Awesome Geology and Lunar Landscapes of the Jurassic Morrison Formation of southern Utah 

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Your videos are great. "Walking Geology" beats the hell out of classroom theory. Never too long, always wishing for more.

This video is now my favorite. I was up late at night, not feeling well. I turned on the space heater, and I honestly felt like I was there with you because you were totally being your self 🪬🪬🪬 your an amazing teacher because you enjoy what you do . Thank you so much for investing your time to make a channel and educate others 🌞🌞🌞

Was just down there in capitol reef and cathedral valley. Southern Utah is amazing.

thank you for the close examination of the clay hill ,I would have assumed that it was a solid rock formation otherwise

This is great Shawn! I started my PhD in that area, looking at exposure ages of the deposits on the Fremont River terraces. Spent a lot of time exploring the badlands around the Caineville mesas and Factory Butte a few more miles to the west. Just outside of Hanksville is the Planetary Society's Mars Research Station where they hold the University Rover Challenge, a competition to build inexpensive "robot geologists" that can collect and analyze soil and rock samples looking for signs of extant or fossil life.

I love Utah deserts and geology. I grew up visiting Emery County, Utah where my dad grew up. So many cool layers of rocks and clay and colors in the San Rafael Swell.

Thank you for this, Shawn. Your mix of well prepared videos with thoughtfully collected learning aids and "off the cuff" geologic targets of opportunity help to keep your work varied, engaging, and interesting. You have a gift.

Fascinating is a great word for today’s video, but they’re all great!

It reminds me of the painted hills in Oregon. At least the colorful clay material. So pretty.

Thanks, Shawn. I've been admiring these rocks in Utah for my whole life.

Excellent! I appreciate your teaching.

I grew up in Denver and got to see the dinosaur 🦕 footprints in the Morrison formation. Hadnt heard of these ash beds before. Thanks for refreshing my memory about bentonite clays, devoid of plants, as I hope to be visiting the Painted Hills in Oregon in May again, which these deposits look like.

Thanks, well explained deep time geology is fascinating.

Some important uranium deposits are found in the Morrison Fm. Several mines operated East of Mt. Taylor, and farther west from Grants multiple deposits have been mined. Consist largely of secondary uranium deposits (carnotite) sometimes replacing fossil logs. Thx for the video!

Another really fascinating story Shawn. Really helps with the paleo context maps to.

I really enjoy your videos! Thanks for sharing them. I studied geology in college and later did some archaeological work. I’ve long loved being able to take “glimpses” into the past. Thanks for the professional, entertaining guided tour!

Another great video-thanks Shawn! I like the off the cuff style videos that you make of exploring in unknown terrain. Well done!

Just got back from Dinosaur NP. My introduction to the Morrison formation. I love Utah geology.

I"ve watched this video a few times now. It really is a stunning and colourful landscape but today I picked up on the clay story, volcanic ash breaking down into clay, and types of clay. I suppose clay types must be quite a consideration in itself. Food for thought.

Thx Prof. ✌ Excellent video, as always.

Good stuff and timely as we just drove through that area. Brings back memories of field trips at Western State.

Fantastic! These are so great for us armchair geology students

Amazing place thanks.

As always Shawn interesting and informative. I've driven by there before and stopped to take a break, stretch my legs and let the kids out too. Took 24 south off I-70 for a scenic side trip to Goblin Valley State Park. Well worth the extra time and now I understand some of what I saw along the way. I'm going to tell my grown up kids to watch this video. Always more interesting when you explain the geology of someplace one has been to.

Did a bikepacking trip from Natural Bridges thru Hite, UT (open as of 2019), to and up the Burr Trail switchbacks to Bolder, Escalante, to Page AZ. The purpose of my trip was to see the 500 M years of Colorado Plateau geology. THANK YOU for these videos!

This looks so familiar to me now! Four weeks ago I'd never seen it and didn't even know of its existence. It was the lure of chalcedony that drew me to central Utah. I wasn't disappointed. But thanks to your explanations, I now understand so much more about what we saw and experienced.

Great location! This video is particularly well done! Thanks Professor!

Thx for showing these areas that I love to visit and wonder at. your informative infectious enthusiasm always makes the landscape-learning richer-

Interesting excursion, spectacular and beautiful coloured layering landscape, love those pebbles.

Another great show Shawn. Really enjoy your videos. Hope you'll be up here in Montana again. Thanks so much!!!!!

This is paradise to me!

Good video..keep walking and we will keep watching and learning some geology.

The coarser sandstones and conglomerates that cap the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation are the lower portions of the Cedar Mountain Formation, which has the type section up on the San Rafael Swell, Cedar Mountain area. I've been to the type section of the lowermost member of the Cedar Mountain Formation, called the Buckhorn Conglomerate. That type section is near Emery, UT on the western flank of the San Rafael Swell, near the Wedge area. The Buckhorn cgl is interpreted to have been fluvial (river) deposits carrying materials-largely chert pebbles, sandstones, quartzites, and rare intrusive igneous pebbles-from the Sevier highlands just to the west during the Mid- to Late Cretaceous Period, about 80-120 million years ago.

Fantastic video. I was just in this area two weeks ago and now understand the geology a bit more. Thank you.

One thing that amazes me about the formation of North America is, if you look at the Western US, over the years, it is a continual environmental state of aridity and rain shadow, since the Triassic Period, 225 million years ago. The fact that the continent exhibited this same pattern for so long is incredible to me.

Thanks for the graphic about what the area was like during the formation. Really liked that.

Pretty spot, I happen to really like deserts. I have been to four corners. Thank you for mentioning that as being Morrison. It's interesting to see the development of the harder rock into pillars.

I enjoyed learning and seeing that very much-and it led me to seek more info on desert varnish! I also appreciate your comments on uneven video presentations. I’ve been teaching with a different kind of video since pandemic began, with resulting unequal audio quality, and I’m reassured that it does not detract when the info is good!👍

Man, your stuff is freakin GREAT!

Aaa…you’re getting real close now! Completely fascinating…what a wonderful story Mother Nature tells us! Thank you for sharing, can’t wait for more…👍 Go west young man! lol 🤘🇨🇦 PS I’m doing a bit of a desert adventure, leaving next week…Alford, Black Rock, Mono Lake, Death Valley, Trona Pinnacles, Factory Butte and Moab, for the Bronco Safari!🏜️

Another fascinating and educational video ......... Thanks Shawn .............74 Like ...........

Currently living in Michigan and I am so jealous of the geology out West. :-)

Thanks again! I loved this one, especially. I live in Farmington, NM which has many areas of the Morrison formation. I try to paint them, pictures, not the formations. Jim

From the Land of the Sunlight clear. *Let the Sunshine In...* thanks

You being so fortunate to study under Ron Blakey is, to me, like musician Steve Miller being so fortunate as to study under blues man Muddy Waters. Much respect!

Great one Shawn. Hey! Have you explored Harpers Corner? it's such a fascination area. And in the same location, down along the Bench road next to the Yampa River.

Amazing formation you’re a great teacher thank you

Thanks!

Second time, just finished the road cut video E1. Liked that as well.

You about poked me in the eye with the pick part of your hammer on a couple of those backswings.

This is great. I was through that area 4 or 5 years ago and yes it looks like Mars. I’ve always wondered what this area was all about. Thanks. It’s a very weird but beautiful area.

I didn't realize that these were part of the Morrison. I'm more used to the greenish tint around Moab and further south. Lots of uranium mined out of that formation (and the Chinle). The reddish rock you picked up is generally called jasper - which is basically an agate anyway. The other is definitely chert - a bit less hard than agate or jasper, but also widely used for arrowheads and other tools. Yep, I was a rock hound when young lol. I found a whole outcropping of jasper a ways outside Blanding. It had been anciently mined for tool making etc. It polished up fairly nice and I still have a couple pieces.

Been there/here before. Love the Henry's! Thanks for sharing more info about one of my favorite places.

Love walking with you

Great video. Never knew the name for lag deposits but I do now. They were the thing that really struck me most the first time I visited areas in the west with them. The even layer of various types of chert that weren't necessarily formed or weathered the same way really had my brain struggling.

Thanks for the lesson and walk!

I worked out of Hanksville for a month or so doing forest research. I remember the colored hills in the area. I always wondered about them. Now I know. Thanks.

This video was great! There is a place very similar near me called Cannonball Mesa, not quite as pretty but the same Morrisson formation. It was great to hear you explain the details of the rocks, as I have noticed the same stuff but didn’t know what it was or how it got there. It was especially interesting hearing about the river channel deposits because I had wondered if that’s what they were! If you look at the satellite imagery of cannonball Mesa (SW Colorado) you can still see a line along the edge of the Mesa and going further east that is the ancient river bed, now forming the top of the mesas. Fascinating stuff! Thank you!

Great video Shawn. Thanks.

While driving between Flagstaff and Cameron Arizona there's an area on the East side of Highway 89 where the hills look just like this. It's quite stunning to see.

Thanks! So enjoy learning withyou.

This totally resembles the landscape of the Little Painted Desert not far from Flagstaff, Arizona and Sunset Crater, Humphreys Peak, etc.

Thanks, love southern utah

Just found your channel. Very interesting content! This are fascinating landscapes and great to learn about how this was formed. 👍👍🙂🙂

The Cathedral Valley off-road loop in Capitol Reef National Park has a great area like this called the Bentonite Hills.

Awesome place. Thanks.

Wow! Amazing. Love your channel. Thanks.

What's up doc🤙 that's the second time I've heard you refer to this Ron blakey maps. I remember because my name is Ron and I really liked his map before in a earlier video you made

Way back, shortly after dirt, when I was in high school my Geography teacher told us that the oldest layers are on top and the youngest on the bottom. I have no idea what the Geology teacher would have said in response because I didn’t take Geology, but I did disagree with him. Purely because it didn’t make sense. The subject came up because we were studying about one of the states with mountains and part of the Grand Canyon. Because of videos done by some college Geology teachers and field Geologists I learned we were both wrong and right. Another great thing is that you, and others, use or make maps showing what the area probably looked like during the time period. Many in other sciences still only use maps of now to show where critters, like dinosaurs, lived. They rarely, if ever, mention Pangea. They do talk about the Cenozoic and other time periods but not where the land masses were during them. What you do helps make things more understandable.

Very interesting. Thank you.

Awesome thank you!

On academic field trips to the Brushy Basin member of the Morrison, the Brushy Basin member's importance as a source of uranium is never mentioned as if it is an embarrassment or something. Years ago I brought it up on a field trip and said that I thought the uranium was ultimately sourced from the ash blown in from distant eruptions to the West. I proposed that ground water dissolved and transported uranium ions within the formation that then reacted with organic matter in the sediments, reducing and depositing the uranium so that dinosaur bones and petrified trees and other fossils (once organic materials) are today radioactive.

Interesting. I was just discussing the Morrison Formation with folks on a geology discussion board the other day, about the time you posted this. The Brushy Basin member is one of my favorite stratigraphic layers. I've spent a lot of time mapping it, in Colorado and especially Arches National Park, where it is bright blue, especially after a rain storm. Seen some very weird rocks in this formation. Nice video, liked, subscribed, and posted on social media.

nice work, chap.

Great explore.

Interesting thing about the Morrison formation. I see it everywhere. I was hiking at 10,000 feet in the Uintahs 100s of miles to the north and ran into that. Just one little field probably 100 yards across. No vegetation same coloration.

This reminds me of Toadstool Geological Area in Nebraska.

Magic

Good stuff!

Hi . Love looking at these rock formations with you.. Do you think the reddish brown stones that you pick up were Cornelian? It is also spelled Carnelian. It is commonly used as a semiprecious stone.

Hi Shawn, I use Google Earth when I'm watching your videos and for this one I panned west a bit because I noticed a bluish colored area with a structure in the middle called "Factory Butte". Can you explain: what the butte is? is it volcanic? and why the blue color? The slopes of the butte are very different from any geologic structure I've ever seen before. Wondering why it looks that way? thanks!!! and thank you for everything you do to educate us in everything geology! :)

If you go to Drumheller, AB and see the badlands, one line stands out. It's only 1" deep, it's the line of death irridium layer.

The 'desert varnish' on the rocks reminds me of a video I saw recently, "Mars rocks are turning purple." The channel is called Mars Guy, run by a Mars geologist out of ASU. It's short - all his video are only 4 minutes long. The interesting thing (besides seeing a familiar process on another planet) is that the chemistry of the varnish seems to be different.

Excellent Shawn

I live in Vernal Ut and there are several areas near that look exactly like the area you are describing. We have one feature here with almost perfectly round sandstone boulders some measuring 7 feet int diameter. I wonder how they are formed. They sit on a hog back ridge just outside Dinosaur National Monument. Just a few of us locals know that they are there. If ever get down this way I would take you out there to see.

I'd like to see you do one on the mysterious wold wide soil accumulation. (Basement level doorways)

That paleo map is incredible, I’d there somewhere I can look at different maps of a similar nature? I’ve had a very hard time finding ice age maps and maps with adjusted water levels

Agate? or Jasper? I'm no rockhound either. Great video.

Thanks for the video. It is the next best thing to going there. It seems cross-bedded sandstone would have to be much broader in scope than river deposited. Ocean laden sand over large area as a better explanation??

So, what's the actual size of the Morrison Formation? I assume it's what I see in Badlands National Park in SD, Theodore Roosevelt NP in ND, and Makoshika State Park in Montana. (Makoshika is relatively close to TRNP...) Ever been to Dinosaur NM? The hills by Split Mountain on the Green River, where the layers are vertical was awesome. Hoping you covered that, lol...

Hi Shawn, can you please explain my mis-understanding articulated below. Thanks so much, love your videos.

The Farallon is almost gone. I wish I knew about this stuff when I was out the 40yrs ago.

Looks like Mars. I should know... just returned from a Total Recall vacation.

I’d love to take a walk with you someday

A great video. It's fun to learn on the fly! Definitely a fascinating area to explore. Thanks!

So sorry, I guess this is the third time I've checked this out. Well, not being the brightest bulb, it took me a while to remember and then cogitate what you said about the Morrison formation being, basically Bentonite with variations. Then I remembered you said that Bentonite et al was decomposed volcanic ash falling out of the sky. Well, it took me a while for that to register, these Morrison hills are in some cases pretty tall. So all of a sudden I'm thinking "How much ash was originally deposited, over how long a time, and why do I not think this event or events must have been ultra-massive. I assume you will tell me the error of my thinking, your forester fan from Farmington, NM.

❤

The Morrison Formation is exposed best near Morrison at Red Rocks Park and Ampitheater.