What is the Kaibab Limestone?
The Kaibab Limestone is a resistant cliff-forming, Permian geologic formation that crops out across the U.S. states of northern Arizona, southern Utah, east central Nevada and southeast California. It is also known as the Kaibab Formation in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. The Kaibab Limestone forms the rim of the Grand Canyon.
What is Kaibab made of?
Kaibab is a Southern Paiute Indian word meaning “mountain lying down.” The formation is composed of sedimentary rocks: limestone, dolomite, sandstone, and chert, formed under a shallow inland sea.
What type of fossils are found in the Kaibab?
Fossils. The Kaibab Limestone contains the abundant fossils of Permian invertebrates and vertebrates. The invertebrate fossils found within the Kaibab Limestone include brachiopods, conodonts, corals, crinoids, echinoid spines, mollusks, hexactinellid and other sponges, trilobites, and burrows of callanassid shrimp.
What are the brown lumps in the Kaibab made of?
The brown lumps of chert in the Kaibab are mostly made from the silica skeletons of ancient sponges called Actinocoelia. Chert is very hard, so the sturdy Kaibab Formation resists erosion.
How was the Kaibab Formation created?
The Kaibab Formation was named after the flat Kaibab Plateau. Kaibab is a Southern Paiute Indian word meaning “mountain lying down.” The formation is composed of sedimentary rocks: limestone, dolomite, sandstone, and chert, formed under a shallow inland sea.
When was the Kaibab Limestone formed?
A prominent ledgy cliff-former, the Kaibab Limestone was laid down in middle Permian time an average of about 225 million years ago in the deeper parts of the same advancing warm, shallow sea that deposited the underlying Toroweap Formation.
What is Kaibab Limestone made of?
Kaibab Limestone - This layer averages about 250 million years old and forms the surface of the Kaibab and Coconino Plateaus. It is composed primarily of a sandy limestone with a layer of sandstone below it. In some places sandstone and shale also exists as its upper layer.
How old is Kaibab Formation?
around 270 million years oldThe Kaibab is a limestone unit, somewhere around 270 million years old, which puts it in the middle of the Permian Period of the Paleozoic Era.
What kind of rock is the Kaibab Formation?
marine limestoneThe Kaibab Formation consists of marine limestone and siltstone that was deposited in a shallow tropical sea and coastal flats on the west coast of the supercontinent Pangaea.
What type of rock is Kaibab limestone?
sedimentary rock typesThe Kaibab Limestone is an assemblage of sedimentary rock types. It consists of a complexity of inter fingering and inter bedded carbonate and siliciclastic sedimentary rocks.
How is limestone formed?
Limestone is formed in two ways. It can be formed with the help of living organisms and by evaporation. Ocean-dwelling organisms such as oysters, clams, mussels and coral use calcium carbonate (CaCO3) found in seawater to create their shells and bones.
What was the continental formation at the time of the Kaibab toroweap and Coconino formations?
Cliffs of the Toroweap Formation can be found in Walnut Canyon National Monument, about 70 mi southeast of the Grand Canyon, and east of Flagstaff, Arizona. Marine transgression, and continental wind-blown sand, laid down the three units of Kaibab, Toroweap, and Coconino....Toroweap FormationTypeGeological formation10 more rows
How did the Toroweap Formation form?
The Toroweap formation is made up of darker gypsum, shale, and limestone. There are erosion-resistant areas made of sandstone that can cause different shapes to form in the canyon. It was formed from being deposited in a sea, as its shoreline invaded and retreated over the land.
What is the oldest body of rock in the Grand Canyon?
The oldest known rock in Grand Canyon, known as the Elves Chasm Gneiss, is located deep in the canyon's depths as part of the Vishnu Basement Rocks and clocks in at an ancient 1.84 billion years old.
Why is limestone found in the Grand Canyon?
Around this time, the Ancestral Rocky Mountains rose in Colorado and New Mexico and streams brought eroded sediment from them to the Grand Canyon area. Supai Group formations in the western part of the canyon contain limestone, indicative of a warm, shallow sea, while the eastern part was probably a muddy river delta.
What type of rock is toroweap?
The Toroweap has one of the most diverse rock varieties in the Canyon: sandstone, mudstone redbeds, gypsum, limestone and dolomite.
How old is the limestone in the Grand Canyon?
The Colorado River has been carving away rock for the past five to six million years. Remember, the oldest rocks in Grand Canyon are 1.8 billion years old.
How old is the Kaibab layer of the Grand Canyon?
270 million years oldThe youngest of Grand Canyon's rock layers, the Kaibab Formation, forms the rims of the canyon and is a mere 270 million years old.
How old is the Coconino Sandstone?
approximately 275 million years agoIt consists primarily of fine well-sorted quartz grains, with minor amounts of potassium feldspar grains deposited by eolian processes (wind-deposited) approximately 275 million years ago.
How old is the Moenkopi Formation?
~240 million years agoDepiction of the Colorado Plateau region during the deposition of the Moenkopi Formation, ~240 million years ago. Location of Zion National Park is indicated.
What is the Kaibab Formation?
The Kaibab Formation consists of marine limestone and siltstone that was deposited in a shallow tropical sea and coastal flats on the west coast of the supercontinent Pangaea. Fossils found are of organisms that lived in the Permian seas, including brachiopods (which resemble clams), ammonites ...
Where is the Kaibab outcrop?
However, the Kaibab outcrops along the Hurricane Fault south of Kolob along I-15, and south of the park in the Virgin River canyon. The older Toroweap Formation is partially exposed directly below the Kaibab, but the area is too small to appear on the park geologic map.
Why is the Kaibab Formation sandy?
The Kaibab Formation is sandy because at maximum the sandy beach was only about 50 miles east of Grand Canyon. In fact, toward the east the Kaibab is mostly sandstone. Chert is a major constituent of the Kaibab Formation.
What is the name of the rock that forms the Grand Canyon?
The Kaibab Formation was named after the flat Kaibab Plateau. Kaibab is a Southern Paiute Indian word meaning “mountain lying down.” The formation is composed of sedimentary rocks: limestone, dolomite, sandstone, and chert, formed under a shallow inland sea. Other Grand Canyon layers were terrestrial, but all were deposited on a flat landscape either near or beneath sea level. Much later, geological processes raised the Grand Canyon area to its present altitude, averaging 7000 feet at the South Rim and 8200 feet on the North Rim.
What is the rock called that is made of silica?
It is a hard, brittle rock made of silica that forms as lumps or “nodules” within limestone beds under the sea. Chert is the chief tool and arrowhead material of ancient people world wide. The brown lumps of chert in the Kaibab are mostly made from the silica skeletons of ancient sponges called Actinocoelia.
How thick is Kaibab limestone?
176-185, 187), is a thin-bedded light-yellow dolomite in the Circle Cliffs area. It is about 45 feet thick in most of the area and has a maximum thickness of about 60 feet, in White Canyon.
What are the characteristics of Kaibab?
Characteristics that distinguish the Kaibab from overlying and underlying formations are (1) abundant specks of green glauconite and collophane, (2) an almost complete absence of sandstone, (3) an abundance of sponge spicule casts.
What is the siltstone in the Capitol Reef?
The siltstone probably is equivalent to the red mudstone that separates the Sinbad from the Kaibab in the Capitol Reef area . In the Capitol Reef area the red mudstone thins markedly to the south toward the Circle Cliffs area before passing out of sight under younger rocks (Smith and others, 1963, p. 12).
What type of rock is in the Circle Cliffs?
Rocks of Permian age crop out only in deep canyons in the interior of the Circle Cliffs area, and they consist of, in ascending order, a white sandstone with large-scale crossbeds, a tabular stratified dolomitic sandstone—both of which probably are equivalent to the White Rim Sandstone Member of the Cutler Formation—and the Kaibab Limestone.
What is the percentage of quartz in dolomite?
The dolomite beds contain as much as 10 percent quartz grains and as much as 1 percent pyrite crystals, some altered to hematite. Locally, quartz geodes lined with crystals of calcite and quartz are abundant, and some of the geodes may be filled or partly filled with asphaltic material.
What are landslide deposits?
The landslide deposits include large rotated blocks (some of which are Toreva blocks), mudflows, and other types of landslide material. The total thickness of the sedimentary rocks overlying the basement rock is not known from direct evidence, such as outcrops or oil tests.
How thick is a carbonate bed?
Some of these carbonate beds, which are generally limestone or sandy limestone and not more than 10 feet thick, may be traced 10-15 miles.
What rock is a pre-Cambrian rock?
Early Pre-Cambrian Rocks. Vishnu Schistand Zoroaster Granite- This layer averages about 1,700 to 2,000 million years old and consists of mica schist. These were originally sediments of sandstone, limestone and shale that were metamorphosed and combined with metamorphosed lava flows to form the schist.
What is the color of the Mauv limestone?
The Mauv Limestone layer is much thicker in the western areas of the Canyon than it is in the east. Its color is grey and it does not have much in the way of fossils, some trilobites and brachiopods. Bright Angel Shale- This layer averages about 530 million years old and is composed primarily of mudstone shale.
What are the fossils in the Supai Formation?
Fossils to be found in this layer consist of ferns, conifers and other plants, as well as some fossilized tracks of reptiles and amphibians. Supai Formation- This layer averages about 285 million years old and is composed primarily of shale that is intermixed with some small amounts of limestone and capped by sandstone.
What are the fossils in the Redwall Limestone?
Numerous marine fossils can be found in the Redwall Limestone including brachiopods, clams, snails, corals, fish and trilobites. Many caves and arches can also be seen in the Redwall.
What is the Sixtymile Formation?
Sixtymile Formation- This tan colored layer is composed primarily of sandstone with some small sections of shale. Kwagunt Formation- This layer is composed primarily of shale and mudstone with some limestone. In the area of Carbon Butte the lower layer also contains a large section of reddish sandstone.
What color is the limestone in the Grand Canyon?
The eastern portions where probably a muddy river delta that fed into an ancient sea. The color of this layer varies from red for the shale to tan for the sandstone caps.
What is the canyon made of?
It is composed primarily of a sandy limestone with a layer of sandstone below it. In some places sandstone and shale also exists as its upper layer. The color ranges from cream to a greyish-white. When viewed from the rim this layer resembles a bathtub ring and is commonly referred to as the Canyon's bathtub ring.
Overview
Description
The Kaibab Limestone is an assemblage of sedimentary rock types. It consists of a complexity of inter fingering and inter bedded carbonate and siliciclastic sedimentary rocks. In addition, intense post-depositional (diagenetic) changes have created more composition variation by the alteration of limestone to dolomite and the silicification of limestone to form chert. In the western Grand Canyon region, the Fossil Mountain Member consists of fossiliferous and cherty limestone with …
Nomenclature
The Kaibab Limestone was named by Darton in 1910 for the Kaibab Plateau, which is on the north side of Grand Canyon in Coconino County, Arizona. In his definition of the Kaibab Limestone formation, no type locality was designated. He also designated the Kaibab Limestone as the upper formation of the Aubrey Group, a now-abandoned stratigraphic unit. In 1921, Bassler and Reeside revis…
Contacts
Within the Grand Canyon region, the Kaibab Limestone overlies gypsum and contorted sandstones of the Toroweap Formation. Originally, geologists interpreted the lower contact of the Kaibab Limestone to be an unconformity based on the presence of local intraformational breccias and erosional surfaces. However, additional research has concluded that these local intraformational breccias and erosional surfaces are the result of collapse following the dissolut…
Fossils
The Kaibab Limestone contains the abundant fossils of Permian invertebrates and vertebrates. The invertebrate fossils found within the Kaibab Limestone include brachiopods, conodonts, corals, crinoids, echinoid spines, mollusks, hexactinellid and other sponges, trilobites, and burrows of callanassid shrimp. The fossil cephalopods found in the Kaibab Limestone include giant football-sized nautiloids. Fossil shark teeth, which represent a diverse assemblage of chondrichthyans, oc…
Depositional environments
The complex intercalation of carbonate and clastic sediments within the Kaibab Limestone reflects the deposition of sediments within a gently sloping continental margin during a period of frequent, high-frequency sea level changes. Relatively minor changes in sea level caused major lateral shifts in the position of supratidal, subtidal, and shallow-marine environments during the deposition of the Kaibab Limestone. The shifting sea levels and associated depositional environ…
Age
Early paleontological studies of the Kaibab Limestone firmly established its age on the basis of the abundant fossils that it and the underlying Toroweap Formation contain. On the basis of its brachiopod and siliceous sponge faunas, it was initially concluded that it is Leonardian (approximately Kungurian / latest Early Permian) in age. Later research concerning conodonts and associated megafossils obtained from western outcrops of the Fossil Mountain Member indicat…
Geographic distribution
Geologic Province:
• Basin and Range province*
• Black Mesa Basin*
• Great Basin province*
• Paradox Basin*