28 December 2012
Friday fold: Bighorn monocline
Posted by Callan Bentley
Happy Friday! The last one of 2012, in fact! To celebrate, check out this monocline on the western flank of the Bighorn Range in the Rockies of Wyoming:
Annotated. Check out those fine hogbacks!
Previously, we also saw this same structure in this GigaPan:
The Bighorns have a special place in my heart as the destination of my first spring break field trip as a geology major. Still have a nice polished chunk of fault breccia from the bighorn dolomite, too:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuchtam/8317407961/
It’s from the eastern limb just off Hwy16. Which, BTW, is a rather toe-curling highway to navigate in a loaded 15-passenger van.
I’d never heard of hogbacks before – thanks for the new structure word!
It’s more of a geomorphology term – but you need tilted strata to make them happen.
First time I saw that I was with my parents on a trip to Yellowstone. My father was something of an amateur geologist and pointed the folding and some faults out to me. The second time I was with the IU geology field camp caravan through Shell Canyon on our way to Yellowstone and Cardwell. The next year I mapped an area south of Cody and later on I worked on the hydrodynamics of entrapment in the Muddy SS of the Powder River Basin. That part of Wyoming has always been special to me.