various aspects of northwestern Mexico, including tectonics and ore deposits of Sonora, fauna and paleoenvironments of Colorado River delta deposits, and volcanism in central Baja California. Finally, a guide analyzes anthropogenic earth fissures that have developed in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Geology and paleontology of the early-middle Pleistocene El Golfo beds, Sonora, Mexico—A field guide
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Published:September 04, 2019
ABSTRACT
The early to middle Pleistocene Colorado River Delta deposits exposed in the upper Gulf of California, Sonora, México, are host to a diverse paleo-fauna and paleo-flora (El Golfo local paleobiota) of Irvingtonian Land Mammal Age (Calabrian Stage). The fossiliferous exposures are found in badlands developed in fluvio-deltaic sediments that have been mildly deformed during late Pleistocene doming along the Cerro Prieto fault. The El Golfo Project is part of the resource inventory for the Upper Gulf of California and Colorado River Delta Biosphere Reserve. Through joint efforts by Arizona Western College, the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, and the Centro de Geociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, about 50% of the region has been prospected and mapped. To date, more than 13,500 mapped vertebrate fossil localities are documented, including important microvertebrate sites. New mammalian, avian, fish, and flora taxa have been recently added to a growing paleobiota list that now numbers more than 145 taxa. The preserved paleobiota suggests the existence of three ecologic communities: freshwater aquatic, shrub and brush woodland, and savannah-like grassland. Some of the fauna are presently endemic to geographic areas farther south, suggesting a more tropical to subtropical climate on the Colorado River Delta during this part of the Irvingtonian.