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Colorado Scientific Society – Earth Sciences since 1882

The oldest scientific society in the Rocky Mountain region

Founded in 1882, the Colorado Scientific Society promotes knowledge, the understanding of science, and its application to human needs.
We focus primarily on earth science, welcoming members with interests in all fields of science. Learn more.


Corral Bluffs field trip, 2020. Sharon Milito explains the worlds after the K-Pg extinction
Corral Bluffs field trip, 2020. Sharon Milito explains the worlds after the K-Pg extinction

Future Colorado Scientific Society Meetings and Field Trips

We normally hold monthly meetings from September through May.
Our meetings are normally now both in-person and virtual.


CSS March Meeting

The tale of the 2022 Chaos Canyon landslide: an ice-rich debris slide in Rocky Mountain National Park

Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Kate Allstadt, U.S. Geological Survey
In-person Meeting at Calvary Church Golden or Join us on Zoom

In-person Meeting at Calvary Church Golden

All are welcome – no admission charge
6:30 pm – Social time at in-person meetings
6:45 pm – Join Zoom meetings
7:00 pm – Meeting and Program begin. Please arrive early.
Church doors are locked, and no one will be at the door to let you in after 7:00 pm.

CSS is inviting you to our meeting on Thursday March 21st at 7:00 pm.

Click to Join CSS Zoom Meeting from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android

For other Zoom options, click here.

See details about attending in-person at the church below.

The tale of the 2022 Chaos Canyon landslide: an ice-rich debris slide in Rocky Mountain National Park
A USGS geologist in front of the Chaos Canyon landslide about two weeks after it occurred. Photo credit USGS/K.Allstadt
A USGS geologist in front of the Chaos Canyon landslide about two weeks after it occurred.
Photo credit USGS/K.Allstadt

Abstract: On 28 June 2022, ~2 million cubic meters of ice-rich debris mobilized from the southeast flank of Hallett Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. The material slid rapidly for about 245 m into Chaos Canyon, a popular bouldering destination in the park. The slide stopped when it reached a deposit composed of massive boulders filling the valley floor that has been previously mapped as a relict rock glacier. Several climbers were bouldering near the toe of the landslide when it occurred. The group narrowly escaped and caught parts of the event on video, resulting in substantial nationwide media coverage. In this talk, I will detail a multifaceted investigation in which we used eyewitness accounts, field and remote sensing techniques, historic climate data, and seismic recordings to unravel the mysteries of this unusual landslide sequence and the events leading up to it. Direct observations of melting blocks of icy debris in the landslide deposits, coupled with decades of slope deformation patterns correlated with warming temperatures, strongly suggest permafrost degradation was a major contributing factor.

The full study is publicly available here:
The 2022 Chaos Canyon landslide in Colorado: Insights revealed by seismic analysis, field investigations, and remote sensing

Biography: Kate Allstadt has been a Research Geophysicist at the USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center in Golden, CO since 2015. Kate conducts multidisciplinary approaches, commonly incorporating seismic and geophysical techniques, to study landslide, earthquake, and volcano hazards. She currently focuses on earthquake-triggered ground failure, near-real-time earthquake impacts, seismic monitoring of debris flows and lahars, and studies of massive rapid landslides using seismic methods and numerical modeling. Kate completed her PhD in Seismology at University of Washington in 2013 and her MS in Engineering Seismology jointly at the Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France and ROSE School, Pavia, Italy.

In-person Meeting at Calvary Church Golden

All are welcome – no admission charge
6:30 pm – Social time at in-person meetings
6:45 pm – Join Zoom meetings
7:00 pm – Meeting and Program begin. Please arrive early.
Church doors are locked, and no one will be at the door to let you in after 7:00 pm.

Calvary Church in Golden. Enter at arrow on map.
Calvary Church in Golden. Enter at arrow on map.

Calvary Church Golden
Click on link to open a Google map.

Enter from 14th St., go in by the main glass doors at [906] 14th St.
Do not enter via the old church above 13th St.
From the 14th Street entrance go down the hallway following Colo Sci Soc signs to Community Rooms 1 and 2, where we meet.

The church doors must stay locked, and we will have a person to let you in at the doors off 14th st.
They want to see the presentation too, so please arrive before 7:00 pm.
There will be a phone number that you can text to be let in if you arrive late.

Parking
On street parking is available close by, along 14th St and west of Washington Ave in Golden.
The AirGarage parking structure, which can be entered from Arapahoe St., is $3.00 for three hours.

Approval of President Elect for 2025 and Revisions to Bylaws

Votes of the membership at this meeting will also be taken to approve:

Shannon Mahan as the Colorado Scientific Society President Elect for 2025.

These Revisions to the Colorado Scientific Society Bylaws:

For reference see the Colorado Scientific Society Constitution and Bylaws.

Article VIII, Section 2, for the membership of the Executive Committee:

From:
“This committee shall consist of the President as Chairman, the President-elect, the Secretary, and one Councilor selected by the Council.”

To:
“This committee shall consist of the President as chair, the President-elect, the most recent past-President, the Secretary, and the Treasurer.”

Article V, Section 1(a) for the membership of the Nominations Committee:

From:
“The Nominating Committee will be a standing committee consisting of at least three officers of the Society including the Secretary and three or more Past Presidents of the Society, at least two members of which were on the past years Nominating Committees.”

To:
“The Nominating Committee shall consist of a past-President as chair, the most recent past-President, the Secretary, and at least two officers or councilors of the Society.”


Red Rocks Park – CSS No Moss Field Trip

Saturday, March 30th 2024, 9:00 AM to noon

Steve Cumella and Mark Kirschbaum, USGS will lead this trip.

Red Rocks Amphitheater
Red Rocks Amphitheater

Join Steve Cumella and Mark Kirschbaum on Saturday March 30th for a 3-hour tour of the spectacular Fountain outcrops in Red Rocks Park near Morrison, Colorado. Park in the Upper North Lot (see attached map) and meet at 9:00 AM at the top of the Amphitheater. From there, we will walk 2.25 miles through the Amphitheater and along the Trading Post Trail for a cumulative 675’ of elevation gain and 670’ of elevation loss. Park entry is free and all are welcome to join us for this Colorado Scientific Society No Moss Gathering. Bring your expertise, your questions, your curiosity, and most of all – have fun!

The Pennsylvanian-age Fountain Formation is spectacularly exposed at the Red Rocks Amphitheater near Morrison, Colorado. The Fountain is composed of thick-bedded arkosic sandstones and conglomerates interbedded with dark maroon mudstones. The Fountain is believed to have been deposited by alluvial fans being shed eastward from the Ancestral Front Range. On this fieldtrip we will examine sedimentary features of the Fountain. Surprisingly, no detailed modern sedimentologic study has ever been done on the Fountain at Red Rocks, so we can discuss how well the features we observe fit within an alluvial fan model. Fortunately, high-resolution Google Earth imagery is available for the Red Rocks area and this imagery offers the opportunity to attempt to correlate the Fountain stratigraphy. The attached Google Earth images show possible Fountain correlations. (See the “Red Rocks, Google Earth Dec 2020, Cumella” PDF below. The colored lines on the images show possible correlations.) During the fieldtrip we can see how well these correlations hold up.

Flyer for Red Rocks Park No Moss Gathering 3-30-24.
Print and bring it with you.

Images showing correlations: Red Rocks, Google Earth Dec 2020, Cumella, 5.4 MB
Print this and it bring it with you.

Red Rocks Park map for field trip (in flyer for field trip)
Red Rocks Park map for field trip (in flyer for field trip)

CSS April Meeting and Emmons Lecture

Tales from the Field:
Using Modern Earth to Assess Life on Ancient Mars

Thursday, April 18, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Brian Hynek, Department of Geological Sciences and Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado

In-person Meeting at Calvary Church Golden or Join us on Zoom

Respirators needed
Respirators needed

Abstract: After two decades of intense exploration, it is clear that ancient Mars met all the requirements to support microbial life for at least 100s of millions of years. This includes an active hydrologic cycle hosting rivers, lakes, and potentially an ocean. We have also found many “dried up Yellowstones” on Mars and these are crucial habitats since most scientists believe that Earth’s life originated in similar settings and at a similar time in the planet’s history. One way to learn about ancient environments on Mars and the microbes that might have lived there is to study analogous environments on modern Earth. I will talk about some of my recent work from around the world that have detailed some of Earth’s most extreme environments including expeditions to the world’s tallest active volcano, hypersaline alkaline lakes in Tanzania, steaming lava fields in Iceland, boiling acid lakes in Costa Rica, and high-altitude salty lagoons in the high Argentinian desert. Remarkably, most all of these extreme settings host microbial ecosystems. I will discuss our current understanding of ancient Mars and how Earth life’s remarkable resiliency makes the likelihood of past microbial life on Mars quite likely.

A unique ecosystem in an inhospitable desert

Deep within Argentina’s Puna de Atacama, a desert more than 12,000 feet above sea level, a previously undocumented ecosystem could provide scientists with a window to life 3.5 billion years ago. These lagoons surrounded by salt flats are home to microbial communities called stromatolites, which grow alongside minerals to create unusual rock formations over time.
CU Media put together a nice drone video montage that you can view from here:
https://vimeo.com/891536538/268ef5428f?share=copy

Brian Hynek and associate
Brian Hynek and associate

Bio: Dr. Brian M. Hynek is Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences and Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has spent the last 25 years studying Mars and its potential to host past life. Brian is a world expert on the study of modern terrestrial analogs to understand geological processes that operated on early Mars and the Moon, with recent field-based projects spanning five continents. He has worked extensively with NASA, conducting mission simulations in preparation for robotic and human exploration of the Moon and Mars. Brian has published over 80 peer-reviewed scientific papers, multiple book chapters, and hundreds of conference abstracts.


CSS May Meeting

Minerals and Elements

Thursday, May 16, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Peyton Jackson, American Clean Resources Group
In-person Meeting at Calvary Church Golden or Join us on Zoom


CSS Past Presidents Dinner – September

Topic tbd

Thursday, September 19, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
David Goodwin and Peter Roopnarine, California Academy of Sciences
Mount Vernon Canyon Club or Join us on Zoom


CSS October Meeting

Topic tbd

Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. – note a week later than normal
Harrison Gray, U.S. Geological Survey
In-person Meeting at Calvary Church Golden or Join us on Zoom

CSS November Meeting and Student/Member Poster Night

Thursday, November 21, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
In-person Meeting at Calvary Church Golden or Join us on Zoom


CSS December Holiday Potluck, Meeting and President’s Address

Quaternary Records of Spring Ecosystems

Tuesday, early December 2024 at 5:30 p.m.
Jeff Pigati and Kathleen Springer, U.S. Geological Survey
In-person Potluck Dinner at New Terrain Brewing Company or Join us on Zoom


Please pay your CSS dues for 2024!

You may pay dues online or print out a PDF of the membership form and mail it to us with a check. Continuing your membership in CSS will enable us to continue all our ongoing programs, including our field trips, virtual meetings, Student Research Grants, and more.

See Membership and Donations for the CSS membership PDF and our online membership payment form.
Regular CSS Membership is $25;
Student Membership, $5;
Life Membership, $395.
Send your membership payment, if not done through our online membership payment form, to Colorado Scientific Society P.O. Box 150495 Lakewood, CO 80215-0495.
Thank you!


See Zoom Recordings of Recent CSS Meetings

Most recent CSS presentations are recorded on Zoom.  Follow the links in the titles for each presentation to see abstracts, biographies of the speakers and video recordings of our meetings.


‘Golden Age of Geology’; Plate Tectonics and the Metaluminous-Peraluminous Distinction, September 21, 2023

Monte Swan, MagmaChem Associates, LLC

Figure 2: Magma-Metal Series Petrotectonic Model for a Layered Earth, comprising an 8-layered mantle with chemically distinct and physically immiscible layers.
Figure 2: Magma-Metal Series Petrotectonic Model for a Layered Earth, comprising an 8-layered mantle with chemically distinct and physically immiscible layers.

View ‘Golden Age of Geology’; Plate Tectonics and the Metaluminous-Peraluminous Distinction.


CSS and SIPES Summer Picnic, August 5, 2023

at Roger and Connie Knight’s

Not a meeting, just pictures of our CSS and SIPES Summer Picnic.


Next-generation stress maps of North America: Utility for understanding active tectonics and managing induced seismicity
May 11, 2023

Jens-Erick Lundstern (Lund Snee), US Geological Survey

Stress map of North America
Stress map of North America

View the PowerPoint presentation of Next-generation stress maps of North America: Utility for understanding active tectonics and managing induced seismicity.


When the Colorado Ran North – Chasing Zircons from Arizona to the Labrador Sea,
April 20, 2023

James Sears, University of Montana

Figure from Sears and Beranek's paper in the 2022 Canadian Geoscience issue (Vol 49, No 1). Provenance regions discussed in presentation. If you cannot access Canadian Geoscience Volume 49, No. 1, see the articles linked after Jim Sears' biography.
Figure from Sears and Beranek’s paper in the 2022 Canadian Geoscience issue (Vol 49, No 1).
Provenance regions discussed in presentation.
If you cannot access Canadian Geoscience Volume 49, No. 1, see the articles linked after Jim Sears’ biography.

View When the Colorado Ran North – Chasing Zircons from Arizona to the Labrador Sea.


Breaking plates: how the recent earthquakes in Turkey relate to the tectonic escape of Anatolia and the migration of the Anatolia-Africa-Arabia triple junction
March 7, 2023

Michael Cosca, US Geological Survey

2023 Earthquakes on the East Anatolian Fault Zone
2023 Earthquakes on the East Anatolian Fault Zone

View Breaking plates: how the recent earthquakes in Turkey relate to the tectonic escape of Anatolia and the migration of the Anatolia-Africa-Arabia triple junction


Mars Geology; Stratigraphy, Sedimentology, and Diagenesis of a Martian Lacustrine Deposit, Murray Formation, Gale Crater, Mars
February 16, 2023

Dr. John P. Grotzinger, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology

Mars
Gale Crater, Mars

View Mars Geology; Stratigraphy, Sedimentology, and Diagenesis of a Martian Lacustrine Deposit, Murray Formation, Gale Crater, Mars


Colorado’s Evolving Landscape from the Neogene to Present: Insights from Geo- and Thermochronology
January 19, 2023

Alyssa Abbey, California State University, Long Beach View Colorado’s Evolving Landscape from the Neogene to Present: Insights from Geo- and Thermochronology


Who Owns the Arctic?
the Geopolitics of Plate Tectonics in a Melting World
December 13, 2022

Ned Sterne, Independent

melting ice
melting ice

View Who Owns the Arctic? The Geopolitics of Plate Tectonics in a Melting World

All in the (human) family: Neanderthals and Denisovans and us
November 17, 2022

Bence Viola, University of Toronto

Denis Cave
Denis Cave

View All in the (human) family: Neanderthals and Denisovans and us


Assessing the role of the Deccan Traps in the end-Cretaceous mass extinction
October 6, 2022

Blair Schoene, Princeton

Deccan Traps main outcrops
Deccan Traps main outcrops

View Assessing the role of the Deccan Traps in the end-Cretaceous mass extinction


The White Sands footprints — humans in North America 23,000 years ago
September 15, 2022

Kathleen Springer and Jeff Pigati, US Geological Survey

White Sands, over 20,000 years ago
White Sands, over 20,000 years ago. Thanks to the National Park Service.

See The White Sands footprints — humans in North America 23,000 years ago


Read past Colorado Scientific Society Newsletters


Start or renew your membership with the Online CSS Membership Form

Or print and mail in the Colorado Scientific Society Membership Form (PDF)


Archive of Past Colo. Scientific Society Meetings


About the Colorado Scientific Society

The Colorado Scientific Society was founded in 1882 as a forum for the exchange of observations and ideas on the topics of earth science. Lecture topics largely focus on earth science, and are open to the public. In addition to our monthly lecture series, the society is also active in public service. We fund student research grants, construct and post signs that describe local geologic features, and organize and lead field trips.

The Colorado Scientific Society normally meets on the third Thursday of the month from September through May. (In the summer months of June-August, too many members are out in the field.)
6:30 – Social time at in-person meetings
6:45 – Join Zoom meetings
7:00 – Meeting and Program begin


Corporate Sponsorship of the Colorado Scientific Society

Corporate sponsorship helps the Society continue to provide earth science-related talks, field trips, and other events to a broad cross-section of Front Range geologists and interested people. Please accept an invitation from the Colorado Scientific Society to become a corporate sponsor, enabling us to continue and expand our programs.
Details of corporate sponsorship of the Colorado Scientific Society


The Colorado Scientific Society is an Associated Society of the Geological Society of America


Please send comments about the Colorado Scientific Society website to ColoSciSoc.webmaster@gmail.com .


We meet at the Golden Calvary Church and appreciate them sharing their facilities.


We have our December Business Meeting and Potluck Supper at New Terrain Brewing Company and appreciate their support.


RockWare provides the Colorado Scientific Society with a meeting place for our monthly CSS Council meetings. RockWare provides Earth Science Software, Consulting, and Training.


We appreciate the support for our website by  Table Mountain Web Design.

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