How old is the farmington canyon complex

Recreation Maps. Forest Service Maps. Recreation Books. Hiking Books. Outdoor Activities. Nature Guide. Rockhounding, Geology and Mining. Navigation, First Aid and Knots. Subscribe to Survey Notes. The visual treat will sweeten toward the end of September and the first part of October as the leaves make their colorful turn. On up the canyon, you'll enter stands of aspen and then conifers, such as Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir and white fir. Roll the windows down and let the olfactories go wild.

A few miles farther, you'll pass a forest service campground, which has about a dozen campsites, none of which is large enough to accommodate a large house trailer. In fact, says Cook, it's not recommended that long trailers be pulled up the canyon. The campground is named Sunset because of the colorful sunsets over the Great Salt Lake that can be seen from any clearing in the vicinity.

Just above the campground is the Rice Creek Field Station, built in the s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, which logged hundreds of thousands of manhours in the canyons to combat flooding.

Cook is trying to have the field station put on the Utah Historical Register. The station - a log bunkhouse complete with a coal-fired central heating system - is still maintained and utilized by the forest service and the Davis County sheriff's office. Up the road from the station, you'll come to a fork in the road. To the left is Francis Peak; to the right is Bountiful Peak. Take your pick of peaks. Either will satisfy. If you pick Francis Peak, you'll think it worth the trip just to see the massive golf-ball-like structures, affectionately called "the towers," which are manned 24 hours a day by FAA crews.

You'll also like the views to the east, where you can see Morgan valley and, on a clear day, the Uinta Mountains. As you approach the towers, you'll notice a road that veers to the right, on the east-facing side of the mountain. Though passenger cars have been known to brave the road, don't do it. Leave it to your old pickup or a four-wheel drive. The road soons becomes as nasty as the scenery is beautiful.

A series of switchbacks leads to the Smith Creek Lakes, three small ponds, actually, that sit in a cirque formed thousands of years ago by a glacier. Last week I finally succeeded with this Prairie Falcon.

I only got off a handful of shots but at least the bird turned its head into the light before it flew off. Based on bill color I believe it to be a first year bird. Now if I could only get this close to a Peregrine Falcon in good light… Ron. My previous post was an overview of the geology of Antelope Island and its non-bird wildlife. Juvenile Loggerhead Shrike begging for food Loggerhead Shrikes are common on many parts of the island during summer.

They can be a challenge to approach but those few that nest close to the road eventually get used to traffic so if you photograph from your vehicle you can often get quite close. Here this juvenile was begging for food that was being delivered by a parent just out of frame to the left.

Loggerhead Shrike with spider Shrikes are opportunistic carnivores known to feed on insects, spiders, amphibians, small reptiles, rodents and other birds. This one also attempted to impale the prey before eating it.

The project will then carry out detailed mapping at relatively small scales of one or two carefully chosen areas to demonstrate the distribution of exotic blocks within the gneiss, to compare block distributions to the Franciscan complex, and to carry out more detailed sampling of the blocks.

Sampling will focus on the amphibolites metabasalts , quartzites metacherts , and ultramafic rocks mantle tectonites? Whole rock geochemical studies for major and trace element concentrations will be carried out, using XRF and ICP-MS, to establish their protoliths and tectonic affinities. The mafic rocks will be studied using standard discrimination techniques developed for oceanic crust and island arc lavas.