Preliminary geologic map of the Walden quadrangle, North Park, Jackson County, Colorado

Kinney, Douglas M.; Hail, W.J.

doi:10.3133/ofr70185

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Dip values measured on both limbs of the syncline do not show any obvious relation between dip value and stratigraphic position within the North Park Formation. Attitudes measured in beds of the North Park Formation in the North Park syncline are similar to those of nearby beds of the Coalmont Formation (Hail 1965;Kinney and Hail, 1970a), which suggests that little or no folding occurred in the area of the North Park syncline between the deposition of the Coalmont Formation and the deposition of the North Park Formation. Folding may be due to movement on either (1) a major, southwest-dipping normal fault on the north flank of the syncline (Behrendt and others, 1969;Kinney, 1970a, Kinney andHail, 1970a;Izett, 1975) or (2) a concealed, northeast-dipping thrust fault or transpressive structure on the south flank of the syncline (D.S.…”

Section: Structural Setting Of the North Park Synclinementioning

confidence: 55%

“…Exposed beds on the southern limb of the syncline dip 12°-32° NE. ; dip values average 23° (Hail, 1965;Kinney, 1970a;Kinney and Hail, 1970a; this study). Exposed beds on the northern limb of the syncline dip 14°-33° SW.; dip values average 23° (Hail, 1965;Kinney, 1970a;Kinney and Hail, 1970a;this study).…”

Section: Structural Setting Of the North Park Synclinementioning

confidence: 61%

“…; dip values average 23° (Hail, 1965;Kinney, 1970a;Kinney and Hail, 1970a; this study). Exposed beds on the northern limb of the syncline dip 14°-33° SW.; dip values average 23° (Hail, 1965;Kinney, 1970a;Kinney and Hail, 1970a;this study). Dip values measured on both limbs of the syncline do not show any obvious relation between dip value and stratigraphic position within the North Park Formation.…”

Section: Structural Setting Of the North Park Synclinementioning

confidence: 61%

“…Later work by Montagne and Barnes (1957) along the flanks of the North Park syncline revealed that the lowest part of the North Park Formation, as established by Beekly (1915), locally contains vertebrate fossil-bearing beds typically assigned to the White River Formation. Geologic mapping in and near the syncline by Hail (1965), Kinney (1970a), Kinney and Hail (1970a), and Tweto (1976) assigned light-colored, tuffaceous claystone, siltstone, and minor finegrained sandstone beds, which locally contain titanothere bones of Chadronian age (table 2) (Montagne and Barnes, 1957), to the White River Formation and the overlying coarser grained sandstone and conglomerate to the North Park Formation. The North Park Formation typically contains sparse to abundant volcanic clasts (Hail, 1965); locally contains a thin, poorly table 1 and those cited elsewhere in this report.…”

Section: Area Of Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…North Park occupies the northern part of the North Park-Middle Park basin of Laramide age (Tweto, 1980), also informally known as the Colorado Headwaters basin (Cole and others, 2010), that formed during middle Paleocene through early Eocene time (Cole and Dechesne, 2013;Dechesne and others, 2013a). The main body of the North Park Formation is preserved in the North Park syncline (40 kilometers [km] long, 1-8 km wide, trending roughly N. 65° W.) in the southern part of North Park where it was mapped by Hail (1965Hail ( , 1968, Kinney (1970a), Hail (1970a), andTweto (1976). Except for small, widely spaced exposures commonly observed along the southern margin of the North Park syncline, much of the North Park Formation is concealed beneath relatively thin surficial deposits, which consist of sheetwash alluvium, colluvium, and minor lag gravel that support a vegetative cover composed mainly of sagebrush, grasses, and herbs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Geologic framework, age, and lithologic characteristics of the North Park Formation in North Park, north-central Colorado

Shroba¹

2016

Scientific Investigations Report

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COVER. View to the southeast looking toward the high peaks near the north end of the Never Summer Mountains. Highest peak on the skyline (right) is Mount Richthofen (12,940 feet [3,944 meters]), which is composed of 29.7-mega-annum (Ma, million years ago) granodiorite and monzonite of the Mount Richthofen stock. The serrate portion of the skyline to the left of Mount Richthofen, known as the Nokhu Crags, is composed of thermally metamorphosed Pierre Shale. Northeast-dipping rocks and sediments of the North Park Formation are locally exposed at Owl Ridge in the foreground. The base of the ledge-forming rocks in right foreground mark the base of the North Park Formation. The communications tower in left foreground is on the eroded top of the formation. A thin, 28.1-Ma ash-flow tuff, erupted from the Braddock Peak volcanic and intrusive complex in the north part of the Never Summer Mountains, is locally exposed slightly above the ledge-forming rocks in the right foreground. Photograph by R.R. Shroba, U.S. Geological Survey, August 6, 2011. For more information on the USGS-the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment-visit http://www.usgs.gov or call 1-888-ASK-USGS.For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://store.usgs.gov.Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner. AbstractDeposits of the North Park Formation of late Oligocene and Miocene age are locally exposed at small, widely spaced outcrops along the margins of the roughly northwest-trending North Park syncline in the southern part of North Park, a large intermontane topographic basin in Jackson County in north-central Colorado. These outcrops suggest that rocks and sediments of the North Park Formation consist chiefly of poorly consolidated sand, weakly cemented sandstone, and pebbly sandstone; subordinate amounts of pebble conglomerate; minor amounts of cobbly pebble gravel, siltstone, and sandy limestone; and rare beds of cobble conglomerate and altered tuff. These deposits partly filled North Park as well as a few small nearby valleys and half grabens. In North Park, deposits of the North Park Formation probably once formed a broad and relatively thick sedimentary apron composed chiefly of alluvial slope deposits (mostly sheetwash and streamchannel alluvium) that extended, over a distance of at least 150 kilometers (km), northwestward from the Never Summer Mountains and northward from the Rabbit Ears Range across North Park and extended farther northwestward into the valley of the North Platte River slightly north of the ColoradoWyoming border. The maximum preserved thickness of the formation in North Park is about 550 ...

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Section: Structural Setting Of the North Park Synclinementioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Structural Setting Of the North Park Synclinementioning

confidence: 61%

Section: Structural Setting Of the North Park Synclinementioning

confidence: 61%

Section: Area Of Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Geologic framework, age, and lithologic characteristics of the North Park Formation in North Park, north-central Colorado

Shroba¹

2016

Scientific Investigations Report

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Field guide to Laramide basin evolution and drilling activity in North Park and Middle Park, Colorado

Dechesne

Cole

Martin³

2016

MT GEOL

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This two-day field trip provides an overview of the geologic history of the North Park–Middle Park area and its past and recent drilling activity. Stops highlight basin formation and the consequences of geologic configuration on oil and gas plays and development. The trip focuses on work from ongoing U.S. Geological Survey research in this area (currently part of the Cenozoic Landscape Evolution of the Southern Rocky Mountains Project funded by the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program). Surface mapping is integrated with perspective from petroleum exploration within the basin. The starting point is the west flank of the Denver Basin to compare and contrast the latest Cretaceous through Eocene basin fill on both flanks of the Front Range. The next stop continues on the south end of the North Park–Middle Park area, about 60 miles [95km] west from the first stop. A general clockwise loop is described by following U.S. Highway 40 from Frasier via Granby and Kremmling to Muddy Pass after which CO Highway 14 is followed to Walden for an overnight stay. On the second day after a loop north of Walden, the Continental Divide is crossed at Willow Creek Pass for a return to Granby via Highway 125. The single structural basin that underlies both physiographic depressions of North Park and Middle Park originated during the latest Cretaceous to Eocene Laramide orogeny (Tweto, 1957, 1975; Dickinson et al., 1988). It largely filled with Paleocene to Eocene sediments and is bordered on the east by the Front Range, on the west by the Park Range and Gore Range, on the north by Independence Mountain and to the south by the Williams Fork and Vasquez Mountains (Figure 1). This larger Paleocene-Eocene structural basin is continuous underneath the Continental Divide, which dissects the basin in two approximately equal physiographic depressions, the ‘Parks.’ Therefore Cole et al. (2010) proposed the name ‘Colorado Headwaters Basin’ or ‘CHB,’ rather than North Park–Middle Park basin (Tweto 1957), to eliminate any confusion between the underlying larger Paleocene-Eocene basin and the two younger depressions that developed after the middle Oligocene. The name was derived from the headwaters of the Colorado, North Platte, Laramie, Cache La Poudre, and Big Thompson Rivers which are all within or near the study area. In this field guide, we will use the name Colorado Headwaters Basin (CHB) over North Park–Middle Park basin. Several workers have described the geology in the basin starting with reports from Marvine who was part of the Hayden Survey and wrote about Middle Park in 1874, Hague and Emmons reported on North Park as part of the King Survey in 1877, Cross on Middle Park (1892), and Beekly surveyed the coal resources of North Park in 1915. Further reconnaissance geologic mapping was performed by Hail (1965 and 1968) and Kinney (1970) in the North Park area and by Izett (1968, 1975), and Izett and Barclay (1973) in Middle Park. Most research has focused on coal resources (Madden, 1977; Stands, 1992; Roberts and Rossi, 1999), and oil and gas potential (1957, all papers in the RMAG guidebook to North Park; subsurface structural geologic analysis of both Middle Park and North Park (the CHB) by oil and gas geologist Wellborn (1977a)). A more comprehensive overview of all previous geologic research in the basin can be found in Cole et al. (2010). Oil and gas exploration started in 1925 when Continental Oil's Sherman A-1 was drilled in the McCallum field in the northeast part of the CHB. It produced mostly CO2 from the Dakota Sandstone and was dubbed the ‘Snow cone’ well. Later wells were more successful finding oil and/or gas, and exploration and production in the area is ongoing, most notably in the unconventional Niobrara play in the Coalmont-Hebron area.

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Preliminary geologic map of the Walden quadrangle, North Park, Jackson County, Colorado

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Geologic framework, age, and lithologic characteristics of the North Park Formation in North Park, north-central Colorado

Geologic framework, age, and lithologic characteristics of the North Park Formation in North Park, north-central Colorado

Field guide to Laramide basin evolution and drilling activity in North Park and Middle Park, Colorado

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