Geology

Book Reviews

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Transient Landscapes: Insights on a Changing Planet By Ellen Wohl University Press of Colorado, 2015, 248 pp, $34.95 ISBN: 978-1-60732-368-6 (cloth) ISBN: 978-1-60732-369-3 (ebook) Reviewed by Virginia McConnell Simmons Whether you are a student just beginning to learn about geomorphology or fluvial systems, a traveler seeking destinations far from the beaten track, or a senior …

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We Can’t Have Earthquakes in Central Colorado, Can We?

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By Vince Matthews

Not only can we have earthquakes here, but the 20th century witnessed two felt earthquakes in the Arkansas River Valley. And the scientific data shows us that we will have large earthquakes in the San Luis and Arkansas River Valleys in the future. What we don’t know is exactly where, or when.

Past earthquakes

At the turn of the last century, the following newspaper account on Nov. 15, 1901 described an earthquake felt in Buena Vista.

“At 3 o’clock this morning this city experienced an earthquake shock that lasted for about 6 seconds. Many people rushed from their residences in night attire, fearing their homes would be demolished. The large plate glass in one of the saloons collapsed and was crushed. The windows and the brick buildings were badly shaken. It is reported here that the waters of Cottonwood Lake rose considerably. Many large boulders on Mount Princeton and Mount Harvard rolled down the side of the mountain. The trembling seemed to travel from the southwest to the northeast. This is the first earthquake felt in Buena Vista and this morning is the general topic of conversation.”

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Q & A with Geologist Vince Matthews

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Dr. Vince Matthews is principal of Leadville Geology LLC, and recently was interim executive director of the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum. He retired as state geologist and director of the Colorado Geological Survey at the beginning of 2013. Vince received Bachelors and Masters degrees in Geology from the University of Georgia and …

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Rocks Along the Rainbow

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By Vince Matthews

The Rainbow Trail affords an outstanding opportunity to travel through deep time. The trail wends around two of Colorado’s youngest mountain ranges, which together contain 25 of the State’s 58 Fourteeners. The footpath traverses parts of Earth’s crust that record much of Colorado’s 2-billion-year-old history. Faults and folds along the trail record times of crustal deformation. Rocks that were metamorphosed 1.8 billion years ago record Colorado’s oldest-known, mountain-building event. Colorful conglomerates record the 300-million-year-old mountain-building event that gave rise to the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. The high elevations of the Sawatch and Sangre de Cristo Ranges are testaments to the mountain-building event that is currently transpiring. Glacial deposits along the trail record times of great climate change.

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Riddles in the Rocks – The Bonanza Caldera

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By Bill Hatcher

Sherlock Holmes is, perhaps, the most famous detective of all time. Recently, he has received renewed attention in film and on television.

However, a different sort of detective has been investigating a real-life enigma here in central Colorado for the past eight years. And if his pursuit seems less glamorous than what happens on the silver screen, his findings have been no less dramatic. This detective is a geologist who has been solving the riddles of a local super-volcano. Doctor Peter Lipman taught geology at Colorado State University in the 1970s, but has been a research scientist since then. He’s now 77 and officially retired. Still, his passion for rocks takes him high into the mountains each summer. And as he told the story, I imagined him puffing on a pipe like Sherlock, pondering.

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Texas Creek trembles

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Brief by Central Staff

Geology – October 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Subscriber (and occasional contributor) Charlie Green, who lives near Texas Creek, seems to be on his way to becoming our earthquake correspondent.

Another small tremor shook his area at 12:37 p.m. on Sept. 12. Its magnitude was estimated at 2.5 on the Richter Scale by the U.S. Geological Survey; in lay terms, it was just on the edge of perceptibility if you happened to be sitting on top of it.

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Shale, rattle, and roll

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Brief by Central Staff

Geology – September 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

The earth has trembled again in Central Colorado — pretty close to the center of the state at 11:37 p.m. on July 25.

Charlie Green, our Texas Creek subscriber who follows these matters closely, said it probably awakened him that evening.

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Minor quake rattles Cotopaxi area

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Brief by Central Staff

Geology – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine

Despite our jagged terrain, which reflects many faults in the earth’s crust hereabouts, earthquakes are not common in Central Colorado. So it was something of a surprise when the ground shook a little at about 8:45 p.m. on Jan. 25 in the Cotopaxi area.

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Ancient Denvers, by K.R. Johnson and R.G. Reynolds

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Review by Ed Quillen

Geology – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ancient Denvers – Scenes from the Past 300 Million Years of the Colorado Front Range
by Kirk R. Johnson and Robert G. Raynolds
Paintings by Jan Vriesen, Donna Braginetz, and Gary Staab
Published in 2006 by Fulcrum with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science
ISBN 1-55591-554-X

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POGIs in Colorado

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Brief by Central Staff

Geology – October 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Colorado Geological Survey devoted its most recent Rock Talk newsletter to POGIs — Points Of Geologic Interest.

The featured POGIs are spots with “guided activities in the form of interpretive presentations, hikes, or tours; self-guiding hikes or drives; museum exhibits; roadside displays; or educational seminars where geology is a primary topic of interest.”

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Buena Vista Rocks

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Article by Margery Dorfmeister

Buena Vista Geology – September 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

THAT’S NOT THUNDER you hear rolling off the mountains around Buena Vista. Nowadays, it’s more likely the rumble of rocks rolling off the bucket of a huge front-end loader into a semi dump truck. For generations, Buena Vista’s huge boulders have distinguished the town as surely as her Old Court House steeple. But with the present spate of building going on, her boulders — like her once prime lettuce heads — are being harvested for exportation.

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Random design at Hartman Rocks

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Column by George Sibley

Geology – December 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Gunnison’s greatest blessing might be Hartman Rocks. This wonderful in-our-face uprearing of bare brown rock visible from most places in town is only five minutes away by car, or twenty or thirty by bike unless the wind is blowing, which it usually is. And once there, you are in a random wealth of semi-secret places where you can depend on being pretty much alone for the hour or three it takes to defragment the mind around whatever.

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Geologists will measure how fast our world is splitting

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Brief by Central Staff

Geology – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The world is breaking apart here. The question is “How fast?” and a team of geologists and students from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of New Mexico has launched a three-year project to find out.

Central Colorado and the San Luis Valley are home to what geologists call the Rio Grande Rift. It begins in New Mexico and extends north to Leadville and beyond — the San Luis Valley and the Upper Arkansas Valleys are a result of the rift.

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Hubbert’s Peak

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Letter from Harvey N. Gardiner

Geology – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Editors:

In the June issue of Colorado Central George Sibley made reference to the coming “oil peak” based on an article in Rolling Stone. I want to admit, up front, that I have not read Rolling Stone since the 1960s (but I do remember reading it then).

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Our earthquake possibilities

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Sidebar by Martha Quillen

Geology – April 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Upon reading this story, we suggested a little more detail about just how likely, or unlikely, it was that earthquakes will be coming to an area near you. But the author was disinclined to speculate. Apparently, even a geologist can’t predict when an earthquake will happen.

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Faults Run Through It

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Article by Paul Martz

Geology – April 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

“We don’t have earthquakes here do we?” is a question I’ve been asked a number of times over the years — although, I’ll confess, it does seem to come up more frequently at functions where alcohol is served.

As I’ve matured I’ve learned to temper my response to something on the order of “Well, in my opinion we’re just lucky Salida isn’t a pile of bricks.”

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Watch out for those seiche waves

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Letter from Paul Martz

Geology – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

The Boxing Day tsunami which resulted from an offshore earthquake is not something we in Central Colorado would ordinarily have to worry about. However, there is an earthquake related type of event that can occur in our lakes and reservoirs.

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Big Flash Floods can come from Small Catchments

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Article by Paul Martz

Geology – September 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

With one eye on the storm and running late, I was driving way too fast for conditions. But I needed to catch a shift of drillers before they left a remote drillsite an the southeast flank of the Pilot Mountains east of Mina, Nevada. The drillers had been leaving the site by cutting cross-country, making a new two-track in the process, instead of following the permitted route back to the county road on which I was driving.

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Just in case you needed something new to worry about

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Brief by Central Staff

Geology – September 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

There’s drought, and there’s wildfire, and if that doesn’t give you enough to worry about, consider earthquakes.

Not that there have been any hereabouts lately — the most recent on record was in the Nathrop area at 2:55 p.m. on March 16, 1985. It registered 3.3 on the Richter Scale (just enough to be noticed without instruments) and caused no known damage; it was felt in Salida.

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Where does the Closed Basin water go?

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Letter by Paul Martz

Geology – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine –

Where does the water go?

Editors:

After reading both parts of the article on water in the San Luis Valley, one significant question remains unanswered: Does the artesian aquifer (lower one) drain anywhere? The reason that knowing this is significant is because if it does — say south to the head of the Rio Grande gorge — then recharge has been occurring constantly from the already adjudicated surface waters. If the “missing” or unaccounted for million acre feet has been leaving via gravity, then obviously any pumping from that formation will withdraw additional water from the annual runoff budget.

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Now Mother Nature gets us in hot water

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Article by Paul Martz

Geology – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

HOT SPRINGS, as simple as they may seem on the surface, have a wide variety of mechanisms that drive them from the crust of the earth.

The most common type of hot spring in Central Colorado, or for that matter worldwide, is caused by hot rock, sometimes even melted rock, at a depth where it heats ground water and drives it back to the surface. The greater the amount of heating, the more rapidly the water rises to the surface.

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A beginner’s guide to geologic hazards

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Article by Paul Martz

Geology – June 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

The subject of geologic hazards gets a lot of media attention every time there is an earthquake in California, (or a minuscule, on the scale of things, volcanic eruption like Mt. Saint Helens), but not a lot of discussion most of the time.

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