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It's always cooler to be taught something about a place you've been. I did that hike in 2018 and just looked back at my pictures on my phone. Yep, it checks out, all those geologic features were there 6 years ago. :)
I was on this same hike in 2019 and looked at that exact dike pondering what the heck happened there. Glad you found the vein. I was projecting you over there ;-). Thanks for this great explanation.
I literally live right off the backside of Cathedral Rock for 25 years now, some of those white layers are volcanic ash from House mountain a sheid volcano, as well the basalt layers came from there. There was a lake and hot springs I found many Water Lilly fossils there and Elephant Ear that is native to Guatamala. Yes the dike runs thru the whole complex over to Bell Rock too. Over in the lower part of the complex you can see where the area was refilled with sediments and then eroded away to expose an anciant calichi bed. Also did you know there is a perfectly strait aquafer that runs strait thru the complex from Oak Creek to Montazuma's Well. Glad you had fun here, this place is a geology disneyland, way more interesting than getting your Aura read, lol. :}
Great information, Shawn! I appreciate everything you do, pointing out the meaning behind what we're seeing as observers or tourists. I gain so much understanding because of the way you present the science.
That spire off to your far left at the beginning of the video is called "The Mace." There is a classic 5 pitch climbing route on it that is an old school 5.9 desert climb, burly as heck. It's part of a local challenge to this with two other classic climbs in the area as fast as you can.
Hi Shawn, Not sure if you are aware, but the Schnebly Hill Formation was named by none other than Ron Blakey. Ron started teaching at NAU in 78 or 79 (when I was still there) so I'm guessing that he named it around 1979. There are lots of volcanic basalt flows a top the east end of Oak Creek Canyon. Thanks again for your informative videos.
Thank you for this surprise Christmas Present from one of my favorite places on this planet. Have family connections to this one area of AZ that go back many years. Your verbal and video description is perfection on so many levels. THANK YOU, AGAIN, SHAWN ! Blessings, Graces and Shalom to you and your team at this 2024 year end.
You beat me to it: "quite a nice diversity of rocks in one location"...exactly what I thought as I watched the video! This is another spectacular place that I would never be able to traverse on my own, and even if I could, I wouldn't come away with the same understanding and awe for what I saw. Thank you, Professor!!😊
I learned a lot from this video. Thanks Shawn! I lived 22 years raising my family in Sedona ('76-'98) & never hiked up to the saddle on Cathedral Rock. Many, many other hikes all over & got familiar with the major geological formations, but never new about the unique limestone layer! I enjoy your videos very much. Keep teaching us! 👍
Thanks for the geology education I've gotten this year. Congrats on the 131k subscribers, too, and I like the new channel name. Looking forward to more great videos in the coming year!😊
That was amazing to see. It might not be a roadside cut but it was very educational in your presentation in an area of the country I have never been to. Thanks for making these lessons where you are hiking and explaining them.
It would suggest that Sedona (been there, done that) was at a lower elevation, while the lands that were once the area of the Grand Canyon were more-elevated. The Farallon plate (65-40 MYA) didn't really have anything to do with the Southwest, but the Pacific plate (40 MYA - current) is the true active agent in forming the Sierra Nevadas, uplifting the Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah plateaus and basins, ... and both of the Sedona with the Oak Creek canyon water flow ... and the Grand Canyon with the Colorado river water flow. As the lands pushed upward for extreme elevations, the waters and erosions of the Sedona area were cut down by the Oak Creek canyon, ... and the upward lands of the Grand Canyon were cut into and down by the Colorado river.
"the Pacific plate (40 MYA - current) is the true active agent in forming the Sierra Nevadas, uplifting the Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah plateaus and basins, "
That layer there in Sedona is part of what is missing in the Great Unconformity, right? I wondered where the closest spot would be to the furthest western exposure (Frenchman mountain in Vegas) of the unconformity where the missing layers would be. Sedona is closer than I assumed.
The prof has a great video of the great unconformity. The Schnebly formation may be an unconformity at the GC but not the great unconformity. Which is just above the basement rocks. Below the tapeats sandstone. Forgive the spelling. I do like the description for the Schnebly formation as a beach environment in the video.
The sharp contact between layers are called flat gaps. Sedimentary layers are waterborne layers. The whole state could never rise or drop evenly like an elevator to get those liquid-flat layers.
Thanks Shawn for this. And thanks for another year of excellent and informative videos. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you, your family, and all of your team. 🎄☃️
Merrt Christmas! Can you clarify whether that layer of rock is missing in the Grand Canyon because there just wasn't any volcanic activity to lay it down or it did exist and is now gone? Thank you for your wonderfully educational videos!
Yes, one of those 2 possibilities. Someone might have studied it enough to decide or there might not be enough evidence to be more definitive. More geologists are needed. 😊
My understanding is that the rock never formed there rather than being eroded away. So in the case of the rock layer and the Grand Canyon it was never there to begin with - in effect we are are not looking at an unconformity. The conditions where the rock - Schnebly Hill formation - formed were different than at the Grand Canyon. I think, and I could be wrong, but perhaps a shoreline of a sea, which at some point expanded in the direction of the current Grand Canyon laying down limestone. It then receded, with sandstone being deposited on top of the marine layer. At some point due to volcanic activity in the Basin and Range, basalt intruded creating the dyke. I'm not a geologist but by following Shawn and Nick Z's videos I've picked up a lot.
correct me if I am wrong please, but isn't the rule that the eroding slope will never be recorded in geology only the deposition basin gets recorded in any sedimentary deposit. is this correct? so missing layers indicate that the environment was loosing more sediment than it was gaining during that period? its not super mysterious when I think of it that way but is that wrong?
Enjoyed coming along and hearing your detailed comments about the sandstone and basaltic intrusion. Do you have any information about what depth the intrusion occurred?
There's some interesting geology going down the road from interstate 40 going south along the Colorado River. I believe it has volcanic aspect from what I could see as I drove. In big truck I don't have time or place to pull out to look closer
Thanks for the video blog - a good example of a basaltic dyke cutting through the sandstone formation. Also an oddity of the missing layer of the same period in the Grand Canyon. Does the presence of the vulcanicity in that location provide any connection as to the missing layer in the Canyon? Best wishes for 2025 from tge UK and I look forward to more geology!
I think there's a Sabka deposit in the Schnebly Hills formation exposed at the Seven Pools at Soldier's Pass. I wonder if you did that hike and could tell me what you thought?
Generally i don't pay attention to the given names of the places there. But, many of us been all over that place. Generally we will not give scoop where places to go, how to get there to other locations. Since social media will also invite vandals. It's always sickening to see someones name or initials etched in the natural landscape.
Beautiful place! Cool basalt intrusion, too. Just wish you'd be more careful with the camera movements. In many of your videos I have to look away to prevent unpleasant physical effects.
Merry Christmas. When you say a rock layer was deposited 280 million years ago, was that when it began to form or when it finished being formed/deposited?
It's Fort Apache the Bronx, not Fort Apache the Rocks. 😀 I was curious where North America was at that time, and it was still part of Pangaea. And there was the formation of the Ouachita Mountains in the southwestern part of North America due to a continental collision. Naturally I'm picturing a couple of 1970s Lincoln Continentals in a head-on collision. Knowing where the rocks were when they were formed helps you picture it better. Arizona is well above sea level now, so it's hard to see how water covered the area.
If you go over to Gallup, New Mexico then go north to Shiprock. There's a bunch of volcanoes that are dead and wearing down. You can see the guts of the cone
So how come if the Schnebly Hill formation took hundreds of thousands of years to form there must be similar time period between the Hermit and Coconino in the Grand Canyon but the boundary is flat not erosional so a better explaination is they were all laid down by catastrophic flooding in a short period of time....
-12 db. Maybe you could normalize the volume on your videos to bring that average volume up. So the missing 12 billion years of geologic deposits was found in Sedona? Is this definitive? Do other geologists agree with this claim?
If you are referring to the "Great Unconformity" it's about a mile below the surface there where Dr. Willsey was. (There are several other angular and erosional unconformities to be seen in the GC.)
Please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE. I also appreciate your continual support of these geology education videos. To do so, click on the "Thanks" button just above (right of Download button) or by going here: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=EWUSLG3GBS5W8 Or: www.buymeacoffee.com/shawnwillsey
Merry Christmas, Shawn. Thanks for sharing these wonderful tours and lessons with us. 👍👍
It's always cooler to be taught something about a place you've been. I did that hike in 2018 and just looked back at my pictures on my phone. Yep, it checks out, all those geologic features were there 6 years ago. :)
It's comforting to know that they last at least 6 years!! LOL
Thank you, Shawn, for this wonderful Christmas present! Such a blessing to watch on Christmas morning 🙂
I was on this same hike in 2019 and looked at that exact dike pondering what the heck happened there. Glad you found the vein. I was projecting you over there ;-). Thanks for this great explanation.
I literally live right off the backside of Cathedral Rock for 25 years now, some of those white layers are volcanic ash from House mountain a sheid volcano, as well the basalt layers came from there. There was a lake and hot springs I found many Water Lilly fossils there and Elephant Ear that is native to Guatamala. Yes the dike runs thru the whole complex over to Bell Rock too. Over in the lower part of the complex you can see where the area was refilled with sediments and then eroded away to expose an anciant calichi bed. Also did you know there is a perfectly strait aquafer that runs strait thru the complex from Oak Creek to Montazuma's Well. Glad you had fun here, this place is a geology disneyland, way more interesting than getting your Aura read, lol. :}
Great information, Shawn! I appreciate everything you do, pointing out the meaning behind what we're seeing as observers or tourists. I gain so much understanding because of the way you present the science.
That spire off to your far left at the beginning of the video is called "The Mace." There is a classic 5 pitch climbing route on it that is an old school 5.9 desert climb, burly as heck. It's part of a local challenge to this with two other classic climbs in the area as fast as you can.
Another great geological hike ! Thanks for all your work, have a nice Christmas holiday and a happy and good New Year 🥳🌋🪨
Thanks, you too!
Thanks for all the hard work on these videos!
Hi Shawn, Not sure if you are aware, but the Schnebly Hill Formation was named by none other than Ron Blakey. Ron started teaching at NAU in 78 or 79 (when I was still there) so I'm guessing that he named it around 1979.
There are lots of volcanic basalt flows a top the east end of Oak Creek Canyon. Thanks again for your informative videos.
Ron Blakey fan girl is in the room.
He was my professor in Oceanography at NAU in 2003. Maybe another class too, but I can't remember exactly.
Oh I am well aware. I went to NAU from 1997-2000 and Blakey was one of my profs. We were well educated on this formation.
Iron and quartz. No wonder the energy is off the charts in Sedona!
Thanks for the educational tour!
❤❤❤
Thank you for this surprise Christmas Present from one of my favorite places on this planet. Have family connections to this one area of AZ that go back many years. Your verbal and video description is perfection on so many levels. THANK YOU, AGAIN, SHAWN ! Blessings, Graces and Shalom to you and your team at this 2024 year end.
Amazing formations, Shawn. Appreciate all that you do. Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Thank you Scott. This has been a great Christmas present for me. I always enjoy your posts.
Thanks Shawn. Happy holidays. Interesting and arrestingly beautiful place.
"Friction is your friend". That cracked me up. Nice video.
Merry Christmas Shawn. A great hike for my morning. Thank you for the post.
Thanks, Shawn. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Thanks for the informative video for Christmas Shawn. Enjoy your holidays.
Awesome! If I ever get to Sedona I’ll know what I’m looking at, besides the beauty of the location. Thank you!
You beat me to it: "quite a nice diversity of rocks in one location"...exactly what I thought as I watched the video! This is another spectacular place that I would never be able to traverse on my own, and even if I could, I wouldn't come away with the same understanding and awe for what I saw. Thank you, Professor!!😊
Visually stunning photography. WOW. As always, thank you.
I learned a lot from this video. Thanks Shawn! I lived 22 years raising my family in Sedona ('76-'98) & never hiked up to the saddle on Cathedral Rock. Many, many other hikes all over & got familiar with the major geological formations, but never new about the unique limestone layer! I enjoy your videos very much. Keep teaching us! 👍
Merry Christmas! So happy to see a post!
Merry Christmas Shawn…have a great year!
Thanks Shawn, a wonderful tour of Sedona. Love seeing that intrusive material.
Merry Christmas. Such a beautiful area
You and Nick are the best.
Thanks. Merry Christmas.
Don’t forget Myron Cook. 😊
Merry Christmas,,, answered a question i've always had,
13:25 So I just finished your Geo 101 series up to unconformities. It's neat to see what you were diagramming "in the wild" like this.
What a beautyful location and such cool geology. Thanks for showing us and merry christmas
Thank you, Shawn--this is most fascinating. You're bringing life to these layers-
Cool video, love the Sedona area. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas Shawn!
Thanks for the geology education I've gotten this year. Congrats on the 131k subscribers, too, and I like the new channel name. Looking forward to more great videos in the coming year!😊
Thanks. I'm glad you like the new name. Appreciate your support.
That was amazing to see. It might not be a roadside cut but it was very educational in your presentation in an area of the
country I have never been to. Thanks for making these lessons where you are hiking and explaining them.
Such a relaxing video this time)
It would suggest that Sedona (been there, done that) was at a lower elevation, while the lands that were once the area of the Grand Canyon were more-elevated. The Farallon plate (65-40 MYA) didn't really have anything to do with the Southwest, but the Pacific plate (40 MYA - current) is the true active agent in forming the Sierra Nevadas, uplifting the Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah plateaus and basins, ... and both of the Sedona with the Oak Creek canyon water flow ... and the Grand Canyon with the Colorado river water flow. As the lands pushed upward for extreme elevations, the waters and erosions of the Sedona area were cut down by the Oak Creek canyon, ... and the upward lands of the Grand Canyon were cut into and down by the Colorado river.
"the Pacific plate (40 MYA - current) is the true active agent in forming the Sierra Nevadas, uplifting the Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah plateaus and basins, "
Very nice Christmas present. Thank you very much.
Oh wow... What a spectacular rock formation! A very impressive dike too! What a treat on Christmas day!! Thanks, Shawn :)
Thanks for another great video. I noticed that someone washed your Dirtbag shirt with the red flannel sheets. 😊
It was pink to begin with!
Thank you.
Thank you, very informative.
Very nice, interesting, spectacular place. Pity you didn't focus on the Olivine crystals in the basalt.
That layer there in Sedona is part of what is missing in the Great Unconformity, right? I wondered where the closest spot would be to the furthest western exposure (Frenchman mountain in Vegas) of the unconformity where the missing layers would be. Sedona is closer than I assumed.
I know part of AZ is in Tazmainia. Still trying to understand that, lol.
The prof has a great video of the great unconformity. The Schnebly formation may be an unconformity at the GC but not the great unconformity. Which is just above the basement rocks. Below the tapeats sandstone. Forgive the spelling. I do like the description for the Schnebly formation as a beach environment in the video.
The sharp contact between layers are called flat gaps. Sedimentary layers are waterborne layers. The whole state could never rise or drop evenly like an elevator to get those liquid-flat layers.
7.07 sounds like a murmuration of starlings paid you a visit.
Thanks Shawn for this. And thanks for another year of excellent and informative videos.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you, your family, and all of your team. 🎄☃️
Have been to that spot...love Sedona!
Saw the title. Said to self “whuuuttt?”
Merrt Christmas! Can you clarify whether that layer of rock is missing in the Grand Canyon because there just wasn't any volcanic activity to lay it down or it did exist and is now gone? Thank you for your wonderfully educational videos!
Yes, one of those 2 possibilities.
Someone might have studied it enough to decide or there might not be enough evidence to be more definitive.
More geologists are needed. 😊
My understanding is that the rock never formed there rather than being eroded away. So in the case of the rock layer and the Grand Canyon it was never there to begin with - in effect we are are not looking at an unconformity. The conditions where the rock - Schnebly Hill formation - formed were different than at the Grand Canyon. I think, and I could be wrong, but perhaps a shoreline of a sea, which at some point expanded in the direction of the current Grand Canyon laying down limestone. It then receded, with sandstone being deposited on top of the marine layer. At some point due to volcanic activity in the Basin and Range, basalt intruded creating the dyke. I'm not a geologist but by following Shawn and Nick Z's videos I've picked up a lot.
@ thank you for your post. 😊
correct me if I am wrong please, but isn't the rule that the eroding slope will never be recorded in geology only the deposition basin gets recorded in any sedimentary deposit. is this correct? so missing layers indicate that the environment was loosing more sediment than it was gaining during that period? its not super mysterious when I think of it that way but is that wrong?
Enjoyed coming along and hearing your detailed comments about the sandstone and basaltic intrusion. Do you have any information about what depth the intrusion occurred?
There's some interesting geology going down the road from interstate 40 going south along the Colorado River. I believe it has volcanic aspect from what I could see as I drove. In big truck I don't have time or place to pull out to look closer
Thanks for the video blog - a good example of a basaltic dyke cutting through the sandstone formation. Also an oddity of the missing layer of the same period in the Grand Canyon. Does the presence of the vulcanicity in that location provide any connection as to the missing layer in the Canyon?
Best wishes for 2025 from tge UK and I look forward to more geology!
When the dike was active, was the formation at sea level still? What an amazing sight that must have been!
No. Dike is fairly young (less than 15 Ma) and area was well above sea level.
I think there's a Sabka deposit in the Schnebly Hills formation exposed at the Seven Pools at Soldier's Pass. I wonder if you did that hike and could tell me what you thought?
Generally i don't pay attention to the given names of the places there. But, many of us been all over that place. Generally we will not give scoop where places to go, how to get there to other locations. Since social media will also invite vandals. It's always sickening to see someones name or initials etched in the natural landscape.
volume is always super low
merrell hiking shoes. work great on rock wet or dry. just saying.
Beautiful place! Cool basalt intrusion, too. Just wish you'd be more careful with the camera movements. In many of your videos I have to look away to prevent unpleasant physical effects.
Amazing. Thank you for sharing this and have a great 2025.
So I understand correctly the from the base of cathedral rock all the way up to to the top is all schnebly hill formation?
That is correct.
Merry Christmas. When you say a rock layer was deposited 280 million years ago, was that when it began to form or when it finished being formed/deposited?
It would be great if you could make a video at the Grand Canyon and show where the layer is missing. Please consider it. Thanks for this one too!
Like these: ruclips.net/video/ZyX1szoVY8g/видео.htmlfeature=shared
ruclips.net/video/OEALhMB8vgU/видео.htmlfeature=shared
I hope to build my retirement house there in Sedona. Merry Christmas.
It's Fort Apache the Bronx, not Fort Apache the Rocks. 😀
I was curious where North America was at that time, and it was still part of Pangaea. And there was the formation of the Ouachita Mountains in the southwestern part of North America due to a continental collision. Naturally I'm picturing a couple of 1970s Lincoln Continentals in a head-on collision.
Knowing where the rocks were when they were formed helps you picture it better. Arizona is well above sea level now, so it's hard to see how water covered the area.
If you go over to Gallup, New Mexico then go north to Shiprock. There's a bunch of volcanoes that are dead and wearing down. You can see the guts of the cone
You have a new microphone
ありがとうございます！
So how come if the Schnebly Hill formation took hundreds of thousands of years to form there must be similar time period between the Hermit and Coconino in the Grand Canyon but the boundary is flat not erosional so a better explaination is they were all laid down by catastrophic flooding in a short period of time....
"Coading". (Coating)
-12 db. Maybe you could normalize the volume on your videos to bring that average volume up.
So the missing 12 billion years of geologic deposits was found in Sedona? Is this definitive? Do other geologists agree with this claim?
12:27 Nice xenolith? or gneiss xenolith? 🤔🤣
Just nice. It was sandstone.
Xcool
Does Sedona have the same unconformity as GC?
If you are referring to the "Great Unconformity" it's about a mile below the surface there where Dr. Willsey was. (There are several other angular and erosional unconformities to be seen in the GC.)
Merry Christmas Shawn!!