Field Excursions in the Front Range and Wet Mountains of Colorado for GSA Connects 2022

The three field guides in this volume, associated with GSA Connects 2022 held in Denver, Colorado, USA, tackle some interesting aspects of Colorado geology and paleontology. Learn about dinosaur tracks, microbial mat, and applied photogrammetry at Dinosaur Ridge; explore the nature and extent of the Mesoproterozoic Picuris orogeny in Colorado; and learn more about Paleoproterozoic tectonics of the northern Colorado Rocky Mountains Front Range in the context of the authors’ proposed tectonic models.
Exploring the nature and extent of the Mesoproterozoic Picuris orogeny in Colorado, USA
*Current address: Newmont Mining Corporation, Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mining Company, Victor, Colorado 80860, USA.
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Published:September 26, 2022
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CiteCitation
Yvette D. Kuiper, Ruth F. Aronoff, Christopher G. Daniel, Madison Bzdok*, 2022. "Exploring the nature and extent of the Mesoproterozoic Picuris orogeny in Colorado, USA", Field Excursions in the Front Range and Wet Mountains of Colorado for GSA Connects 2022, Kevin H. Mahan, Lynne Carpenter
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ABSTRACT
The Mesoproterozoic is a controversial time within the Earth’s history, and is characterized by high temperature/pressure ratios in metamorphic rocks, a large volume of extensional plutons, very few economic mineral deposits, and possibly a slowdown in plate tectonic processes. In Laurentia, ca. 1.48–1.35 Ga is well known as a time of voluminous ferroan magmatism, which led to conflicting tectonic interpretations that range from continental extension to convergent margin settings. Recently, a ca. 1.50–1.35 Ga orogenic belt was proposed that spanned Laurentia from present-day eastern Canada to the southwestern United States. Unlike the preceding Paleoproterozoic Yavapai/Mazatzal orogenies and the subsequent late Mesoproterozoic Grenville orogeny, the early–mid-Mesoproterozoic Picuris orogeny in the southwestern United States was relatively unrecognized until about two decades ago, when geochronology data and depositional age constraints became more abundant. In multiple study areas of Arizona and New Mexico, deposition, metamorphism, and deformation previously ascribed to the Yavapai/Mazatzal orogenies proved to be part of the ca. 1.4 Ga Picuris orogeny. In Colorado, the nature and extent of the Picuris orogeny is poorly understood. On this trip, we discuss new evidence for the Picuris orogeny in the central Colorado Front Range, from Black Hawk in the central Colorado Front Range to the Wet Mountains, Colorado. We will discuss how the Picuris orogeny reactivated or overprinted earlier structures, and perhaps controlled the location of structures associated with Cambrian rifting, the Cretaceous–Paleogene Laramide orogeny, and the Rio Grande rift, and associated mineralization. We will also discuss whether and how the Picuris orogeny, and the Mesoproterozoic in general, were unique within the Earth’s history.
- batholiths
- Colorado
- field trips
- Front Range
- Grenvillian Orogeny
- guidebook
- intrusions
- Mazatzal Orogeny
- Mesoproterozoic
- North America
- Paleoproterozoic
- Precambrian
- Proterozoic
- Rio Grande Rift
- road log
- Rocky Mountains
- tectonics
- U. S. Rocky Mountains
- United States
- upper Precambrian
- Wet Mountains
- Yavapai Orogeny
- Mount Evans Batholith
- Picuris Orogeny