Applied Stratigraphix

When one of your heroes likes your post you have to do a dedication!

I first read Greg Retallack's work on paleosols (https://www.amazon.com/Colour-Guide-Paleosols-Gregory-Retallack/dp/0471967114) as an undergrad back in 2000. I was working on a fluvial stratigraphy project on vertebrate fossil sites in the Siwaliks of Pakistan at the time and his work out there was super useful.

Now as a Uranium exploration geologist working on multiple fluvial successions across the US (Morrison, Chinle, Wasatch, Battle Spring, Fort Union, and Wind River), his work on paleosols (https://www.amazon.com/Soils-Past-Gregory-J-Retallack/dp/0632053763) is more relevant than ever, as most Uranium deposits are hosted in sandstone-filled channels that cut across poorly drained paleosols.

The most perfectly preserved Counter Point Bars we have ever worked on. These are in the Eocene Wind River Fm of the Shirley Basin in Wyoming.

Fence posts are 1 meter high for scale.

The Book Cliff are ALWAYS beautiful no matter what season you're there (winters can be challenging to get around though).

300 meters of exposure for 300 km - no wonder this spot is the birthplace of Sequence Stratigraphy.

If you're wanting to get out there and refine your understanding of deltas, shorefaces and fluvial systems on the coastal plain let us know!

Textbook Uranium Roll Front from the Paleocene-Eocene Fort Union Formation in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.

The oxidized zone is between the red and green lines, and the mineralized zone is between the green and blue lines.

One of my favorite quotes from Ashton Embry is "parasequences are a lot like p**n, they're hard to define, but boy you sure know when you see one" - this one is from the Creatceous Mancos Shale in Utah.

Overturned cross-stratification from the Moss Back Member of the Triassic Chinle Formation in Utah

Shear folded mud-chips from a slump deposit in an Oligocene caldera from the San Juan mountains of Colorado. This was one of the caldera hosted clay-rich intervals I analyzed for Lithium during my masters at the Colorado School of Mines

Exquisite climbing ripples from a modern ephemeral stream in Utah, US

Dessication cracks, load casts and bioturbation along the base of a sandstone in the Triassic Moenkopi Formation of Utah

Mafic dikes cutting across Miocene to Pliocene volcaniclastics in Chile