GSA Joint Section Meeting

Rocky Mountain (70th Annual Meeting)
Cordilleran (114th Annual Meeting)

15–17 May | Flagstaff, Arizona
Double Tree by Hilton Hotel and Conference Center

Pre-Meeting

1. Silver Creek Caldera and Peach Spring Tuff.
Sun.–Mon., 13–14 May, 7:30 a.m. departure; 4:30 p.m. return.
Cost: $268 (includes transportation, guidebook, one night lodging, lunch, and snacks).
Organizer: Charles Ferguson, Arizona Geological Survey.

This two-day field trip will visit key localities of the widespread, Miocene-age Peach Spring Tuff at its proxy type locality near Kingman, Arizona (Day 1), including its previously unrecognized, uppermost, phenocryst-rich trachytic zone, and the geology in and around the Silver Creek caldera near Oatman, including its phenocryst-rich, trachytic caldera fill (Day 2).

2. Informal Geoscience Education on the Trail of Time at Grand Canyon National Park.
Mon., 14 May, 7:30 a.m. departure; 4:30 p.m. return.
Cost: $90 (includes transportation, park entrance fee, snacks; does not include lunch at Grand Canyon Village).
Organizers: Steven Semken, Arizona State Univ.; Karl Karlstrom, Univ. of New Mexico; Laura Crossey, Univ. of New Mexico; Ryan Crow, USGS Flagstaff.

This one-day field trip comprises a hike on the main section of the Trail of Time, an interpretive timeline trail along the South Rim of Grand Canyon that is the largest and most thoroughly evaluated geoscience exhibition in the National Park System. The hike will focus on its design process and history, its instructional elements, and its impacts on public knowledge of geoscience concepts and Grand Canyon geology.

Post-Meeting

3. Oligocene Incision of Grand Canyon, Grandview Trail to Horseshoe Mesa.
Fri., 18 May, 7:30 a.m. departure; 4:30 p.m. return.
Cost: $100 (includes transportation, snacks).
Organizers: Jim Sears, Univ. of Montana.

This one-day field trip to Grand Canyon is a day hike down the Grandview Trail to Horseshoe Mesa, a broad terrace on top of the Redwall Limestone. The geologic context is to discuss implications of the terrace for the erosional evolution of the canyon, addressing the proposal that the canyon had cut down to the level of the top of the Redwall in eastern Grand Canyon by Oligocene time, and then dissected the Inner Gorge during the past six million years.

4.The Holey Tour: Planetary Analog Sites Of Northern Arizona.
Cosponsored by GSA Planetary Geology Division
Fri., 18 May, 8 a.m. departure; 5 p.m. return.
Cost: $75 (trip includes van transportation, entrance to Meteor Crater, water, lunch, and field trip guidebook).
Organizers: Nadine G. Barlow, Northern Arizona University; Christopher Edwards, Northern Arizona University; Mark Salvatore, Northern Arizona University.

We will hike part-way along the Meteor Crater rim out to Barringer Point (the highest point on the rim), stopping along the way to discuss the history of the Crater, how it was used in the training of the Apollo astronauts, key geologic features, and the insights it provides into impact crater formation and evolution on other planetary bodies. Then head north to SP and Colton volcanic craters, stopping to eat lunch along the way. We will spend the afternoon exploring the volcanic flows and structures of these two young volcanoes and discuss how the San Francisco volcanic field has been used in astronaut training, and rover and space suit testing.

5. Tectonic and Magmatic Evolution of the Snake Range Metamorphic Core Complex, east Central Nevada.
Fri.–Mon., 18–21 May, 7:30 a.m. departure from Las Vegas; return to the Las Vegas airport 5 p.m., with optional transport from Flagstaff to Las Vegas on the evening of 17 May.
Cost: $490 (includes transportation, four nights lodging, breakfast, lunch, snacks, and field guide).
Organizer: Phillip Gans, Univ. of California Santa Barbara.

This four-day, post-meeting trip will present new insights into the tectonomagmatic evolution of the Snake Range metamorphic core complex within the regional geologic framework of east central Nevada. The field trip will include stops in the White Pine Range (Horse Camp basin, Red Mountain caldera, and Illipah fold and thrust belt), Schell Creek Range (Eocene normal faulting and volcanism, deep-seated Mesozoic shortening fabrics), and a comprehensive examination of the Snake Range metamorphic core complex (geometry and timing of upper plate structure, the famed Snake Range Decollement, age and significance of polyphase footwall fabrics and intrusions, and the role of tectonic heredity).