From the Editor - October 2016
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Last month, I encouraged everyone to get back out into the field, to remember what started you on your geologic inspirational path. The irony? I have now been tasked to transition the Bulletin to the digital era; alas, more time behind |
I feel extremely reticent on the Digital Bulletin topic (at least for this month), so I am choosing purposely to avoid that conversation and focus completely on the cool geology we have here in Texas. I am just too excited and ready to go on some outdoor exploits!
Field trips are probably one of the most fun activities any geologist gets to experience — it is really what keeps us down-to-earth and motivated to continue in the profession. This month, inspired by DigitalGlobe’s technology-driven cover image of the Grand Canyon, I decided to plan several local personal family field trips for the upcoming year. Planning a field trip can be quite daunting, however, (and fortunately) the HGS has done this many times before, and with just a little digital help — I was able to uncover a few historical links that I hope you will find interesting enough to explore yourself!
Upcoming Hgs Organized Field Trips
(Waivers Required)
Panther Creek, Montgomery County Preserve
October 16, 2016, Woodlands, TX
Tucked away just south of The Woodlands, Texas is the Montgomery County Preserve — a greenway that local residents use to walk their dogs or jog and groups use to learn about local flora. The preserve also holds a natural laboratory to explore a meandering creek system. Spending part or all of a day along a ½ km of Panther Creek where it merges with Spring Creek allows visitors to investigate numerous features of the creek as well as interact with the processes that form and continually modify them. The field guide points out the various features of the creek at a number of locations along with explanations of the processes that are occurring.
Where: West on Sawdust Rd off of I 45. South on Budde Rd. It will become Pruitt Rd. Turn left at Montgomery County Preserve and look for the sign.
What to See: Geological stream processes on Panther Creek and how you would recognize them under the ground. Point bars, cut banks, sediment flow and structures, and log jams.
Panther Creek Guidebook — http://www.hgs.org/sites/default/files/Panther%20Creek%20Field%20Guide%2...
Take a Kid to the Outcrop Campout
October 14-16, Trinity, TX
A weekend family campout which will include a fossil hunt at a quarry, a new geology lab, gold panning, and other outdoor activities.
Where: YMCA Camp Cullen
What to See: Fossil hunting, golf panning, geology lab with
samples, and many more activities.
Day Trips From Houston
Jacob’s Well Natural Area
Wimberley, TX
Jacob’s Well is a feature of the karst landscape of Central Texas and the headwaters of Cypress Creek. The extensive caving systems that are common in this region are the result of slightly acidic rainfall interacting with and eroding the limestone over millennia. The limestone caves and passage segments combine to form one of the longest underwater cave systems in Texas.
Where: Main entrance located at 1699 Mount Sharp Road, Wimberley, Texas 78676. Reservations required during swimming season at https://jwna.checkfront.com/reserve.
What to See: Fossil hunting, gold panning, geology lab with samples, and many more activities. http://www.co.hays.tx.us/jwna.aspx https://jwna.checkfront.com/reserve.
Mineral Wells Fossil Park
Mineral Wells, TX
Mineral Wells Fossil Park provides the fossil enthusiast, palaeontologist, and student an excellent opportunity to see and collect well preserved “Pennsylvanian Period” fossils with ease and abundance. These fossils have been dated to be just over 300 million years old.
Where: Fossil Park is located northwest of Mineral Wells, Texas. From Mineral Wells, head west on Highway 180. Turn north on Indian Creek Road and drive approximately 2 miles to the Mineral Wells Fossil Park entrance.
What to See: 300 million-year-old fossils that range from crinoids and bivalves to brachiopods, corals, trilobites, and more. (You can take them home!)
http://www.mineralwellsfossilpark.com/
Whiskey Bridge
Bryan, TX
This locality is famous for being the most fossiliferous site in Texas. It has been called Moseley Ferry after the river crossing in the early days of Texas, and more recently called Whiskey Bridge because this was the closest place to A&M where Aggies could go to get a drink. The fossils were first described in 1848 by Roemer, a German geologist sent by the Berlin Academy of Sciences to see if Texas was a fit place for settlement (he said it was!). The strata exposed here are Eocene in age, which means that they are 35 million years old. Some of the sediment is well cemented and forms hard ledges, an unusual material here in the Brazos River flood plain. These rocks gave name to the town just north of the river, Stone City. In return, the town gave the name Stone City Bluffs to the outcrop, and you see the stones everywhere. Most of the outcrop is soft sediment — sand, silt, and a peculiar dark green material called glauconite, our key to figuring out where these sediments were deposited.
Where: Bridge on Hwy 21 over the Brazos River in Cooks Point, TX.
What to See: Cross-beds, burrows, gastropods, corals.
Whiskey Bridge Guidebook - www.hgms.org/client_trips/WhiskeyBridge/files/OutcropDescription.pdf https://www.hgs.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=1492
McFaddin Beach/High Island
McFaddin Beach, TX
Where: The beach where Hwy 87 and Hwy 124 intersect, just south of the town of High Island and park where Hwy 124 ends at the beach. Nearest rest rooms are at the gas station in the town of High Island.
What to See: Pleistocene fossils along the beach.
http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/mcfaddin/McFaddin Beach Guidebook, 2012— https://www.hgs.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=1244
Spindletop Salt Dome
Beaumont, TX
Gladys City is available for full or semi-guided 90-minute tours for groups of 10 or more Tuesday through Friday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Where: Gladys City is located on the Lamar University campus at 5550 Jimmy Simmons Blvd (formerly University Drive), Beaumont, Texas 77705 (University Drive & Hwy. 69N).
What to See: Gusher re-enactment, museum.
http://www.lamar.edu/spindletop-gladys-city/index.html
Past HGS Spindletop Field Trip — http://www.hgs.org/node/5401
I hope you find these links and resources helpful in your own personal field trip planning activities. Please remember these are simply ideas and I have not researched full the viability or accessibility of each region. As I do attend some of these, however, I will be sure to share my “plans” and the results of my experiences. Happy Fielding!