November 30, 2009

1. November 30, 2009 Monster worm and sea star frenzy • Reading Ch. 14 • Final Exam date: TU, Dec. 15 Deep under the Antarctic ice, a rare, colourful burst of starfish and 3m-long monster worms has been filmed by a BBC camera crew. Filmed in time-lapse, the extraordinary swarm of deep-sea creatures gathers to feed in a frenzy on the body of a seal, which had sunk to the ocean floor. Such a bounty of food may only occur once every ten years in the ice-cold waters of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The images were taken by divers filming for the natural history series Life. The time-lapse sequence revealed the feeding frenzy of hundreds of huge worms, starfish, brittle stars and sea-urchins.

2. Refresher…late Paleozoic • Geology • Absaroka transgression • Cratonic deformation • Ouachita belt • Ancestral Rockies • Alleghanian orogeny • Final Appalachian • Formation of Pangea • Life • Marine • Major carbonate reefs • Ray finned fishes, sharks • Terrestrial • primitive gymnosperms • Insects (arthropods) • Amphibians and first reptiles • Permian extinction

3. Mesozoic Era • Time frame • 250-65 mya • Age of Reptiles • Breakup of Pangea http://www.museulourinha.org/images/dinos_ilustracao.jpg

4. Breakup of Pangea • Occurred late Triassic through Cretaceous • N. America and Africa split • Greenland and Europe split • Newark rifts • Stretching crust • Basalt injections • The Palisades, NJ Palisades (basaltic sill) http://piercehaviland.com/Scenic/Palisades/index.htm http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=348 http://www.math.montana.edu/~nmp/materials/ess/geosphere/inter/activities/exploration/index.html

5. East African Rift Valley 2005 eruptions http://www.sfr.cas.psu.edu/Stauffer/nsf/malawi.htm http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2009/11/the_rifting_of_africa.php

6. Reptile tracks, CT Breakup of Pangea • Weathering of uplifted regions • Newark Supergroup • Red, non-marine sediments • Formation of aulacogens • Basins bounded by faults

7. Breakup of Pangea • North Atlantic Ocean basin • Rapidly widening • Gulf of Mexico • Restricted basin • Evaporite deposition • LA salt domes • Petroleum traps • Chalk deposition • White Cliffs of Dover http://quakeinfo.ucsd.edu/~hedlin/erth10/Lecture16/white-cliffs.jpeg http://geography.howstuffworks.com/terms-and-associations/pangaea-supercontinent.htm/printable

8. Flaming Gorge, WY Navajo Sandstone, UT Interior Craton • Red sediments transported west • Moenkopi Formation • Quartz sands deposited • Navajo Sandstone, UT Wingate Sandstone Chinle Fn Moenkopi Fn http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/capitol2/html/3d155.html

9. Erosion of western highlands • Morrison Formation Gypsum Springs, CO Dinosaur National Park, UT Interior Craton • Changes in sea level • Sundance Formation Sundance Fn, WY http://www.fhsu.edu/biology/cbennett/research_photos.html http://www.geo-sciences.com/images_geology-2.htm http://www3.interscience.wiley.com:8100/legacy/college/levin/0470000201/chap_tutorial/ch11/chapter11-4.html

10. Cordillera Belt • Western margin activity intensified • Most of western margin is ‘foreign’ • suspect and exotic terranes • Ex: Wrangell Mts, AK http://www.my-photo-blog.com/category/travel/alaska/wrangell-st-elias http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-81/Intro/TopographicData/DEM/DEM.html http://www.umt.edu/geosciences/faculty/sears/animation/latecretaceous.htm

11. Sonoma Orogeny • Island arc collision • Forearc basin (Great Valley Grp) • Volcanic & ocean sediments • Accretionary prism (Fransciscan Cx) • blueschists • Foreland basin (Morrison Fmn) • Volcanic & terrestrial sediments http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G102/102meso1.htm