During Denison’s spring break of 2017, 12 students and 3 faculty ventured to the American Southwest to explore a landscape very different from Granville, OH.
We flew into Las Vegas, NV, but then quickly escaped eastward into the broader Basin and Range physiographic province. En route from Vegas to Flagstaff, AZ, we made a few stops investigating evidence of regional extension and explosive eruptions in the Tertiary. Soon we ascended on to the Colorado Plateau, and set up base camp in Flagstaff, AZ, for two nights.
From Flagstaff, we explored the San Francisco volcanic field to the north, and many of the Native American dwellings built out of (and in some case into) local stratigraphy. Some of these early inhabitants of the Colorado Plateau both witnessed and interacted with eruptions from some of the nearby volcanoes. Flagstaff was also within easy striking distance of Meteor Crater, so we spent one afternoon pondering bolides and planetary geology.
Next, we drove north to Grand Canyon to spend two nights at Mather Campground just a short distance from the Canyon’s South Rim. A hike to the three-mile mark on the Bright Angel Trail took us through Grand Canyon’s stratigraphic story of paleogeography and paleoclimate.
While hiking back out of the Canyon, one couldn’t help but ponder the incisional history that produced most of the steep topographic relief in Grand Canyon over the last 5-6 million years. After two chilly nights of camping, we looped east around the upstream extent of Grand Canyon, eyeing Lake Powell and the uncertain future of Colorado River water resources on our way to Zion National Park. Our trip finished up with two nights in Watchman Campground, sleeping in the shadows of Zion Canyon’s walls.
From Flagstaff, we’d been stepping our way up the stratigraphy of the Colorado Plateau’s Grand Staircase, and in Zion we took a closer look at the impressive crossbeds of the Navajo Sandstone, part of the White Cliffs. On our final day in Zion, small groups explored hikes ranging from Emerald Pools to Angels Landing, then we shared one last group dinner and campfire before breaking camp and heading back to Granville the following day.
To learn more about this field trip, read Erik Klemetti's article in Wired magazine.
