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Mars-Earth:Missoula Glacier Flows: Part 3

600 mill.yr.old
Black Carbonate

Pre-Cambrian
carbon-based
rock outcrop

Ice Age that Climaxed
here
about 15,000 yrs. ago

Crossection of rocks and debris which
was dumped when the End Moraine melted and shrunk.

Stop #6 Rollis Area Roadcuts Site #7 Polson End Moraine These are original Pre-Cambrian Bedrock roadcuts that are exposed to our view. There are some black Carbonate (curvy) material which have filled in spaces between the parent rock. There are many gray, smooth, carbonate rock, which may have been prehistoric Carbon-based life 1.5 billion years old. Somewhere in these rocks, there may be some remants of 600 million year old trilobites and other ancient organisms. A patient searcher may find Stromatolites, which may have been preserved if they were protected from erosional forces.
The green color in many of these rocks contain Fe 2+, which are ferrous rocks that have been oxidized, and whose form of iron has been chemically changed. There are carbon and Limestone mixed in the rocks.

Site #6 Evidence of Black
Carbonate (curvy) material,
which may have been ancient
600 million year old organisms.

Site #6 Gray, smooth carbonate
rock, which is approx.
1.5 billion years old

Site #6 This outcrop contains
evidence of carbon-based containing
Pre-Cambrian organisms.

Site #6 More carbon and
Limestone rock outcrops.

Site #6 Note the section
of ferrous rocks
within the limestone-mixed
type of Pre-Cambrian rocks.

Site # 7 Glaciation of the Mission Valley Polson, was the area where two "fingers" (sections) of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet melted and rushed through this area, gauging out sections of the Valley and dumping massive boulders, as well as mixed, unsorted rock fills. This area contains clear evidence of major glaciation during the Ice Age, which reached its maximum sometime between 70,000 and 130,000 years ago. Glaciers advanced again during the Pinedale Ice Age that climaxed about 15,000 years ago.
Ice flowing South through the Rocky Mountain trench split on the north end of the Mission Range to send separate glacier "fingers" down the Mission and Swan valleys. These End Moraines partially buried older deposits left by previous glaciers. The road follows the path of a glacial meltwater stream, so the outcrops give a convenient crosssection of rocks and debris which was carried and dumped over the previous bedrock. Around this area, large boulders and massive mounts around the present-day homes can be seen, as remnants of these catastrophic events, namely this huge valley glacier forming a terminal moraine.

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Go to Floods & Flows: Part 3 ?

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