ARCHITECTURE and GEOLOGY
View allAll Photos Tagged cretaceous
Ammonite of genus Metaplacenticeras (coming from the Upper Cretaceous, Hokkaido, Japan). Specimen from the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Japan.
Lycoptera (fish fossil) 11x12x.4 cm
Liaoning Prov, China.
Lycoptera were small, freshwater fish that lived from the late Jurassic to Cretaceous periods (125-135 million years ago), in present-day China, Korea, Mongolia, and Siberia. This species is a member of the Jehol Biota, a prehistoric ecosystem known for its early birds and feathered dinosaurs.
The cliffs at Hunstanton, Norfolk are famous for their colour bands and revealed geology.
The lowest dark brown level was laid down in shallow warm seas 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous. It is a 'Carstone' composed of sand and iron compounds and used as a local building material.
The younger much thinner 'red rock' layer is chalk coloured with iron pigments. Above that is a thick layer of white chalk. All have fossils but frequent rock falls make it dangerous to be too close.
The wreck is the remains of a 130ft long trawler 'S T Sheraton'. Built in 1907 it saw additional duty in WW1 and WW2 for minesweeping and anti-submarine patrols. If five years of war was not enough, she was then selected for bombing practice! She escaped that ignominy by breaking her moorings and going aground for a peaceful life (including providing a nice foreground for photographers) under the cliffs.
Original skeleton of the tyrannosaurid dinosaur Tarbosaurus, Upper Cretaceous, Mongolia. Museo Cosmocaixa, Barcelona
Rainbow Canyon is a deep ravine carved in the variegated shales of the Cretaceous Cloverly and Jurassic Morrison Formations in Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin east of the old Kane townsite. The Cloverly and Morrison Formations are famous for dinosaur fossils. The rim of the “canyon” is formed by resistant iron-cemented sandstones and hematite that make up the “Rusty Beds” member of the Cloverly. (Some geologists have called the “Rusty beds” the Sykes Mountain Formation.) On the horizon are outcrops of the Cretaceous strata above the Cloverly.
The chalk cliffs in the north-east region of the island Rügen at sunrise. Just before the sun rose the swans came to watch this beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, every year the Baltic Sea takes away a bit more of these wonderful cliffs.
Day One. Here goes another 365 project!
Old Hunstanton beach in Norfolk, England. Spectacular red limestone and white chalk cliffs from the Cretaceous period.
A bit wet and cold on the beach today. I only took a handful of shots as my lens was getting too much rain on it. Had to adjust the contrast in Photoshop to make up for the rain on the lens.
Hills composed of Cretaceous aged shale rise above farmland on the Yellowtail Wildlife Habitat east of Lovell Wyoming, The hills are home to a series of orv trails. This area lies just to the west of Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.
Cretaceous Ammonite pair, sectioned and polished to show the internal features. Celoniceras besarei. 100 million years old.
Bighorn Lake is visible at Horseshoe Bend in Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. The Matina’s boat dock is visible on the left side of the photo. Horseshoe bend is locted east of Lovell Wyoming in the Bighorn Basin. On the left the Bighorn Mountains can be seen in the distance. The red rocks belong to the Triassic Chugwater Formation and mke up the hills and cliffs just above the west side (right side of the ohoto) of the reservoir. Above the Chugwater are the Gypsum Springs, Sundance and Morrison Formations. The Cretaceous Cloverly Formation forms the top of the hill.
The Peay Sand Member of the Cretaceous Frontier Formation outcrops in this hogback on the west flank of the Sheep Mountain Anticline just north of Greybull, Wyoming.
Clouds over dipping sands and shales of the Cretaceous Mesa Verde Formation near the nose of the Shoshone Anticline north of Cody Wyoming.
A hoodoo rises above the floor of Paton’s Hole near Leavitt Reservoir in Big Horn County Wyoming. The colorful hills in the “Hole” and around it are made up of beds of the Cretaceous Cloverly Formation. The Sykes Mountain Member or “Rusty Beds” lie at the top of the Cloverly Formation. The gray hills on the horizon are the Cretaceous Thermopolis, Mowry and Frontier Formations which are composed mostly of shale with some sandstone interbeds. Currently the reservoir has been drained and a new dam is planned. This area may be partially inundated when the lake is refilled behind the new dam.
Jurassic and Cretaceous sabdstones and shales can be seen in this photo wrapping around the northwest plunging nose of the Sheep Mountain Anticline, north of Greybull Wyoming in Big Horn County. The softer shales form a small erosional basin in between the more resistant hogbacks. Notice Stan on the far right for scale. (He is also checking to see if the road is passable with my 4wd.) Thanks Stan!
Gray hills made of gray Cretaceous shale with interbeds of sandstone rise on the north side of Shell Creek between Greybull and Shell, Wyoming.
Cretaceous sandstone cliffs along Skull Creek as seen from Wyoming Route 120 north of Cody, Wyoming.
This colorful hogback on the flank of an anticline is called by some “the Crystal Creek Rainbow”. . The top half of the hill is made up Sandstone, siltstone and shale that belong to the Cretaceous Cloverly Fiormation. The Bottom half of the hill is made of sandstones; shales and siltstones that make up the Jurassic Morrison Formation. Both formations are famous for dinosaur fossils through out Wyoming.
These hogbacks of Upper Cretaceous sandstones (cliffs) interbedded with shales (slopes) were photographed at dusk along the Half Moon Oil Field road near Sage Creek south of Cody, Wyoming.
Steamship Rock is a local landmark along the Crystal Creek Road north of Greybull Wyoming. The rock, composed of Cretaceous Shales and silstones (Shell Creek and Mowry Formations), rises along Bear Creek. The white line on the face cliff is “bentonite”, clays formed by the alteration of volcanic ash that is deposited in a water body.
I had an entirely different composition in mind before heading out to Borrego Springs with William McIntosh and David Colombo, but after arriving, several other people showed up and kinda crowded us out. I took this one well before astronomical twilight so the Milky Way was still kinda dim but I'm thinking that the subject here was strong enough to validate the shot.
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This colorful hogback on the flank of an anticline is called by some “the Crystal Creek Rainbow”. . The top half of the hill is made up Sandstone, siltstone and shale that belong to the Cretaceous Cloverly Fiormation. The Bottom half of the hill is made of sandstones; shales and siltstones that make up the Jurassic Morrison Formation. Both formations are famous for dinosaur fossils through out Wyoming.
The colorful hills in the “Hole” and around it are made up of beds of the Cretaceous Cloverly Formation. The Sykes Mountain Member or “Rusty Beds” lie at the top of the Cloverly Formation. The gray hills on the horizon are the Cretaceous Thermopolis, Mowry and Frontier Formations which are composed mostly of shale with some sandstone interbeds. Currently the reservoir has been drained and a new dam is planned. This area may be partially inundated when the lake is refilled behind the new dam.
203. Clancy, 3yrs 34wks
Saturday Morning Post from the Museum of Nature grounds, where I volunteered to guard this baby Chasmosaurus along with his Mom. It's better to be friends with dinosaurs than enemies!
These ceratopsids roamed North America during the Upper Cretaceous Period, from about 100Ma to about 60Ma., and are about 4.3–4.8 metres (14–16 ft) with a weight of 1.5–2 tonnes (1.7–2.2 short tons).
Me, I go back 3.6yrs, with a weight of 24Kg (53lbs).
Museum of Nature, Ottawa, ON
The red, Jurassic eolian sandstones are certainly the glory of the Colorado Plateau, but the Cretaceous holds a special place in my heart. I did my thesis on the basal Cretaceous Dakota Sandstone. Every time I looked up I saw soft gray Mancos Shale, overlain by the relatively thin-bedded Straight Cliffs Formation.
A iron oxide rich siltstone bed near the contact of the Lower Cretaceous Sykes Mountain Formation and Thermopolis Shale east of the Causeway on US 14A near Kane, Wyoming.
Cretaceous Outcrops as seem from Wyoming State Highway 37 that leads to Bighorn Canyon National Rereation Area. Bighorn Basin.
A roadcut along US 377 exposes the Cretaceous limestone that forms Cresson Bluff in Hood County Texas. The blue wildflowers on the bottom right and across the top of the roadcut are Texas Bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis). The yellow green color in the middle of the limestone is from algae that is growing in water seeping out at the top of the limestone and running down the face of the roadcut.
It was great to revisit Swanage Bay during a trip home to England - a place that holds many childhood memories for me.
It was a cold, very windy and rainy December morning, but I ventured from the car on to the beach and to my delight the sun broke through for a moment and highlighted the chalk of Ballard Cliff beautifully.
Ballard Cliff is part of the world famous Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The steeply dipping Cretaceous chalk that marks the northern end of Swanage Bay takes over from the Wealden beds at this location.
I think the wind blown sand, the rain and especially the rain drops/salty mist on my lens have added a nice atmosphere to this moment.
Despite the cold, a reminder of just how beautiful England can be.
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These sandstone beds are exposed on the escarpment or frontslope of a hogback of the Lance Formation near Gooseberry Creek in Hot Springs County, Wyoming. The beds dip back away from The camera. These fluvial (stream deposited) sandstones are Late Cretaceous to earliest Paleocene in age. The thickness patterns of the formation in the Bighorn Basin indicates that it was deposited as the Rocky Mountain foreland basin was partitioned into smaller basins during the onset of the Laramide Orogeny.
Reference:
Thomas Finn
Subsurface Stratigraphic Cross Sections Showing Correlation of Cretaceous and Lower Tertiary Rocks in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming and Montana
Chapter 6 - Petroleum Systems and Geologic Assessment of Oil and Gas in the Bighorn Basin Province, Wyoming and Montana
U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–V
069/dds-069-v/REPORTS/69_V_CH_6.pdf
From magnificent Big Bend National Park. Mexico-left, USA-right. Rio Grande River and the international border right down the middle.
The canyon walls are made up of massive Santa Elena limestone, early Cretaceous in age (Albian), ~100 million years old.
Bentonitic clay concretions that measured between 6” and 10” across were found in a layer of the Lower Cretaceous Thermopolis Shale east of the Causeway on US 14A near Kane, Wyoming. Many of them had iron oxide stains. Most of the oxides were distributed in circular bands as seen here. Beneath the weathered surface the concretions are encased in black, organic rich, fissile shale.
Snow sits on Cretaceous sedimentary rocks along the crest of Torchlight Dome, an anticline east of Basin Wyoming.
Rainbow Canyon is a deep ravine carved in the variegated shale of the Cretaceous Cloverly and Jurassic Morrison Formations in Wyoming’s Bighorn basin east of the old Kane townsite. The Cloverly and Morrison Formations are famous for dinosaur fossils.
Upper Cretaceous coal-bearing geological strata
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Nikon Nikkor 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX
_DSC1374 Anx2 1400h Q90 f25
Sheep Mountain, located west of Cody Wyoming, is capped with Paleozoic Carbonates. They overlie a normal sequence of Upper Cretaceous shales and interbedded sandstones. The contact between the Paleozoic rocks and the Cretaceous sediments is a surface called the Heart Mountain Detachment. The Paleozoic rocks are part of a large landslide block that slid over 28 miles around 49 million years ago. The landslide broke away from the mountains to the west and moved catastrophically down a 2 degree slope. The landslide broke apart and remnants of the Heart Mountain Detachment are found scattered over an area thought to be between 1,300 and 1,900 square miles. Sheep Mountain is one of these remnant blocks. The namesake for the Detachment is another block, Heart Mountain, that is separate and located north of Cody. Over the years, unraveling how this massive landslide occurred and transported such a large volume of rock over a great distance has been the source of debate and controversy among geologists. The Heart Mountain Detachment has been interpreted as a large scale collapse feature from the flank of an active volcanic center. Though most geologists agree with this interpretation, the mechanism that allowed the emplacement of such a large block across a nearly flat surface is a topic of much discussion and is not entirely understood. Several mechanism have been proposed. One of the most recent ideas centers around the release of gas, probably CO2, along the landslide detachment surface that allowed it to move like a hovercraft across the flat surface. Since there still are outstanding scientific questions, geologists will continue to study and debate the origins and emplacement of this landslide.
A last shot from this group of Katiki Boulders getting close to sunset and time to go home.
Hope you are having a good weekend and thanks very much for your comments.
Wikipaedia:
The Cretaceous was a period, 145 to 66 million years ago, with a relatively warm climate, resulting in high sea levels and creating numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists, while dinosaurs continued to dominate on land. At the same time, new groups of mammals and birds, as well as flowering plants, appeared. The Cretaceous ended with a large mass extinction, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs and large marine reptiles, died out.
These sandstone beds are exposed on the escarpment or frontslope of a hogback of the Lance Formation near Gooseberry Creek in Hot Springs County, Wyoming. The beds dip back away from The camera. These fluvial (stream deposited) sandstones are Late Cretaceous to earliest Paleocene in age. The thickness patterns of the formation in the Bighorn Basin indicates that it was deposited as the Rocky Mountain foreland basin was partitioned into smaller basins during the onset of the Laramide Orogeny.
Reference:
Thomas Finn
Subsurface Stratigraphic Cross Sections Showing Correlation of Cretaceous and Lower Tertiary Rocks in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming and Montana
Chapter 6 - Petroleum Systems and Geologic Assessment of Oil and Gas in the Bighorn Basin Province, Wyoming and Montana
U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–V
069/dds-069-v/REPORTS/69_V_CH_6.pdf