Fantastically Folded Rocks and the Beautiful Butte Fault, A Major Structure in the Grand Canyon 

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Thanks for this Prof., on vacation and still educating us, top man…

I remember my Geo 100 field trip when at Mt.Allison U (Gesner turf) to Parsborro And Joggins and seeing , I guess , miles of sedimentary beds tilted upward layer upon layer and thinking 'how is that possible. My first intimation of deep time and enormous forces. This is amazing stuff in the canyon.

That's an incredible formation! How cool to see the actual bend in the layers. The erosion patterns in the vertical section are really neat. Thank you for another great lesson, and the demonstration by your guide was very enlightening! 😆

When you travel, you see the world in a far greater geological detail than most of us . Thank you for continually sharing those amazingly gifted insights.

Wow. A trip of a lifetime. Super cool formation and a great explanation of how it formed. I love your videos. Cute funny ending. I got a good chuckle out of it. Fun group on your trip!!!

Very interesting. The formation of North America is such a wonderful and eventful story.

What a spectacular formation! It's a beautiful display of the geologic forces of a deep fault, which you explained so well with the diagrams. I saw rock layers in the Smoky Mountains of far northeastern Tennessee that were tilted at similar angles, but I'm not sure if they were due to plate tectonics or faults, since both were/are at play in that area. Gotta love the geology comic at the end...😅

your videos are so completely addictive, your ability to express your knowledge with such passion is a joy to behold. Thank you

That folding is something else!

This is so cool to tag along on your trek👍👏Thank you!

Fascinating place! Thanks, Shawn!

This added to my life in a meaningful way. Thanks.

Just incredible what formations can be found in the Grand Canyon. I've really started to look at rocks a lot more now. I'm starting to notice how they sometimes lean in one direction or another. Went on a sort of field trip with Nick Zentner and Basil Tikoff leading the show, in Idaho a few says ago, and saw some fantastic formations created by the exotic terranes smashing into the craton on North America. Had the time of my life!

Deeply admire and enjoy your knowledge.

great video. ty

Thanks Shawn!

Very interesting and you explained in away I can understand. Looks like a fun trip..

Another well done lesson 😊

That was funny indeed 👍

Yes, in a short video you helped explain other occurrences such as the folds in southern Utah cut by the Hurricane fault. It's a much better explanation of context and drawings than I got from my field camp. Thanks. Your students should feel lucky to have such good explanations.

It's amazing how "alive" the earth is at every level, including the lithosphere. Thank you for sharing this trek and knowledge.

Another place to put on your "Hope to get there someday" list...Wonder World Cave (Balcones Fault) in San Marcos, Texas. Claims to be the only earthquake formed show cave (open for tours) in the US. We went there once when our kids were very little and I spent way more time worrying that they would fall while climbing over the rocks on the path (looks like they have done some work to make it more navigable since the early 90s!) than I did enjoying the cave. Don't know if the spiel is even the same but I remember we were told that when the earthquake opened up the fault, some big rocks fell and wedged it open and that if they ever shifted, the fault could slam shut. At one point on the tour, there was a narrow alley and overhead there were two 'fossilized tree trunks' one sticking out from each side of the ceiling and a corresponding 'hole' on the other side. Wish we still lived in the area cause I'd love to go thru it again...with out the 1 and 4 year old distractions, LOL! Anyway, I'd love to see your take on the Balcones Fault Cave.

Thanks!

2:30 wow! Story begging to be told. Thanks Shawn!

Spectacular is right!

It's like geologic violence going on in super slow motion. I can't imagine 5000 years 100,000 times, old. I bet if you could see this time pass quickly this vertical and horizontal shifting, rock action, breaking, faulting and folding would show quite a destructive scene.

Thanks. Inserted graphic part helps me to understand a lot

WOW!

I like that description allot..."Sexy rock."

Incredible content as an amateur (Earth science teaching composite degree; minus the teaching part...)from Idaho and Utah, your channel is awesome! Just an old rock and history lover.

Love your posts, great stuff and explained easy enough for this newb to understand! I know you get alot of requests but if you ever get the chance to come farther south in Arizona to a canyon that is just northwest of Winkleman AZ following the Gila River on hwy 77 would love to hear your take on some of the formations there. Also, farther north on hwy 77/hwy 60 to Salt River canyon, would be great to hear your input as well as the north end has some really dark red sandstone. Anyway, thanks for all work you put into these. Our family loves it. Fans in Tucson AZ.

The sandstone in Malibu is folded vertically in the Paradise Cove area, with rich layers of quartz and calcite

It seems clear that the sandstone rocks were all still soft when they were uplifted by tectonic forces. They are bent like pretzels but were not cracked. This is typical of folded mountains. The sediments must have been deposited rapidly, in huge amounts, and then uplifted. A river would not do this, as many square miles of deposits were laid down.

You’d love the table lands of Newfoundland. Mountains of mantle. Beautiful orange rocks with a mineral stitching that looks like dr Frankenstein sewed these rocks together.

Did the vertical layers of rock in Dinosaur near Split Mountain form the same way? Except the one's in Dinosaur are massive. Would like to hear the history of that area. (And hey! Looks like Hilary is coming your way in a couple of days. (Edit: Monday afternoon.) Going out to take some video of the flooding in the Great Basin? 😁)

It is really hard for me to get my head around rocks folding rather than breaking when the are stressed

Hi, Shawn. Does this fault have anything to do with the North Rim being @ 1000' higher than the South Rim of the canyon? Or is that due to a whole different process? Thx!

A geologist in phx az made a study and paper on the canyon , that four corners area was under a ocean , all rivers flowed east, when it topped over the kaibab range , it didn’t take long as the water fall rapidly in elevation scowering down the plateau , starting from the west near what is now lake mead, and causing the undercut to travel eastward and thus forming the canyon , it is very also young and formed only 6 million yrs ago, not billions of yrs ago taking billions of yrs to form. It’s making all geologist purplexed how wrong they are about the forming of the Grand Canyon. Imagine that, only 6 million yrs old, taking a short time to form in just a mere few hundred thousand yrs.

I noticed this was posted 6 hours ago. Are you prepared for the expected monsoon?

So basically the Supergroup is a remaining part of the layers that have been eroded away in other places, forming the Great Unconformity. Which means we know at least a bit about what had been there in the Precambrian.

Was there any heat associated with this fold or was it all just pressure?

What are the coordinates for Google Maps?

The dramatic folding reminds me of James Hutton's Siccar Point.

You can't fault his explanation at the end.

You touched on it, but i just cant wrap my head around tbe great unconformity. Same at Antelope island. Was there no geologic activity over the gap in time (i dont think so)? Where are the middle-aged rocks? Simply eroded away?

The guy at the end explained it better. Just sayin...

I think a good video (or series) would be ...presenting the evidence for a few of geology s way out claims like what you touched on here with the declaration of a mythical continent breaking up, because I am pretty sure there's been a major oversight and explanations get more and more vague .....not because of anything you've done professor, just people who have long since retired. Everything you describe is exactly as you describe, like I told my wife, baby when I look at you, time stands still...(because her face would stop a clock. I told the truth

Wish more Christian preacher would read God's Word with understanding as they look around at the geologic record, Genesis 1:1 In the Beginning God created the Heavens & the Earth. It does not say when or how long it took.

geology humor must be an acquired taste. ;)

Thanks so much Professor 👍👍🪨!!!! They ARE rather magnificently sexy!!!! You NAILED IT 🪨👍👍!!!Thanks again!!!

this is pretty rad ⛰️

Thanks!

Thanks!