| Sheridan, Montana Geology and the geosciences |
|
Geology a science built on the foundations of other sciences Geology Field camps in South West Montana Geomorphology including a description of alluvial fans in Sheridan, MT Geology - The role of Geology in Environmnetal science Minerals and Rock Hounding in the Ruby Valley, Montana Mines in the Sheridan Montana area (includes detailed description of the Buckeye mine) Ruby Valley and Sheridan Geology Books on Geology and Geography
We know little beyond what we can speculate and find. We as a people can learn much more of what lies underneath our feet, not only here, but everywhere we travel. It is our hope that with a little more knowledge, all of us can start to understand the magnificent forces of nature - how it affects us in our everyday life and how it can put into perspective our own short stay on this planet. With this in mind, we want to provide everyone a little insight into what is going on around us by creating a Geological Interpretative Site. The physical site is just beginning to take form. We are in the process of determining what should be displayed, layout, and how to ensure it can be maintained in the long run. Please feel free to read on and provide any comments or feedback.
 Dikes Running through the Tobacco Roots (North end) For more information on geology or for any comments please forward your inquiries to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it EXCERPT from 2007 GSA Annual Meeting Presidential Address: There's Adventure in Geology"We geologists are a fortunate group of scientists. We work over a range of spatial and temporal scales that is rivaled only by the cosmologists. We look for minute chemical traces of life in ancient rocks and examine isotopic ratios, but we are also looking at deep earth structures and the evolution of the solar system where geology provides the ground-truth data. Unique to our science is the fact that we are concerned with both prediction and retrodiction of the processes that shape the world upon which we live. We are trying to decipher 4.5 billion years of Earth's history. The idea of geologic time (deep time), the evolution of life, and the concept of uniformitarianism are a few of our science's many gifts to mankind. It might, however, be geology's projections of earth processes into the future that are the most important. Much of the early growth of geology was driven by the prediction aspect. Where to find key mineral resources and how much of them exist were questions that led to support for geological mapping and the formation of our geological surveys. These remain critical projections—what are our petroleum, mineral, and water resources? These issues are important politically and economically. One of my first professional slides (Sharp and Domenico, 1976, Figure 2 therein) depicted sedimentary basins in the eastern hemisphere that are receiving such high rates of sediment deposition that they are predicted to contain excess pore-fluid pressures. For many of them, excess pore-fluid pressures had been reported in the literature before 1973, and most have since had such pressures documented. It is an interesting coincidence that these basins seem to correspond with zones of recent political turmoil. Of course, we either have found or expect to find petroleum in these basins. This may not be a coincidence, because wars have commonly commenced over possession of mineral, water, land, and now energy resources. Geology is important politically." The entire article can be found at GSA's Web Site
A Geological Perspective John Wesley Powell was a civil war veteran who was trained at Ursinus College as a geologist. Perhaps best know for his journey down the Grand Canyon this excerpt gives us a different perspective of the earth’s formation. I find this especially relevant as his journey was taking place at the same time as Sheridan Montana was founded and took place right after the civil war :
Even when he discussed subjects as far removed from the battlefield as geology, Powell favored warlike imagery. Snow and Rain were “missiles” in the “storm of war” and crumbling rocks broken down by that attack “fled to the sea” like panicky soldiers running from the front line. Geology properly understood revealed a tale as violent as the Iliad, “a history of the war of elements.” Similarly, the buttes that marked Western landscapes looked to Powell “as if a thousand battles had been fought on the plains below,” with warriors of titanic size in deadly combat, “and on every field the giant heroes had built a monument.” pp 70-71 "Down the Great Unknown John Wesley Powell’s 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy through the Grand Canyon" Edward Dolnick Harper Collins Publishers 2002 |
|||||
| < Prev |
|---|