Field School, Day 1 (7/6/03) - Travel to Kiowa, CO: Core Well Background

On Day #1, we traveled from Denver to Kiowa to setup camp at the Fair Grounds.  In the evening, an informal lecture was provided by Kirk Johnson & Bob Raynolds which covered stratigraphic and paleontological topics centering around the Kiowa well.  This 302 meter core well was drilled by DMNS (and other cooperating agencies) and provided stratigraphic data that was used on our daily trips to other localities in the basin.

The studies conducted as part of the Denver Basin Project have revealed that the sediments of the basin are the result of two separate "pulses" of synorogenic sedimentation. (Raynolds, Johnson, 2003)  These pulses are informally known as D1 (mostly Cretaceous) & D2 (mostly Paleocene & Eocene).

Additional notes on the evening lecture are missing because I arrived late on Day #1 from a dig in the Green River Formation, Parachute Creek Member at Douglas Pass, CO.  This trip was conducted by the Western Interior Paleontological Society (WIPS). 

1. Raynolds, Robert G and Kirk R. Johnson, "Synopsis of the stratigraphy and paleontology of the uppermost Cretaceous and lower Tertiary strata in the Denver Basin, Colorado", Rocky Mountain Geology, v. 38, no. 1, p. 171-181, May 2003.