Geopic of the week: Rosie boulders

Pictured above are gigantic sandstone boulders in a gravel pit near Rosie Arkansas.  While these house-sized boulders are not unusual, their location is: there is no nearby source for them.  Some geologists speculate that they were transported  to this location by a great tsunami generated during a major meteorite impact.  Perhaps the same meteorite that caused that tsunami created the 110 mile diameter Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan peninsula about 65 million years ago.

For more views of the Rosie boulders look here

Geopic of the week: Turbidite deposits in Baumgartner Quarry

The Baumgartner quarry is located a little South of Kirby Arkansas along highway 27 in the Ouachita Mountains.  It exposes approximately 160 m. (590 ft.) of the upper Jackfork Formation which consists of interbedded sandstone and shale deposited  about 300 million years ago when the area that is now the Ouachita Mountains was a deep ocean basin.  Deep oceanic deposits such as these are the kind petroleum geologists explore for oil.  Because these deposits are exposed at the surface in southern Arkansas, geo-scientists from all over come here to study our rocks and gain a greater understanding of the deeply buried rocks they look for oil in in places like the Gulf of Mexico.  This is a view looking west along strike.