Hiking down to the Calhan Paint Mines.
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Sherman walks across the coarse, white sediments of an ancient river bed. Without this hard caprock, most of the colorful paleosol layers below would not be visible.
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A panoramic of 11 separate digital images stitched together to show the full beauty of the Calhan Paint Mines. Dave Basinger (DMNS photographer) setting up in foreground.
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Jessica explores the paleosol layers.
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A simple "cave" to most people. But members in our group would see it as a collapse of the overlying white, coarse river sediments following erosion of the colorful paleosol.
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Jane & Kirk atop the ancient (white) riverbed which provides the caprock for the paleosol at the Calhan Paint Mines.
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Rod in the colorful paleosol.
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It's amazing what a hard caprock can do. Here the ancient, white riverbed provides erosonal protection to appox. 10 meters of paleosol.
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A panoramic of 14 images from the streambed level of the Calhan Paint Mines (360+ degree view) - Note white boulder in both left and right of image.
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A vision of Mars? (see next image) In the center, a massive boulder of the ancient, white, coarse riverbed has finally collapsed into the gully.
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"If it looks like Mars. And, there are Martians carved in the surrounding rock... maybe it is Mars?"
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Rich Barclay adjusts his shoes in this ancient, scenic environment of the paleosol capped by an ancient riverbed.
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A panoramic of 7 images showing the field school diagramming the geology of the Calhan Paint Mines.
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Everyone threw down their field books for comparison. Bob Raynolds explains the subtle differences and suggested data to record in a field diagram.
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Bob Raynolds puts his finger on the D1/D2 contact at Calhan Paint Mines. The darker material below is a lignite bed with layers of ash. Kirk Johnson took samples for dating.
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Bob Raynolds points out an ash layer in the lignite beds. This ash layer has been dated at 63.8 mya.
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Kirk Johnson retrieves samples from the lignite bed with layers of ash. This location is a little further down the creek bed (older). These samples will provide a very accurate date of these sediments.
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Rich Barclay takes a few leaf samples from the "Sequoia" leaf site which is very close (3m downstream) from the lignite beds where Kirk took samples for dating.
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A bald cypress.
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Panoramic of multiple stitched images. Calhan Paint Mines, view looking east. Only 2 small outcrops of D1 are visible here.
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