CONTENTS
J. D. Love
Foreword
6
THE STORY BEGINS 8
First questions, brief answers
9
An extraordinary story
10
An astronaut’s view
12
A pilot’s view
14
A motorist’s view
15
View north
15
View west
18
View south
19
A mountaineer’s view
20
CARVING THE RUGGED PEAKS 24
Steep mountain slopes—the perpetual battleground
24
Rock disintegration and gravitational movement
24
Running water cuts and carries
26
Glaciers scour and transport
28
Effects on Jackson Hole
30
MOUNTAIN UPLIFT 36
Kinds of mountains
36
Anatomy of faults
38
Time and rate of uplift
40
Why are mountains here?
41
The restless land
43
ENORMOUS TIME AND DYNAMIC EARTH 45
Framework of time
45
Rocks and relative age
45
Fossils and geologic time
46
Radioactive clocks
47
The yardstick of geologic time
48
PRECAMBRIAN ROCKS—THE CORE OF THE TETONS 51
Ancient gneisses and schists
51
Granite and pegmatite
55
Black dikes
58
Quartzite
63
A backward glance
64
The close of the Precambrian—end of the beginning
64
THE PALEOZOIC ERA—TIME OF LONG-VANISHED SEAS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE 66
The Paleozoic sequence
66
Alaska Basin—site of an outstanding rock and fossil record
66
Advance and retreat of Cambrian seas; an example
69
Younger Paleozoic formations
74
THE MESOZOIC—ERA OF TRANSITION 79
Colorful first Mesozoic strata
79
Drab Cretaceous strata
81
Birth of the Rocky Mountains
82
TERTIARY—TIME OF MAMMALS, MOUNTAINS, LAKES, AND VOLCANOES 86
Rise and burial of mountains
88
The first big lake
92
Development of mammals
95
Volcanoes
98
QUATERNARY—TIME OF ICE, MORE LAKES, AND CONTINUED CRUSTAL DISTURBANCE 102
Hoback normal fault
103
Volcanic activity
103
Preglacial lakes
104
The Ice Age
105
Modern glaciers
112
THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE 113
APPENDIX 115
Acknowledgements
115
Selected references—if you wish to read further
116
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