mining era pipeline

Late last week, when I was looking at dirty snow, I was really scouting out a location for a geology/Colorado History field trip I was going to take a third grade class on. There are many areas to choose from and this trip (I use any excuse to get into the mountains) I wanted to check out Corkscrew Gulch, part of the Red Mountain Mining District. This pipeline was used to carry tailings from the mill down to the Ironton Park area. I am just totally amazed at what these guys did with wooden pipelines. Most of the pipeline is gone, and what is left is still under lots of snow, but I was still able to see a few of the sites.

The pipeline had to cross Corkscrew Gulch. Here, looking up at the pipe from the bottom of the gulch. Rumor has it that this was the second longest suspension bridge in Colorado.

Along the pipeline route there are small wooden boxes where the tailings slurry would drop some quick elevation. The gradient of the pipeline had to be such that the whole slurry would continue downhill. If the gradient was too shallow, gravity wouldn't be able to help the material to move. If the gradient was too steep, the water would run of leaving the solids behind. here you can see the uphill entrance for the pipeline. The downhill exit is below the snow.
This is the view across Corkscrew Gulch. The supports for the bridge are still in place, but the bridge itself is only for use in Indiana Jones movies. No one else would ever dream of crossing the span. There is a ski trail up to this spot and it makes a great afternoon of winter exploring.
The field trip is scheduled for mid-May. There is a chance that the snow might be melted. However, I think I need to scout out some lower elevation spots just in case.

Dirty snow means a quick melt

I was able to get up into the high country this week. The day was warm, the sky was blue and the snow was covered with red dust. This is not the pink snow of bacterial fame, but snow that is covered with the red dust of the Utah and Arizona deserts. The week before we had had some powerful "wind events". There was a record report of winds at Red Mountain Pass at almost 90 mph. These spring winds not only do an efficient job of melting back (or I guess I should say sublimating) the snow. We lost 12% of the snow pack in just a few days. The winds also drop dust particles from the desert onto the snow. Studies have shown that this dirty snow will melt at a much faster rate than clean snow. A recent article in the aspen times discusses this effect.

As the climate changes, models suggest that the American Intermountain West will become warmer and dryer. A warmer and drier desert could provide even more dust in future years. The snow pack, which might be less than average, will melt even faster. No matter why the climate is changing I think we need to start thinking about how we can best survive these changes.

A dirty hillside. Looking towards Hayden Peak.

The north facing slope is still white from new snow on top of the dust. The south facing slope shows the extent of dust as the newer snow has melted.

Snow shoe tracks showing clean snow below the dusty layer.

AW #23 Busy People

Hi all, The 23rd installment of the Accretionary Wedge asked a simple question: What are you working on right now? It was sort of a twitter-on-steroids where we were encouraged to use more than 140 characters in our description. I hope I spelled everything correctly!

My first impression of just how busy everyone is came from Silver Fox who told me she was waay busy but we could use this post about her visit to the Turnagain Arm mudflats. Thanks for the virtual visit to the Alaskan coast.

Our favorite hydrophillic geologist (what a great name for a blog), Anne writes about her many and varied interests concerning the hydro-geosphere from watershed/ climate change interactions to examining landscape evolution in response to changes in hydrologic regimes.

Lockwood sent in his comments about his current project. It doesn't involve geology as much as it involves geologists and the making of a virtual community in the geoblogosphere. A great post with some great ideas.

Another geologist with much on his plate is Kyle at Geologic Frothings. His post comes from his "all about me" page on his blog. His note to me was to look under the biographical stuff and there is a pile of stuff that he is currently working on.

At this point I could see that my question, while seemingly simple was actually difficult for our multi-tasking geo-scientists and bloggers.

Callan at his new home the Mountain Beltway, describes a day in the life of a NOVA geologist. Between teaching and grading and getting ready for the next presentation, Callan paints a picture of a busy guy.

One problem many geologists faced this month was that they can't share their current research because of industrial demands. The Lost Geologist decided to instead share potential research passions.

After a few visits to the volcanoes of Guatemala, Jess over at Magma Cum Laude shares her current work on the long road to become Dr. Volcano, by creating maps and learning the tools necessary for studying samples taken from the mountain. Good luck Jess.

Another geology teacher is Garry over at Geotripper. His post is about not falling through the cracks. This is a common teacher-ism but can also be used by geologists and by actors in certain end of the world movies.

This question seemed to open up some deep thoughts among the geoblogosphere. We have already seen that everyone is busy working on a variety of projects. But some posts have gone beyond the current project list and started looking at their online work as geobloggers. Ron Schott at the geology home companion blog, who was the very first geo blog I ever read writes about where blogging has taken him and where he would like it to go. In his own words, an introspective blog post.

If you want to read about earthquake dynamics, take a look at Julian's research over at Harmonic Tremors . Like others, he is working on a PhD and starting down that long slippery slope. Good luck Julian.

Poor David at Cryology and Co. has to work in Alps as a field area. His current work looks at the formation age of rock glaciers. He discusses some of the issues when trying to date when the rock and ice started behaving as a glacier.

The Riparian Rap blog discusses the Little River Research and Design company. Steve's comments concern not only the issues of a small company in the current economic climate, but also the new ideas in creating river modeling systems. I know my students enjoyed even the simplest of stream tables.

Chris at Highly Allochthonous discusses the ideas of a snowball earth while studying in Oman. Not only is the post good, but the comments are also worth reading. I think it has something to do with who reads science blogs, compared to the comments on my blog which are usually just long strings of Chinese characters.

Sediment grains are the star attraction at Research at a Snail's Pace. Pascal is looking at how individual grains interact with each other.

Another geologist in the private sector, Brian at Clastic Detritus reminds us that he does not blog about his for-pay-work, but does discuss his published research and everything that is turbidite related.

The depth and breadth of the different research areas discussed here is amazing. The Lab Lemming's research is in a totally different area than everyone else. He explains that the subject of his study is a few orders of magnitude larger than his usual subjects, zircons. The subject's name is LLL-Y and the pictures are worth the visit to this site.

On-The-Rocks at geosciblog is another geo-scientist with a full plate, including retyping a thesis from the 1980's when electric typewriters were all the rage. Good luck with that project!

As for myself, I am still working with teachers to help them share geology with their little kids. Next week is a field session in the canyons of Utah where I will examine friction coefficient between my mountain bike and several different sand stone varieties. Later in the month I will be with National Geographic again with their new geology curriculum which will be rolled out this fall. I hope everyone enjoyed The Accretionary Wedge #23

New Accretionary Wedge

I think this will be AW #23.

Not everything I am studying ends up in a published paper, well actually nothing I study ends up in a published paper. Sometimes my HS students hear about my adventures and sometimes I write a blog post, but mostly it is just for me.

This AW is to share your latest discovery with all of us. Please let us in on your thoughts about your current work. What you are finding, what you are looking for. Any problems? Anything working out well?

Lets try to get everything in by March 26. I will be out (mountain biking in the field) for the 1st half of April and I want to get this done before I head out.

The Grand Mesa

What a fabulous President's Day, a ski tour atop the "largest flat topped mountain in the world". The Grand Mesa is a large mesa found in western Colorado. I am not sure who decided that it was so special, but I read it on the Internet...so it must be true.

The top of the mesa is covered by lava flows dated at 10,000,000 years ago. These lava flows make quite a nice cap rock and have slowed erosion down. The top of the mesa sits a little over 11,000 feet, and in the summer the volcanic evidence is abundant. In the winter, not so much. On either side of the mesa, the Colorado River to the north and the Gunnison River to the south, deeper valleys have been incised down to 5,000 feet in elevation.

Because we can date the lava flows and we can measure the depth of the valleys next to the Grand Mesa, it makes for a very convenient yard stick. I teach geology classes along both the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers. By doing some simple math, (6,000 feet in 10,000,000 years) we get an idea how long it takes for neighborhood valleys to erode. We then measure nearby tributaries and get an idea how long that tributary has been down cutting. I love getting simple math into classrooms!

The Grand Mesa is important for more than just being a yard stick. It is a formidable barrier to moisture as it makes its way east. The south side of the mesa is part of the Gunnison River drainage while the north side of the mesa is part of the Colorado River drainage. Much of the water needed throughout the arid west will be dropped here as snow each winter.

The Grand Mesa seen from a distance. It makes an obvious landmark for mile around.

A summer time shot from the valley bottom.
Winter! Skiing next to a basaltic ridge.
The state flower, The blue Columbine growing among vesicular basalt boulders.

Flash Wedge

Fearing the demise of the geocentric carnival, several geoblogosphere members started a flash wedge. A sort of meme carnival or a carnival meme. So, I thought I would join the action.

I have been working with a group, Teachers Without Borders. They did some great work with the recovery of the large 2008 earthquake in Sichuan China. Those lessons will be used as the recovery occurs in Haiti. Currently, TWB has a one page "this is what happened" link that explains some of the science, how to contribute and some resources.

to borrow from John McPhee

I really needed a Californian.

Our 1st grandson was born about 1 month ago and we (being the grandparents we are) traveled to San Francisco to help our son and daughter in law make that transition from not-being-a-parent to parenthood. You know where you don't get to sleep any more. What a fun place to watch your new grandson. They live on top of one of the famed SF hills and there are outcrops all over the place. I have become lazy with the Colorado Plateau outcrops where the story is somewhat easily interpreted. Not so in SF! Pretty much made little sense to me. So, went to a book store and started researching. That and geotripper's posts sure helped. Thanks!

Most of the pictures taken were of people holding a baby. I will try and find one with people holding a baby next to a rock and post it.