Geology topics

William A. Braddock

Publications and source records attributed to William A. Braddock.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2011

Preliminary geologic map of the Bowen Mountain quadrangle, Grand and Jackson Counties, Colorado

The map shows the geology of an alpine region in the southern Never Summer Mountains, including parts of the Never Summer Wilderness Area, the Bowen Gulch Protection Area, and the Arapaho National Forest. The area includes Proterozoic crystalline rocks in fault contact with folded and overturned Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks and Upper Cretaceous(?) and Paleocene Middle Park Formation. The folding and faulting appears to reflect a singular contractional deformation (post-Middle Park, so probably younger than early Eocene) that produced en echelon structural uplift of the Proterozoic basement of the Front Range. The geologic map indicates there is no through-going \"Never Summer thrust\" fault in this area. The middle Tertiary structural complex was intruded in late Oligocene time by basalt, quartz latite, and rhyolite porphyry plugs that also produced minor volcanic deposits; these igneous rocks are collectively referred to informally as the Braddock Peak intrusive-volcanic complex whose type area is located in the Mount Richthofen quadrangle immediately north (Cole and others, 2008; Cole and Braddock, 2009). Miocene boulder gravel deposits are preserved along high-altitude ridges that probably represent former gravel channels that developed during uplift and erosion in middle Tertiary time.

Colorado↗

USGS2010

Geologic map of the Sand Creek Pass quadrangle, Larimer County, Colorado, and Albany County, Wyoming

New geologic mapping within the Sand Creek Pass 7.5 minute quadrangle defines geologic relationships within the northern Front Range of Colorado along the Wyoming border approximately 35 km south of Laramie, Wyo. Previous mapping within the quadrangle was limited to regional reconnaissance mapping; Eaton Reservoir 7.5 minute quadrangle to the east (2008), granite of the Rawah batholith to the south (1983), Laramie River valley to the west (1979), and the Laramie 30' x 60' quadrangle to the north (2007). Fieldwork was completed during 1981 and 1982 and during 2007 and 2008. Mapping was compiled at 1:24,000-scale. Minimal petrographic work was done and no isotope work was done in the quadrangle area, but detailed petrographic and isotope studies were performed on correlative map units in surrounding areas as part of a related regional study of the northern Front Range. Stratigraphy of Proterozoic rocks is primarily based upon field observation of bulk mineral composition, macroscopic textural features, and field relationships that allow for correlation with rocks studied in greater detail outside of the map area. Stratigraphy of Phanerozoic rocks is primarily based upon correlation with similar rocks to the north in the Laramie Basin of Wyoming and to the east in the Front Range of Colorado.

Scientific Investigations Map↗

USGS2009

Geologic Map of the Estes Park 30' x 60' Quadrangle, North-Central Colorado

The rocks and landforms of the Estes Park 30 x 60 minute quadrangle display an exceptionally complete record of geologic history in the northern Front Range of Colorado. The Proterozoic basement rocks exposed in the core of the range preserve evidence of Paleoproterozoic marine sedimentation, volcanism, and regional soft-sediment deformation, followed by regional folding and gradational metamorphism. The metasedimentary rocks of the Estes Park quadrangle are distinct within northern Colorado for preserving the complete metamorphic zonation from low-grade chlorite-muscovite phyllites, through middle greenschist-grade rocks with sequential aluminous porphyroblasts, to partially melted gneisses that contain high-grade cordierite and garnet in the non-melted residues. Regional and textural evidence shows that the widespread metamorphism was essentially concurrent with intrusion of the Boulder Creek Granodiorite and related magmas and with the peak of deformation in the partially melted high-grade rocks. The metamorphic thermal pulse arrived later following the peak of deformation in the physically higher, cooler, low-grade terrane. Mesoproterozoic time was marked by intrusion of biotite granite in the Longs Peak-St Vrain batholith, a complex, irregular body that occupies nearly half of the core of the Front Range in this quadrangle. The magma was dry and viscous as it invaded the metamorphic rocks and caused wholesale plastic folding of the wall rock structure. Steep metamorphic foliation that resulted from the Paleoproterozoic deformations was bowed upward and re-oriented into flat-lying attitudes as the crystal-rich magma rose buoyantly and spread out in the middle crust. Magma invaded the schists and gneisses along weak foliation planes and produced a characteristic sill-upon-sill intrusive fabric, particularly in the higher parts of the batholith. Broad, open arches and swales that are defined by the flow-aligned feldspar foliation of the granite, as well as by compositional banding in the intruded and included metamorphic rocks, formed late during batholith emplacement due to rising, buoyant magma and sinking, dense wall rocks. The Longs Peak-St Vrain batholith was intruded into crust that was structurally neutral or moderately extending in an east-northeast direction. A broad zone of mylonite, the Moose Mountain shear zone, formed within the batholith during the final stages of consolidation as a result of differential buoyancy between the magma and dense wall rock, not as a result of regional tectonic deformation.

Scientific Investigations Map↗

USGS2008

Geologic map of the Clark Peak quadrangle, Jackson and Larimer Counties, Colorado

The Clark Peak quadrangle encompasses the southern end of the Medicine Bow Mountains and the northernmost end of the Mummy Range. The Continental Divide traverses the map area and Highway 14 cross the Divide at Cameron Pass, in the southeastern corner of the map. Approximately the eastern half of the map, and a few areas to the west, are underlain by Early Proterozoic plutonic and metamorphic rocks. Most of these basement rocks are part of the ~1,715 Ma Rawah batholith, composed mostly of pinkish, massive to moderately foliated monzogranite and granodiorite intruded by numerous, large pegmatite- aplite bodies. The metamorphic rocks, many of which form large inclusions in the granitic rocks of the Rawah batholith, include biotite-hornblende gneiss, hornblende gneiss, amphibolite, and biotite schist. The crystalline basement rocks are thrust westward along the Medicine Bow thrust over a sequence of sedimentary rocks as old as the Upper Permian Satanka Shale. The Satanka Shale, Middle and Lower Triassic Chugwater group, and a thin sandstone tentatively correlated with the Lower Jurassic and Upper Triassic Jelm Formation are combined as one map unit. This undivided unit is overlain sequentially upward by the Upper Jurassic Sundance Formation, Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Lower Cretaceous Dakota Group, Upper and Lower Cretaceous Benton Group, Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Formation, and the Eocene and Paleocene Coalmont Formation. The Late Cretaceous to early Eocene Medicine Bow thrust is folded in places, and several back thrusts produced a complicated thrust pattern in the south part of the map. Early Oligocene magmatism produced rhyolite tuff, dacite and basalt flows, and intermediate dikes and small stocks. A 40Ar/39Ar date on sanidine from one rhyolite tuff is ~28.5 Ma; a similar whole-rock date on a trachybasalt is ~29.6 Ma. A very coarse, unsorted probably pre-Quaternary ridge-top diamicton crops out in the southern part of the quadrangle. Numerous glacial deposits (mostly of Pinedale age), rock glaciers, block-slope deposits, landslide deposits, talus deposits, fan deposits, colluvium, and alluvium comprise the surficial deposits of the map area.

Colorado↗

USGS1998