Utah Geological Survey Notes and random rock info across Utah

OMG I'm a rocks nerd.

One day I noticed the Utah Geological Survey map store near Redwood Road and N Temple. I was hanging out in there and geeking out on the Utah Geological Survey Notes, which are 10-ish page magazine like publications they release a few times a year. Turns out they were free so I picked up a few dozen of them and signed up for their emails. 

All of that led to random browsing of their website, which led me to a cool interactive map of rockhounding: https://geology.utah.gov/apps/rockhounder/?data_id=dataSource_2-180fc8ca24d-layer-4%3A80&page=Interactive-Map

And to a fun GeoSights interactive map: https://geology.utah.gov/apps/geosights/?data_id=dataSource_2-18a6b13e7a6-layer-1%3A26

And that led me to this cool little snippet about Dr Hintze and his mapping of Ibex and most of Millard County: https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/dr-lehi-hintze-geologist-extraordinaire/

Like his father, Lehi (Hintze) earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York City, beginning graduate school on the GI bill in the fall of 1946. In the summer of 1947, the foundation for his life’s work was laid when his father, recently retired from the U of U, took him to look at Ordovician strata near Ibex, an abandoned ranch in the Barn Hills southwest of Delta in Utah’s Millard County. They collected trilobite and brachiopod fossils and measured a section for a possible Ph.D. topic. Going home through Marjum Canyon, his father casually remarked that someday Lehi might map the geology of the House Range, a notion that Lehi regarded as “… highly unlikely, if not ridiculous.” Because Marshall Kay, one of Lehi’s professors at Columbia, was interested in Ordovician stratigraphy, the Ibex fossils became the basis for his graduate study. In 1948, Lehi completed a master’s degree, making preliminary identifications of the fossils collected near Ibex.

Nerd

Hintze is an Utah geoscience legend. He wrote Geologic History of Utah, which any climber/hiker/river rat/outdoor enthusiast should own a copy of. I’m biased, but the UGS website is the best state geological survey offering in the country. 

I read that book.  Then promptly forgot everything in it. 

Any insight into what they are extracting from Topus?