Piecing Together the Triassic/Jurassic Stratigraphy Along the South Flank of the Uinta Mountains, Northeast Utah
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Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2005-08-04 Piecing Together the Triassic/Jurassic Stratigraphy Along the South Flank of the Uinta Mountains, Northeast Utah: A Stratigraphic Analysis of the Bell Springs Member of the Nugget Sandstone Paul H. Jensen Jr. Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the Geology Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Jensen, Paul H. Jr., "Piecing Together the Triassic/Jurassic Stratigraphy Along the South Flank of the Uinta Mountains, Northeast Utah: A Stratigraphic Analysis of the Bell Springs Member of the Nugget Sandstone" (2005). Theses and Dissertations. 649. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/649 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. MAPPING AND PIECING TOGETHER THE TRIASSIC/JURASSIC STRATIGRAPHY ALONG THE SOUTH FLANK OF THE UINTA MOUNTAINS, NORTHEAST UTAH: A STRATIGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF THE BELL SPRINGS MEMBER OF THE NUGGET SANDSTONE by Paul H. Jensen A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Department of Geology Brigham Young University August 2005 BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY GRADUATE COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a thesis submitted by Paul H. Jensen This thesis has been read by each member of the following graduate committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. ____________________________ ________________________________ Date Bart Kowallis, Chair ____________________________ _______________________________ Date Thomas Morris ____________________________ _______________________________ Date Jeffrey Keith BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY As chair of the candidate’s graduate committee, I have read the thesis of Paul H. Jensen in its final form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographical style are consistent and acceptable and fulfill university and department style requirements; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the graduate committee and is ready for submission to the university library. ____________________________ ________________________________ Date Bart Kowallis Chair, Graduate Committee Accepted for the Department ________________________________ Jeffrey Keith Department Chair Accepted for the College ________________________________ G. Rex Bryce Assistant Dean, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences ABSTRACT PIECING TOGETHER THE TRIASSIC/JURASSIC STRATIGRAPHY ALONG THE SOUTH FLANK OF THE UINTA MOUNTAINS, NORTHEAST UTAH: A STRATIGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF THE BELL SPRINGS MEMBER OF THE NUGGET SANDSTONE Paul H. Jensen Department of Geology Master of Science Nomenclature for the Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic strata along the south flank of the Uinta Mountains has been somewhat confusing because of the position of the study area between southern Wyoming, where one set of names is used, and central/southern Utah where a different set of formation names is used. The Nugget Sandstone or Glen Canyon Sandstone of the eastern Uinta Mountains overlies the Upper Triassic Popo Agie or Chinle Formation. The nature of the contact between these two formations is unclear both in stratigraphic location and conformability. The Chinle Formation consists, in ascending order, of the Gartra Member, the purple unit, the ocher unit, and the upper red unit. The overlying Nugget Sandstone consists of two members, the lower Bell Springs Member and the overlying unnamed cross-bedded member, typically believed to be Navajo Sandstone equivalent. These two units of the Nugget Sandstone are thought to represent the Glen Canyon Group of the Colorado Plateau, although no obvious Wingate or Kayenta Formation equivalents have been recognized. The Bell Springs Member contains abundant fine-grained, ripple-laminated sandstones, red and green mudstones, occasional mudcracks and salt casts, evidence of burrowing and exposure, and some medium- to coarse-grained sandstones with small- scale (30-40 cm high) cross-beds. This member was deposited in a marine tidal flat environment, quite different from the mainly eolian environment of the rest of the Nugget Sandstone. The Bell Springs Member appears to be entirely Upper Triassic, based upon dinosaur tracks, while the upper windblown unit’s age is unknown, but probably straddles the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. During mapping in the Donkey Flat, Steinaker Reservoir, Dry Fork, and Lake Mountain quadrangles, the Bell Springs Member of the Nugget Sandstone was mapped as a separate unit. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank everybody that has helped me in completing this thesis. I especially thank my wife, Melanie, for continual support, patience, understanding, and encouragement to, “hurry up and finish, so we can move.” Perhaps the greatest offer of thanks and appreciation should go to my thesis advisor, Dr. Bart Kowallis. Thank you for your friendship, professional advice, and constant personal sacrifice to make this thesis, and my career, possible. Most of all, thank you for believing in me and my potential. You have forever altered my life for the better. Thanks also to my committee: Dr. Thomas Morris, Dr. Jeffrey Keith for professional enlightenment and encouragement. I express my appreciation and gratitude for the students that helped me, David Haddox and Riley Brinkerhoff. Thanks go to David Haddox for his help in the field and for endless professional and personal insights. A special thanks to Riley Brinkerhoff for dropping summer classes at a moment’s notice to work as an undergraduate assistant in the field and for teaching me the “ways” of Vernal, UT. I hope I can now be considered a “son of the Uinta Basin”. Thanks to Doug Sprinkel (Utah Geological Survey) for his invaluable help, continuously offering his professional advice, and taking me under his wing as an undergraduate intern, making my whole experience possible. I also acknowledge the students of BYU field camp 2004 and 2005 and the field data which they collected for my thesis. The research for this project was supported by the U.S. Geological Survey’s EDMAP program and the BYU Geology Department. TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page………………………………………………………………………………..…i Graduate Committee Approval Page……………………………………………………...ii Final Reading Approval and Acceptance Page…………………………………………..iii Abstract Page……………………………………………………………………………..iv Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………...…..vi Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………..viii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….ix List of Plates……………………………………………………………………………..xii Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..……1 Chapter 1…………………………………………………………………………………..2 Introduction………………………………………………………………………..2 Stratigraphy………………………………………………………………………..3 Chapter 2………………………………..………………………………………………..33 Introduction………………………………………………………………………33 Discussion………………………………………………………………………..36 Conclusions………………………………..……………………………………..53 References………………………………………………………………………………..54 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Index Map Figure 2: Stratigraphic Column Figure 3: Park City Formation Figure 4: Dinwoody Formation Figure 5: Moenkopi Formation Figure 6: Gartra Member Figure 7: Chinle Formation Figure 8: Conglomerate in Upper Red Unit Figure 9: Bell Springs Member Figure 10: Nugget Sandstone (upper member) Figure 11: Carmel Formation Figure 12: Ash Bed Within the Carmel Formation Figure 13: Entrada Sandstone Figure 14: Stump Formation Figure 15: Morrison Formation Figure 16: Cretaceous-Aged Geologic Units Along Utah Highway 191 Figure 17: Mancos Shale Figure 18: Alluvial Pediments in Dinwoody Formation Figure 19: Alluvial Pediments on Buckskin Hills ix Figure 20: Alluvial Pediment at Donkey Flat Figure 21: Large Boulders Within the Alluvial Pediments on Buckskin Hills Figure 22: Detachment Surface Within the Mowry Shale Figure 23: View of the Phosphate Strip Mine Figure 24: The Dam on Red Fleet Reservoir Figure 25: Red Fleet Reservoir Figure 26: “Battleships” at Red Fleet State Park Figure 27: Index Map of Studied Nugget Sandstone Outcrops Figure 28: Past Stratigraphic Columns for Triassic/Jurassic Section Near Vernal, UT Figure 29: Generalized Stratigraphic Column of the Bell Springs Member Figure 30: McConkey Ranch Outcrop Figure 31: Measured Stratigraphic Sections of the Bell Springs Member Figure 32: Apparent Angular Unconformity Figure 33: Flaser Ripples Figure 34: Rose Diagrams Figure 35: Evidence for Subarial Exposure Within the Bell Springs Member Figure 36: Cross-Bedding in the Bell Springs Member Figure 37: Sigmoidal Bedding in the Bell Springs Member Figure 38: Scour and Fill Sand Bars in the Bell Springs Member Figure 39: Lateral Facies Changes of the Bell Springs Member Figure 40: General Fining Upward in the Bell Springs Member x Figure 41: Contact Between the Bell Springs Member and the Upper Member of the Nugget Sandstone Figure 42: Dinosaur Trackway in the Bell Springs Member Figure 43: Dinosaur Print in the Bell Springs Member Figure 44: Figure of a Tidal Flat System Figure 45: Model for Fining Upward in a Tidal Flat Depositional System Figure 46: Outcrop of the Bell Springs Member Near Lander, WY Figure 47: Outcrop of the Bell Springs Member Near Rawlins, WY Figure 48: Outcrop of the Upper Ankareh Formation