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Cure the Winter Blues - Grand Teton National Park (ReRelease) · PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast

0:02
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
0:13
SPEAKER_02: Before we get to this week's episode, we have a quick update/slash uh early Christmas present for y'all.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: We are excited to release a couple new projects on our Camp Geo app coming up here.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: We've just launched this week an audiobook that covers all the basics of Earth's climate.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: It's a five-part series that has all the images and transcripts that you need right there with the audio.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: This series is really based on kind of several of our past and future upcoming podcast episodes, but this is a really important topic that we think kind of just needs the images to do it justice.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: And you know, between you and me, we know that my analogies are way better than Chris's, but even those aren't good enough to really just replace images.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: So on our Camp Geo app, you can go to your first link in your show notes.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: We've taken some of our audio from old episodes and new upcoming episodes, we've whipped up some images to go along with it, added some extra conversation that discusses those images and kind of ties them all together and puts them into context, and then we've wrapped them up into a five-part climate basics book that's available now for just a couple bucks on our Camp Geo app.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: You can find it on the app right now.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: Just follow the first link in your show notes.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: You can download the app, log in, then get access to lots of additional content, including our book on Earth's climate.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: That really the basics.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: We think this is such an important topic.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: It's useful whether you're just kind of interested in geosciences, whether you teach, or whether you're you know an active student.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh, just one example of how important this is.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: This content exists on the United States APE Advanced Placement Environmental Science Test.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: So if you know students or teachers who are out there who are looking into this or need sort of extra stuff to help them learn, please let them know about this.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Alright, here we go.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: On to the episode.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Hey there, Dr.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: Remink.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: How are we doing?
1:58
SPEAKER_02: Mr.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: Bullheis, what's going on?
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Can I call you Mr.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: Bullheis for this because we're on like a virtual summer science trip again?
2:05
SPEAKER_00: No, no, please don't.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't like it.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: No.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: Nah, I'm out of school.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: You're out of school.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: You're on vacation.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: All right, fine.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: Christopher, Christopher, my friend.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we are on a break and we are re-releasing sort of a geo travel series.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: Cure the winter blues, because we're at home, you know, thinking about fun trips to do in the summer.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: It's funny that you call this a break because it really doesn't feel like a break.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: We do this so that we can kind of like get our heads above water and and catch up and stockpile.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: But the more time we give ourselves, the we just invent new stuff to work on.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: And so That's true.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: We are inventing projects and sort of various things to do.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're you're totally right.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: We're we're not actually on a break, but we're not releasing new content for a little while.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: And this is a really fun exercise because we've we've actually going back through this, we've done a lot.
2:53
SPEAKER_02: Well, we've we've talked about the geology of all of the main areas that you stop on this Summer Science Institute trip that you take 25, 26 high school students on every summer, and you've done for a couple decades.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: I went on this trip and I learned geology from you, and my dad taught a previous iteration of this thing.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: So I went on as a kid, you went on it as a kid as well, like previous versions and iterations of this kind of theme of this trip.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: So it has a you know really deep special meaning to us.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: And we've gone through the Badlands, the Black Hills, and Devil's Tower.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: Now, stop four is the Grand Tetons, Grand Teton National Park.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: But when you went on the trip, Jesse, this was not stop four.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: We actually went from Devil's Tower to Yellowstone.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: But when I changed things up and decided instead of going to Craters of the Moon and to Rocky Mountain National Park, we decided to go north into Glacier.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: So it only made sense to go from Devil's Tower to the Tetons, then up to Yellowstone, and then from Yellowstone up to Glacier before we started heading back home.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: So changed it around a little bit.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the theme, it's kind of the diff the geology is related, but different enough that it doesn't I I would imagine it's not that big of a shift.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: Like you you don't have to tell a dramatically different geologic story or shift around your curriculum that much, did you during this shift?
4:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, slightly tweak it.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: No, but continuing with the idea of us saying what's really special about each place, the Tetons is maybe my favorite place.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for me to I just I don't know.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm stuck in a rut.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, Jenny and I keep going back, and this is where we've been like summer after summer after summer.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while we take one summer off and go someplace different, but then we're right back to the Tetons.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: We just can't get enough of it, whether it's climbing, whether it's backpacking.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: We just love, love, love the Tetons.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: It's just, I mean, a honeymoon there.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: Jenny and I, right after we got married, spent a week out in the Tetons.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: So it's just a very, very special place.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's just it's a stunning place.
4:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's a shocking place, right?
4:53
SPEAKER_02: It because of the geology, the mountains just hit you in the face when you're driving up.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're just unbelievably big and bold and dramatic and scary and exciting and all those, all those things.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: Like it just evokes geology's important.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: They kind of scream that because the geology is so exceptional, and we got this interesting fault and everything that we talk about in this episode.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: But I And there's there's no introduction to the Tetons, really.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have this very flat valley, and then the mountains just jut out of the ground 7,000 feet above the valley floor.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: And I love that about it.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: There's it's not a crescendo effect that you typically get when you when you get into like rocky mountain kind of mountains, you know.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: You don't have that with the Tetons because of they formed in a different way, and that formation just makes them astounding.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: It's real dramatic.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: The geology is right there looking at you, and you can't avoid it.
5:49
SPEAKER_02: So you gotta, you know, learn the geology because it's super important.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: So, okay, we're on stop four.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: It's the Tetons.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: We're kind of in between Devil's Tower and Yellowstone, and they're just dramatic.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: They're beautiful.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: The geology is unbelievable.
6:01
SPEAKER_02: The mountains themselves are spectacular, so get out there, go check it out.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: But here's our episode on Grand Teton National Park.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: Chris, how are you doing today?
6:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing great.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: How you doing, Jesse?
6:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I'm doing really well.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited for today's episode, to be honest with you.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: But before we get to that, let's do some brief introductions.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: You are Chris Bullheis, a nationally recognized Earth Science teacher from the great state of Michigan.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: And you are Jesse Rymink, one of my former students, now a professor of geoscience at Penn State.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: And this is Planet Geo, a podcast where we talk about amazing aspects of our planet and why it matters to our everyday lives.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: So we're talking about Grand Teton National Park.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: So hey, Jess, why are the Tetons special to you?
6:47
SPEAKER_02: What do they mean to you?
6:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a really good question.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: I would say that I've been there several times and mostly as a little kid, though.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: And then I just flew back last summer actually and spent uh a week with you and your students out there.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I've had that was the first time I've been to the Tetons in a long time.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: But coming from Michigan where it's really flat, I think the Tetons are special to me because they really just represent the idea of the mountains, you know, they are that I ideal to me.
7:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's what I think of when I think of the mountains.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what what about you?
7:17
SPEAKER_02: What's special uh about the Tetons for you?
7:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a hard question to to narrow down.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but the first time I went to the Tetons, I was six years old.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my mom and dad took us there.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: And you know, driving to to the Tetons from Michigan, um, they're right away as a six-year-old, I recognized that these are special.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, it doesn't matter where you approach the Tetons from.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: You're just smacked uh with this stunning view.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: There's what I love about them, there's really no introduction to the Tetons.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: You come around a bend and bam, there they are.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I love you know yeah, you don't get that.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: And so I just I never get tired of that.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: I I just I know when I'm gonna get the view, and I'm excited for it every single time, and it never lets me down.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I um I the last summer when I flew in to meet you and your students there, it's the first time I'd ever flown into Jackson Hole, and my goodness, is that a stunning last you know, half hour of the flight.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't want to be a pilot landing in this valley, but it is unbelievable.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: I think we approached from the north and landed, so you know, I was sitting on the perfect side of the plane, the Grand Towns are out to my right.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: I was just unbelievable.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: We kind of banked in.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: It's they just smack you in the face, they're so aggressive.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh so you know, I've I've been going there.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, my first time was when I was six, but then we went back every summer for you know for a few days.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I've been going ever since then.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, I got married to Jenny in 1994 and we honeymooned there.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: We spent a week in the Tetons.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that's beautiful.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: What time of year?
8:54
SPEAKER_01: What time of year was that?
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh it was actually right in the middle of summer.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Late July, early August is when we were there.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it wasn't even a question like where do you want to go for your honeymoon?
9:05
SPEAKER_01: Let's hey, well, let's go to the Tetons.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: And you know, now I take uh 26 students there every summer to learn and to hike.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you guys have hiked like all over.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you how many how many of the peaks have you bagged?
9:16
SPEAKER_01: I've done uh thinking back now, so Buck Mountain static peak, the south, the middle.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we haven't done the grand.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
9:24
SPEAKER_02: Why not the grand?
9:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the so the grand, you know, my wife, she really doesn't like exposure too much.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: And uh there's a fair amount of exposure no matter what direction you you try to tackle the grand.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: Getting on some knife edges, huh?
9:40
SPEAKER_02: On the way up there.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I don't know.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you and I someday will just decide we're gonna do the grand.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all right, let's do it.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: Put it on the bucket list.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: Let's go do it.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: Hell yeah.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: You got it.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's get into it here.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: But before we do, we want you all to have a visual image of the Grand Teton National Park in mind.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: So wherever you are, whatever you're doing, stop this podcast quick and click on a link that we put in the episode description.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: Um now, now that you got that link open, when you're looking at that photo, you are seeing geoscience features that represent about 2.8 billion years, that's three-fifths of Earth history, just in that one photo.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: So it's a spectacular photo, a beautiful mountain range, and it contains a spectacular amount of geoscience information in it.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna go through that starting with how the rocks formed.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about like the rocks that these mountains are made of.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but yeah, let's do it.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: So at the roots of the of the Tetons are what's called these metamorphic gneisses.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: And gice is spelled G-N-E-I-S-S.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: That's how us geologists you know use the term gice.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: These are really old rocks, 2.73 billion year old rocks, very typical, very similar to the rocks I study up in northern Canada.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: I've never looked really studied the ones in the Tetons.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to, though.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, but they kind of form the base of all this stuff, they're kind of down deep in the middle.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: And I was really struck by this when we were hiking last summer.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: We were doing um, I forget what hike it was, Chris.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: Which which hike was the long one we did?
11:09
SPEAKER_02: Paintbrush divide, is that right?
11:11
SPEAKER_01: No, it wasn't a paintbrush divide, it was Lake Solitude that we were doing.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that's the one Cascade Canyon, yeah.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: That's the one.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the fact you gotta remember this because it's hilarious.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, I I took I took the kids to this map.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: They have this three-dimensional map, and um it's it's awesome.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: And I was pointing out where we're gonna go and all that.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: And Jenny, my wife.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, down by the down by the trailhead, right?
11:33
SPEAKER_02: This three-dimensional map, right?
11:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: So I'm pointing pointing out where we're gonna go, and Jenny couldn't see, so she squeezed us up in front and she's cutting in front of you, she cuts in front of you, which pissed you off.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, while she was paying attention to me pointing out what was going on, you stuffed a big rock in her backpack, must have weighed about 10 pounds.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: She had no idea.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: And so we Yeah, I got I got one of your big uh you know farm boy students to uh help me put some rocks in her backpack.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, we loaded them up.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: That was awesome.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we get to the lake, and us three are sitting around eating lunch.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: We start digging into our backpacks to get lunch, and she's rooting through it, and she's like, What the heck is going on?
12:13
SPEAKER_00: I got these big rocks.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: So she hauled them all the way up to the top.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, oh man, she earned her beer that night because she hauled like 20 pounds of rocks, and they were not pretty rocks, these were ugly rocks, too.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: These are ugly ass rocks.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: No, no, they're ugly, they were lever right, and but it couldn't happen to a better person.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: She deserved everything that she carried out.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: She totally deserved it.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, she cut right in front of me up front.
12:34
SPEAKER_02: That pissed me off.
12:34
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I had to take uh had to take uh take it out on her a little bit.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, so on the way down, you know, I I think I was in the back of the pack, you know, students were up, a bunch of students are up front.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: I was just kind of looking around, you know, thinking, and the sun was setting, this beautiful.
12:50
SPEAKER_02: We had just had a little thunder shower passover.
12:52
SPEAKER_02: We had the sun was lighting up the north face of that valley.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: And the rocks are so complicated, they're really folded, they're they're there's they look like toothpaste, there's just squished toothpaste.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: And I was really struck by that's what a metamorphic gneiss is.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: This thing that looks like it's just been twisted and mangled.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's the steel in a car after a car wreck.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: And most of the continental crust looks like that, right?
13:17
SPEAKER_02: That is just what makes up most of what's under our feet at depth.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: And I was just really struck by that because it's really pretty stuff.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: I find it scientifically extremely interesting.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying that I think nice is one of the prettiest rocks that that exists, in my opinion.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: I'd have enough of it in my yard, you know.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, people use it for countertops all the time.
13:38
SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful stuff.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: It's got these white bands that are kind of wrapped around, darker bands.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's beautiful.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: It's scientifically excredibly interesting as well.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: But we're talking about this from the standpoint like we're gonna work in order.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we're talking about the oldest rocks that exist in the park.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: It's this metamorphic gneiss, it's highly messed up, contorted, subjected to massive amounts of heat and pressure.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: Where did this rock form, Jesse?
14:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's a bit of an open question.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, these rocks are around 2.7 billion years old, and some people believe that these rocks were formed when plate tectonics really started on Earth.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people think that these rocks formed in a subduction zone.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: So something similar to the west coast of the United States right now.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: Think of Mount St.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: Helens, or think of Yosemite National Park, or think of Italy, a modern subduction zone going on there.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: But these rocks have a really tortured life.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: They've they're really deformed, they're metamorphosed many times, subjected to high pressures and high temperatures.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: So it's not entirely clear where they formed and how they formed.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: And this is a part of active research for me personally.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: So um I could go on and on and on for hours about it, but I won't I won't belabor that.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: So one of the interesting things about the nice, and I want you to talk about this because you're the you're the meta, you're the nice guy, okay?
15:05
SPEAKER_01: Is a lot of this stuff has garnets in it or magnetite crystals in it that have like these, they look like eyes.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, you have these white halos that surround these dark colored garnets and magnetite crystals.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: What what's going on with that?
15:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: So you can often see these things, right?
15:24
SPEAKER_02: So garnets are like a little deep red, kind of ruby, ruby red color, even darker than that.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then magnetites are going to be these really dark, really dark crystals that um you can sometimes see.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: And they'll have these little light-colored rims around them.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: And really, what this is, is this is like metamorphism in in action.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: This is a rock being turned into a different type of rock.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: This is crystals forming under high pressure, high temperature, where the elements can move around within the rock even though it's not melted.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: So this is solid.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they become very soft, right?
15:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they become super soft.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: Hot plastic.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: That's the perfect analogy.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: It's hot plastic.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: And when you have that, elements, individual atoms, can move around in the crystal structure more freely, more rapidly.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: And so what happens is when you start to form a garnet, it basically pulls garnet has a lot of iron, has a lot of magnesium in it, and it basically pulls iron and magnesium from all the little mineral grains around it.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: So you kind of deplete the area around that of iron and magnesium, which are dark colored minerals, right?
16:26
SPEAKER_01: So this makes sense then.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: So you have these white halos around these dark crystals.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: When these things were forming, they were basically stealing those dark-colored constituents and using it to grow the magnetite and garnet, right?
16:42
SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
16:42
SPEAKER_02: And one of the best examples of this is uh, you know, a little camping trip that we went on like a decade ago, probably to Gore Mountain up in upstate New York, where with these huge garnets.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're like softball-sized garnets with these massive depletion hails around the edges, they're beautiful.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Oh, do you remember that?
16:58
SPEAKER_01: That was a great trip.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh we were giddy with excitement.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: Young and dumb and extremely excited to see some big garnets and some nice.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: They were as big as a baby's head.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: These things.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we should we showed up in the owner.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the owner was just like, oh yeah, come on down to the pit, you know, where they're like, I mean, they're core.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: I thought we were gonna get yelled at so much.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: We we put up like, oh, we're gonna get kicked out of here.
17:23
SPEAKER_02: He's like, Oh yeah, come down to the pit.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're mining this stuff, they're like sectioning it for you know, amazing countertops, like some of the best countertops I've ever seen.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, so all right, the this is funny because when you guys got out, I was off somewhere else, and the owner comes ripping up in his uh Chrysler 300.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we think, oh, this is not gonna end well.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get yelled at.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: And you you can right away call me, hey Mr.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Bullheis, Mr.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: Bullheist, um, can you come over here and and talk?
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Can you can you be in charge over here, please?
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Throw me right into the bus.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: It worked out though.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: That was good stuff.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, it's the same process, right?
18:00
SPEAKER_02: It's the same thing.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: These depletion halos.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: To be honest, Chris, I don't really remember seeing these.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: Are there good places to see these depletion halos, certain hikes that you can see them at?
18:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can see this metamorphic gneiss, and it's kind of hit and miss where you're gonna see these halos, but this gneiss is all over the place, up in Paintbrush Canyon, going up over to uh, you know, if you can go up over Paintbrush Divide and then back down the backside to to Lake Solitude.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Death Canyon is another really popular hike in the park.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Death Canyon, and you take that up and you can take an offshoot up to static peak.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: These rocks in those three really popular places in the park are really abundant and good places to see these halos and so on.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: So if you're going, if you're planning a trip to to Grand Teton National Park, go to those places.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: You can marvel at some really ancient rocks, beautiful rocks.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: All right, so Jess, let's move on.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's what's the next step in our uh geologic history here?
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, so we in geology we always have to work from the beginning to the to the end, right?
19:01
SPEAKER_01: We have to work from the oldest to the youngest.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: And so we talked about this metamorphic gneiss.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then following that up is this much lighter colored granite.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: It's stark contrast to the dark grays and almost black and browns of the metamorphic gneiss.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting too that some of this granite is is a rock that we call pegmatite, which means it's really, really coarse-grained, the minerals are huge, um, and so it gets its own like textural term.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: Many of you listening will probably have uh countertops made of this stuff as well.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you have big white crystals, big pink crystals in your countertop, it's a pegmatite.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: And and so in these this granite you can see really in the central high peaks, like the grand in the middle Teton, that's where this rock really shows up in abundance, the highest peaks in the central part of the range.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, and this so this rock is about 2.5 billion years old.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And then then you get to another really important rock that that is prominent.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people, you know, pull off alongside the road and take pictures of this because it's just it's one of these like obvious features that stands up and smacks you in the face.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: This really black rock that just cuts right through Mount Moran, which is on the northern part of the range.
20:26
SPEAKER_02: So Mount Moran's the one that kind of has the flatter, the flatter peak, it's a little bit blockier shaped, right?
20:30
SPEAKER_02: And it has this big black stripe running through it, vertic kind of vertically running through it.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's really kind of cool because it gives perspective, I think, that that black rock that's cutting through there is about 150 feet thick.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: And when you're standing there, you know, looking at the east face of Mount Moran, it it just doesn't look like it's 150 feet thick, and it's just a testament to the sheer magnitude.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a little pencil stripe that somebody's put on there, but yeah, it's it's massive.
21:00
SPEAKER_02: So that I mean that that the age of that thing, that's actually pretty young, you know.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: That's about 800 million years old, quote unquote young relative to other stuff.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: It's about 800 million years old, and actually, this is an interesting thing.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: One of my PhD supervisors dated a whole bunch of samples from some of this stuff, and this is a huge event.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: This is a huge, there's loads of these mafic dykes, these black veins, all the way up to the Yukon territory in Canada.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, and this is an event that was formed with some magmatism that was related to continental breakup.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: So when North America broke apart from Australia in the China in China, when the Pacific Ocean kind of started to form, we had a lot of magma that was pushing up, and this little stripe on Mount Moran is related to that kind of event.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: So it's really an impressive piece to the history of our continent, right there.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: That's a really cool.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, the other thing too, I want to real quick point it out I've climbed the middle Teton a few times, and uh going up to Garnet Canyon, which is Right at the base of the Middle Teton, there's a much smaller um black dike that cuts through right through the middle of the Middle Teton, and it goes all again all the way through to the other side, too.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: Just uh these they're all over the place in the Tetons.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: Those are I think are just probably the two most famous.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, this granite, the these black dikes, and the metamorphic gneiss were all exposed at the surface of the earth, right?
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: So they're exposed at the surface of the earth.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: And and we know this because this is uh the next part of the story.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: There were uh when this stuff eventually got exposed at the surface, the uh the erosion took this straight down to sea level.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: And and so, you know, I want you I want you to picture what this looks like at the time.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Where we're at in this story, it it doesn't even remotely resemble what the Tetons look like today.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: To me, and Jesse, you correct me if I'm wrong, because you've spent more time there, but this is more like the central part of Canada where or the Hudson Bay, for instance, where you have this, you know, the Canadian shield with these super old rocks exposed at the surface, but the Hudson Bay is dropping off sedimentary rocks on top of them.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: That's right, that's right.
23:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean these are these are like you know the the sand on the beach, you know, there's rock underneath your feet.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: There's actually continent underneath your feet, but there's sand on top of it, and there's a bunch of sediment being deposited right on top of it, too.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: So we had this immense period of time where this area was either just above sea level, just below sea level, at sea level, and sedimentary rocks were being deposited.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the oldest sedimentary rock in the park is called the Flathead Sandstone.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: And it is that sandstone, that kind of brown, light brown sandstone that you see on top of Mount Moran, right on top of that black uh igneous rock that cuts across Mount Moran.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: To back up and just summarize real quick, is that it was a long time where we had this sea depositing sedimentary rocks.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: And it's a it's an impressive amount of sedimentary.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: We're talking thousands of feet.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: So that's where we're at, right?
24:23
SPEAKER_01: That's that's where we are in our story right now is we have this massive accumulation of sedimentary rocks from a sea that was there for a long period of time.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: And so, but then, you know, okay, we're kind of done with the sort of rock formation of part of the story, but how do we get to the mountains?
24:39
SPEAKER_02: We got to get to the mountains at some point, right?
24:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's do it.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: And one important thing to note is that they're really young, aren't they?
24:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean Yeah, they are.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: Most of the Rocky Mountains as we know them kind of became mountains.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: They got pushed up about 50 million years ago, or even older than that.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: The Tetons, however, they they went through that period as well, but the Tetons as we see them today are much, much younger.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: They kind of started around 15 million years ago, 13 million years ago, and they're still continuing to be uplifted.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: So they're really active.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: And this is uh a feature that is not common in the Western US.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of so the interesting thing about this, Jesse, is that because the Tetons are so young, they're engaged in this classic struggle in the geoscience world.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: There are two forces, forces that lift things up and forces that wear things down.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: And you know, the force that lifts things up is related to tectonics.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about that in earlier episodes, and then you have the force that wears things down, which is weathering and erosion.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: And right now the tetons are actively rising, and yet erosion is relentlessly grinding them down.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: And when the Tetons stop rising, the powers of weathering and erosion will take over.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, think about this a second.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, we said the Rocky Mountains are much older, most of the Rocky Mountains are much older.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: The forces that lift thing them up is done.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: That event is not going on anymore.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: So the only thing that's happening to them, well, they're being affected by weathering and erosion predominantly.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: So they're getting knocked out, slowly but surely getting knocked down, right?
26:16
SPEAKER_01: I just the Tetons they're a restless mountain.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Tetons are not they're not formed by volcanic mechanisms or anything like that.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: These mountains are formed by seismic disaster.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's that's a great point.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the reason that they are so spectacular, and the reason they're more stunning than other parts of the Rocky Mountains is that they're the front line really of this battle, this uplift versus weathering and erosion knocking down battle.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: It's a totally dynamic place, and it's a place that you can see these two forces in action, basically.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I you know, I've witnessed this uh many times in the backcountry, and there are certain canyons where it just seems to happen more often than in other places in the park.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: But when you hear rockfall coming off the some of these major peaks, and you're in the backcountry, it always catches me off guard.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: The sound, the sight, it's just it's so amazing.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: You have these, you know, tons and tons of rocks just break loose and come crashing down the valleys, and they'll slam into other boulders that have already made their journey down, and and they just they explode when they hit each other.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: It's just an impressive site.
27:33
SPEAKER_02: So, what's the what's what's the closest call you've ever been in?
27:35
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever been close to one of these rock slides or rock falls?
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, not really in the Tetons and Mount Shasta in California, you know, somewhat close because the the way up in there is a it's a chute and it's like a bowling alley, you know, there's nowhere to go.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: Um but in the in the Tetons, no, I haven't really been close to anything.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: It's just that it goes back to again how restless these mountains are.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: And all this restlessness really started when the Rocky Mountains started to form.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: That's about 60 million years ago or so.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: And they started to form because a subduction zone was going on on the west coast of North America.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: This is the same subduction zone that makes the Cascade Mountains now.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: Um and this subduction kind of compressed things a little bit and it started to lift up the Rocky Mountains and the interior of the continent.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: And then that uplift stopped, and we stepped forward in time to get to the mine.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: Nothing like they do today, though.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: And exactly.
28:33
SPEAKER_02: They didn't look anything like that.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: And then we stepped forward in time to get to what the modern representation of the Tetons to what we see today.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the Rocky Mountains, that whole event of which was from 50 to 60 million years ago, uh, that was that was compression.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: That was a compressional event, and it's kind of like um what happens if you take a one of those paper fans that you probably made in elementary school or or like an accordion that you squeeze together, right?
29:00
SPEAKER_01: That's the compression that you get.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, 15 million years ago, um, this this switched to a tension, which is a a pulling apart kind of event.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: And it's like if you take that let's focus on that.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, tension, the word tension, we often think of it, you know, with like personality tension or something.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: But what when we're talking about tension, it's actually pulling apart, or in a way, it's pulling apart.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the way I the way I think of it is if I if I have one end of a rope and you have another, and I say, Jesse, put tension on this rope.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you know what to do.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: And if I say put more tension on it, you're gonna pull harder on that rope.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: Right, and that's what's going on here.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: So, but it's like this.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: If you take that fan, that that paper fan and set it down on a table, then it just simply relaxes, right?
29:43
SPEAKER_01: So when this compression event from the Rockies is done, that force is over with.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Now these these compressed, folded, and contorted rocks are gonna begin to relax.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: So this tension, you know, we sort of smash things together, everything gets really thick, then you relax it, and some parts of the crust drop down more.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: So you kind of create these mountain ranges because some pieces are dropping down more than others in a way, right?
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing that's going on.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, we have the Yellowstone hotspot also that's associated with this whole thing, the timing of which cannot be ignored.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
30:17
SPEAKER_02: So revisit episode three to hear more about the Yellowstone hotspot, but the Yellowstone Hotspot also impacts the Grand Teton National Park in a really kind of dramatic way.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because you know, the Tetons really didn't kick into high gear in terms of you know the amount of uplift that's going on until you know really ramping up about two million years ago.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: And there's a couple of reasons for this.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: One, you have the tension of this accordion, if you will.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Two, you have the Yellowstone hotspot that is very nearby right now.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: Because the Yellowstone hotspot has moved for the you know the previous 15 million years, and now it's just north of where the Tetons are today.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: And then three, and this is really important, faults formed when the Rocky Mountains were actively rising, and all that rock was thrown into this major folds and faults and so on.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, faults are where rock is breaking, folds are where we're bending rock.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: Faults, a lot of people can you know think of the San Andreas fault, and there's just like kind of lying in the ground, right?
31:25
SPEAKER_02: But it's actually where rock is breaking, and it's a really dramatic event when rocks break.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, this was a major fault that happened, and it it forms then a pre-existing weakness.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: And so if you take the the pre-existing weakness and combine it then with the tension that's now going on due to the relaxing of the rocks and the Yellowstone hotspot, where does it break?
31:50
SPEAKER_01: It breaks where it was already broken.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of the opposite of you know when you break your your bones.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: If you break your bone, it usually heals back strongly.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: But rocks are the opposite.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: If you break it somewhere, it's probably gonna break there again.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: If you put either the same stress or a different type of stress on that joint, it's gonna break at that same location.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: So we're reactivating these faults.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: This is resulting in this spectacular rise of the Tetons.
32:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, and and you know, if you're if you do any uh even a day hike in the Tetons, you're kind of walking basically on the fault surface.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: So you're walking on where this rock face broke.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: And I rem I remember, you know, when I was on your your summer science trip, and I think it was 2004, we did this hike, right?
32:34
SPEAKER_02: We did the uh Salt Lake Solitude hike.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: No, it was Amphitheater Lake.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: We did Amphitheck.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: It was Amphitheater Lake, okay.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: We did Amphitheater High Amphitheater Lake, and you know, the way back down is just kind of switch.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, the way up is switchbacking up, but on the way back down, you can kind of focus a little bit more because it's easier.
32:50
SPEAKER_02: But you're kind of switchbacking down this beautiful mountain face, right?
32:55
SPEAKER_02: And that's the that's effectively the the former fault of the Grand Tetons.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: You remember this?
33:01
SPEAKER_02: You remember this hike?
33:02
SPEAKER_01: I do, I remember it really well, actually.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, all we did, you and I walked together, the rest of the group was ahead of us, and um you by the way.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: Just a couple, just a couple geology nerds, you know, you know, thinking about rocks, though.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: Oblivious to everything else going on around the trail.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's right.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful butterflies, about who cares, whatever.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: Let's look at the rocks.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh, a bear could have walked right across the trail, we would not have cared.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: We wouldn't have noticed.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, we were walking on the way down, and um, all you did was you well, by the time we'd gotten down, you pieced together the entire geologic story as we're laying it out right now, uh, in terms of how the Tetons formed.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: And all I did to you was just ask you questions.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, we you have to look at the rocks, okay.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, okay, well, you uh what what groups of rocks do we see, right?
33:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, we see four groups of rocks.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: We see the gneiss, we see the granite, we see these black dykes cutting across, and then we see these sedimentary rocks.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: Those are the four groups of rocks.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Now we got to put them in order.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, okay, well, what came first, second, third, fourth, and so on.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: And then what else happened then?
34:07
SPEAKER_01: Now that we have the rocks in order, what else must have happened to get us to what the Tetons look like today?
34:15
SPEAKER_01: And by yeah, it was it was amazing.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: I was actually, I'm gonna give you a compliment.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh oh no, all right, let me get prepared for it.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: Let me let me get emotionally ready for a compliment.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: You, I mean, it was impressive that by the time I'd never had a student that was able to see geology the way you do.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, um, you were able to piece it together.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, I I really appreciate that.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: That that means a lot coming from you.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'd also never had a teacher who was willing to put up with these annoying questions from a 17-year-old for three hours on a hike.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I I learned a ton on that trip.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: And really that was that hike in particular.
34:52
SPEAKER_02: I uh always remember it as a really a transformational event uh in my life, in the sense of you showed me how cool it is to be able to go on a hike for like three hours, look at the rocks around you, and come to this understanding of what that piece of the earth went through for the past, you know, three billion years.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's an astonishing thing to be able to do.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: And it's very difficult.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: The grandeur of it all is really hard to wrap your mind around.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: Let's go back to the picture that we put in.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: When you're sitting there looking at that Grand Teton, the Grand Teton mountain range, you are looking at the face of this fault.
35:32
SPEAKER_02: And the way to think about this is really to think about many of you've like sat in restaurants or something, and you see like the double-sided hinge doors in a restaurant uh kitchen, like going into the kitchen from the restaurant, they've usually got these like double hinge swinging doors.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: If two people are on opposite sides of that door on the right side, you know, you got somebody coming out carrying food, somebody going in carrying dishes, those doors are hinging in opposite directions.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: That's basically what's going on here.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: As you as this tension, as you pull apart the crust, one part of the crust is swinging down, and it's swinging, opening down into the earth, and another part of the swing.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: So when this happens, Jackson Hole hinges and swings down toward the mountains at the same time.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: The east face of the Tetons is thrust upward and back towards the west.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: So they're they're swinging in opposite directions, which is why you know Jackson Hole is called Jackson Hole, because every time there's a seismic disaster in the area, Jackson sinks more, and the Tetons are instant at simultaneously thrust upward.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: So if you're trying to picture this, think of it, you're looking at a map, north is up, Jackson Hole is swinging down, the hinge is to the right, and this is your kitchen door.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, the the hinges hinges swinging down, the tetons on the left side are swinging up and out towards you, which is up on this in this view.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: So this is happening like at a fairly rapid rate in the Tetons right now, so that there's a fault zone where the rocks are actually breaking.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: And in the last 15,000 years, since the last ice age, it's it's changed about 60 feet.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: So that's like four feet per 1,000 years, which is geologically, it doesn't sound very much dust, but geologically that's pretty rapid.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: And this is capable of knocking off, you know, pretty significant displacement in one of these seismic disasters.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can have as much you can have more than 20 feet of displacement in one event.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh can you imagine you know how being in the Tetons in the backcountry or on a on a cliff face or something when this seismic disaster breaks and you know the Tetons are shoved up 20 feet relative to Jackson Hole that just sank?
37:52
SPEAKER_02: Um it'd be it'd be it'd be a terrifying, it'd be both awesome and terrifying at the same time.
37:57
SPEAKER_02: But if we look under under Jackson Hole, there's a load of sediments.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's thousands of feet of sediments because this hinged door has gone down for a long time and it's gone down a quite a big ways.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: So look, that flathead sandstone is 5,000 feet above the valley floor, and it that same layer of sandstone is 25,000 feet below Jackson Hole.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: So that means that Teton fault is 30,000 feet of displacement.
38:27
SPEAKER_02: It's huge.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: 30,000 feet.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like five, six miles of movement along this fault uh in the last about 15 million years or something.
38:37
SPEAKER_02: That's a serious, serious fault.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: It is.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: So this process, this is still going on, they're still uplifting, but the Tetons still don't look like they look today.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we have not gotten to what makes them so carved and so cut up and so jagged and beautiful.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: And much of that has to do with the ice age.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean the ruggedness of the ruggedness of these mountain ranges is really it's really kind of a glacial feature, right?
39:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, these things are produced by ice action on rock.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so yeah, Jesse, let's talk a little bit about some of these glacial features that just dominate the landscape in the Tetons.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: Some famous places in the park, like Lake Solitude.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, you hike up to you hike up Cascade Canyon.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, you're hiking up this massive U-shaped valley.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: And uh self-explanatory kind of kind of term, right?
39:37
SPEAKER_01: It looks like a big feed trough, you know, and rivers don't carve valleys like this.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: So when glaciers go down uh a valley, they tend to widen it and straighten it out, and you end up with this very distinctive U-shape valley.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: So you hike up this just this incredible U-shaped valley up to Lake Solitude, and you're standing in this amphitheater then when you get to the lake, and you know, you look around, and it's it's almost like a like an ice cream scoop right out of the mountainside.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: It's literally just the to me, I look at it's a great description.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: This would be like the one of the best concert venues on the planet.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, the acoustics have got to be phenomenal in this.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: It's just anyway, you have this amphitheater, this bowl-shaped depression up there.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, then that's called a circ.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: And the and the and the circ is formed because you're sort of building up ice and snow on the sides and on the steep sides, and they're all kind of tumbling down towards the center, right?
40:40
SPEAKER_02: And then they kind of gather in the center and form a bigger glacier.
40:43
SPEAKER_02: So you kind of get this like scouring out a round feature there.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: Um and and at the base of a circle you often get this glacial lake that's called a tarn.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: That's T-A-R-N.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, Lake Solitude is a is a cool one.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: Um Amphitheater Lake, that's where I I that's where you and I walked down and you put together the geology of the Tetons as a 17-year-old little nerd.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Um you know, like but same thing though, it's just an incredible circ up there with this with this gorgeous glacial lake there.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, with you know, and the Grand Teton playing backup.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: It's just uh it's incredible.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: Uh amazing.
41:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it really is.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: There's so many of these uh these features and so on that are I think pretty like accessible.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Another U-shaped valley is Death Canyon.
41:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't have to be a professional rock climber or a massive backpackpacker to to enjoy the beauty of these things.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: You can uh you can just be somebody that would prefer to sit out on a porch and drink a beer and gaze at these mountains.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's that's right.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you don't have to be you don't have to be Chris Boyce and his family three months, three weeks of backpacking, you know, in July.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: No, you can drive up from your car and go on like a an hour-long little jaunt through the forest, and you can see some stunning geoscience stuff.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, really, really stunning stuff.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, and I want to be really clear on this.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: Actually, one of my favorite things to do is grab a camp chair and find a lake and uh with a cooler full of full of uh nice little beverages and and just uh do nothing all day long but stare at these mountains and watch people walk by and it's oh yeah, it's amazing.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it you can sit there and just ponder for hours and hours and hours, especially if you got a beer in your hand.
42:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that I guess that's a wrap with with the Grand Teton National Park.
42:31
SPEAKER_02: And you know, in summary, get out there, check it out.
42:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're if you haven't been there before, go check it out.
42:38
SPEAKER_02: If you have been there before, go to some of the places that we've talked about that you maybe haven't been.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: I know there's a whole list of things that I want to go, and I'm gonna drag Chris Bullheis along to take to give me on a tour of some of the hiking and climbing in Grand Teton National Park, and hopefully I'm gonna get some, you know, get some students and start doing some research on these dices because they're they're pretty cool.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just want to say one of the things that I hope you got out of this podcast is that the next time you're there or the first time you're there, because you've learned a little bit more about how they formed and how they came to be, and that you're you you will appreciate them more.
43:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, we can't think about words we don't know.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: And so the more we know, the more we're able to think about and contemplate and totally.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: It's another lens to put on.
43:22
SPEAKER_02: So when you're walking around the Tetons, when you're driving past them, put on your Planet Geo lens and look at them through this planet geo lens, where you know the these are awesome, they tell us a story, they're stunning, they're beautiful.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: And with that, if you're out there out in the Tetons and you have questions, hit us up.
43:39
SPEAKER_02: We're at Planetgeocast at gmail.com and all of our social medias on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are at Planet GeoCast.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, keep the feedback coming.