Geology and Ecology of Colorado Springs natural wonder | Garden of the Gods. Garden of the Gods has been many things: a tropical haven; an inland sea; a field of sand dunes; and, even a vast swampy floodplain. Dinosaurs once grazed on the ferns and other tropical plants. Sea serpents swam in shallow waters and mammoths trudged through deep snow in May. The rocks reveal secrets of ancient environments to those who know their language. A billion years ago, molten rock cooled to create Pikes Peak granite and the Ancestral Rockies. Approximately 310-270 million years ago, the ancestral Rockies were worn down bit by bit. About 65 million years ago, mountains rose and tipped the rocks that today we see today vertical and beyond.
Garden of the Gods is located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain’s eastern Front Range. The plains are dominated by drought-tolerant grasses; the foothills have shrubs and scrubby trees; and the middle elevation, the montane, exhibits increasingly thick forests and lush meadows. Welcome to the Spanish Peaks a.k.a. Wahatoyas and Las Cumbres Espanolas. Pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1349/pdf/C1349.pdf. GTR Mapping. Dinosaur Depot Museum, Group Tour Programs, Canon City, Colorado, Co, dinosaur tours, paleontology, fossils, Fremont County. The Digital Geologic Map of Colorado in ARC/INFO Format. CGSHome. Southern Rockies Geology. The ancient basement rocks of southern Colorado were formed during Proterozoic orogenies, mostly in the middle Proterozoic, 1.0 to 1.8 billion years ago. A great variety of granites and metamorphic rocks make up the Proterozoic crust. These rocks have been uplifted to form the cores of many ranges of the Rocky Mountains, including the Culebra Range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
The erosional resistance of the these crystalline rocks supports the high peaks. The period from late Proterozoic through middle Paleozoic was a time of stable continental conditions in which various sedimentary strata were deposited in shallow seas and low-lying land environments. Beginning in the Pennsylvanian, a significant change took place in Colorado tectonics. A switch to marine environments took place in the Cretaceous as shallow seas transgressed over the mid-continent region.
The Larimide orogeny began in latest Cretaceous time and continued through the early Tertiary. Spanish Peaks. BASIN: Geologic History of the Boulder Area. Geologic events and the rocks and formations produced during these events. Geologic and Stratigraphic Column for Boulder Area Precambrian Time (approximately 600 million years ago and older) The oldest rocks in the Boulder area are Precambrian in age, and have been dated at about 1.7 billion years before present time (BP), as measured from the decay of radioactive elements.
The Precambrian rocks consist of granitic and metamorphic rocks. The oldest Precambrian rocks in the Boulder area are metamorphic rocks, which means they were transformed by heat, pressure, and chemical reactions from older rocks into their present form. The Precambrian rocks were most likely originally laid down as sediments, such as sand and mud, in an ancient sea. On at least two occasions, mountains were formed from these rocks and they were uplifted by great forces from below. Paleozoic Time (approximately 240 to 600 million years ago) Mesozoic Time (approximately 65 to 240 million years ago) Today.