Self-Guided Field Trip Investigation:

Big Cottonwood Canyon

Submitted by Litzy Serna
Salt Lake Community College
GEO 1010
November 4, 2017

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 Research: Big Cottonwood Canyon

The central Wasatch Range displays over 1 billion years of Earth history during which

oceans repeatedly came and went, mountains rose and wore down, sand dunes migrated across

the lands; and rivers, glaciers, and lakes appeared and disappeared. The canyons in this part of

the range display world-class exposures and I will be focusing on The Big Cottonwood Canyon.

This Canyon has been geologically significant and is constantly changing to this day. Its located

12 miles southeast of Salt Lake City in the state of Utah and ranges 15 miles long. Besides the

variety of rocks that formed over millions of years, clear evidence has been shown that glaciers

occupied the canyon as well. Last but not least its important to also cover the mining history that

came many years afterwards.

As we now know, the area was once a tidal environment at an ocean shoreline. The area

that was once a tidal environment is now layers of quartzite and shale that make up the canyon

walls for the first 6 miles. In some areas, the shale is metamorphosed into argillite or slate. The

canyon shows the progress through times when different ancient seas covered the area; the

sediments left on the ocean shore and floors are now the hundreds of millions of year old

sandstone, quartzite, shale, and limestone. Magma at one point in the past, intruded up through

the rocks, also known as dikes. These reddish to darkish intrusions have been seen to contrast

with the white limestone and marble. The head of the canyon reveals igneous activity where a

larger bodies of magma intruded into the surrounding rock, while beneath the Earths surface,

then cooled and hardened into a gray granitic rock called granodiorite. Millions of years later, the

granodiorite was exposed and now makes up the peaks surrounding the Brighton area. Lastly, in

random parts of the canyon you can see the multiple talus accumulations on the side of the roads

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made up of the different types of rocks that come crumble down due to pressure and movement

of the mountain.

Besides the canyons wide variety of geological rock formations and glacier

background, it also played a major role in the mining and timber history of Utah. In the year of

1872 about 500 people were estimated to have lived in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Lumber from

the canyon was used to build mine facilities, sawmills, and transportation to and from mines.

These Big Cottonwood Canyon mining productions mostly mined out silver, gold, lead, zinc, and

copper. Sales hit a peak between the years of 1871 and 1927 making the small ghost towns more

known now, by their mining history, than they ever were before. The mining continued in the

canyon until about the 1960s was when the mines became abandoned. Now, left over tunnels and

mining structures still stand to these day but have only become to be dangerous sites for nearby

hikers due to its instability. I was hoping to find an abandoned mine but now that theyre not

used they were tricky to find within the canyon.

Lastly one of the biggest attributes of this canyon is its glacial history. Glaciers form

when snow remains in the same area for a long period of time and eventually turns into ice, with

enough pressure and layers the ice compresses and recrystallizes to become a glacier. Two big

main glaciers originate on different sides of the head of the valley and both eventually carved its

way down the valley. The huge glaciers plucked and abraded large amounts of rocks and caused

a great amount of erosion by its movement which formed its U-shaped and V-shaped valleys.

These fascinating glaciers were only able to travel down the mountain range about 5 miles down

and eventually met up then melted off but as the biggest glacier eroded more off the canyons

floor, its floor is lower than the floor of the other tributary glacier, this creates hanging valleys.

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Standing in the center where the two glaciers met I was able to see where the glaciers came from

by the shapes of the valleys as well as the different types of rocks that got carried down. Last

but not least its important to know that where these glaciers originated they most likely created

tarns within the depression of the cirque. Tarns are small lakes that form after the glacier melts

and a cirque is a basin shaped range with steep walls that were carved by where the glacier first

formed.

The Big Cottonwood Canyon now provides hiking biking, picnicking, rock-climbing,

camping, fishing, and overall different types of species. Its important to know that other factors

contribute to the erosion affecting the area today, besides weathering and glaciers, and that

humans now impact and are apart of how this canyon continues to modify. As I explored the

canyons depths, I saw the different types of sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks that

have been formed and reformed over time as well as the glacier paths that were left behind from

glaciers once formed and created the shape of the valleys. This canyon offers a wide range of

geological factors and is quite beautiful in so many ways.

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 Annotated Bibliography

Burgden, M. (2015) Utah Geologic Survey: Geologic Journey through the Central Wasatch

Range. Accessed on November 15, 2015.

files.geology.utah.gov/online/pdf/pi-09.pdf

Miriam mainly covered the geological journey through the central wasatch range

but he covered almost every mile within the canyon which he includes the big

cottonwood. He shows what important geological sites are found within. He showed

several images and talks about each one of them. He also provides diagrams to better

understand geological concepts and displays the geologic time chart in the end.

Ehlers, T. T., & Chan, M. A. (1999). Tidal sedimentology and estuarine deposition of the

Proterozoic Big Cottonwood Formation. Retrieved November 14, 2017, from

http://archives.datapages.com/data/sepm/journals/v66-67/data/069/069006/1169.HTM

Utah. Journal Of Sedimentary Research

Ehlers and Chan talk about all the small detailed characteristics that are found in

the big cottonwood canyon. They specifically describe how each factor got there or how

they were formed from mud cracks to flaser bedding. This website was very helpful for

me because I got an idea of what aspects of the canyon came from and was able to

identify some of them during my trip.

Eldredge, S. (2010, September). Geosights: Glacial Landforms in Big and Little Cottonwood

Canyons, Salt Lake County, Utah. Survey Notes, v. 42 no. 3

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 https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/geosights/glacial-landforms-in-big-and-lit

tle-cottonwood-canyons/

On Sandras second article she specifically goes over glaciers that formed within

the Big Cottonwood Canyon. She explains how theyre formed, how they move, what

they create, and covers all the small actions and impacts the glaciers had on the canyons

geography. Lastly, she defines the several different geological terms such as tarns, aretes,

cirques, hanging valleys, and etc.

Eldredge, S. Utah Geologic Survey, (2015). Report on Big Cottonwood Canyon. Accessed on

November 15, 2015.

https://geology.utah.gov/popular/places-to-go/geologic-guides/virtual-tour-central-wasatc

h-front-canyons/big-cottonwood-canyon/

Sandra mainly describes the geological history of the Big Cottonwood Canyon.

She also covers the types of rocks and layers that formed over millions of years ago. Last

but not least she describes how tidal rhythmites fell into place, how they worked, and

how gravity and the moon are related to the history of the past sea that used to exist in

this area.

Markers and Monuments Database. U.S. Forest Service (n.d.). Retrieved November 14, 2017

https://heritage.utah.gov/apps/history/markers/detailed_results.php?markerid=2217

This article from the Utah Division of State History specifically talks about the

mining history of Big Cottonwood. It covers important names such as James LeRoy and

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his tragic mining story. Last but not least, the talk about the ghost town that used to exist

in the areas as well as the types of materials that were mined and that can still be found

within the canyon.

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Photo 1: Bands of dark silt and clay mixed with light sandstone layers shown along the road 4

miles up.

Photo 2: Ripple marks preserved from a one known tidal environment about 5 miles up the

canyon.

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Photo 3: A mound of shale deposited from a rock slide also known as talus accumulation at the

base of a cliff.

Photo 4: Near the shore of the once ancient sea, blue and purple shale was deposited as silt and

mud in the shallows waters, then were later compacted into layers that later slowly tilted. (about

5 miles up the canyon)

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Photo 5: Light and dark layers of limestone shown deeper up the canyon about 11 miles in.

Photo 6 & 7: First image is the V-shaped glaciated valley and the right image is the U-shaped
valley carved out by another glacier that traveled down the canyon millions of years ago.

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Map

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