Photos from Oct 2010 Friends of the Pleistocene field trip to the Henry Mountains

I always considered myself more of an acquaintance of the Pleistocene, but actually it's pretty nice and I could consider getting more serious with it. But it'll never replace the Miocene in my book. Anyway, Arjun Heimsath, Kelin Whipple, Joel Johnson, and a bunch of exceptionally terrific students led a fantastic FOP field trip to the Henry Mountains in October of 2010. The geology was steeped in history, both scientific and thespian flavored, and we learned a great deal about how geomorphologists basically are still arguing about the same stuff that Gilbert et al. were talking about in the century before the last one.

Enraptured geologists from all over the Rocky Mountains. This was the where we decided that the pediment might actually be a landslide deposit. In the background is Mt. Hilliers, one of the laccoliths of the Henrys (Henries?). You can see fins of vertical Navajo sandstone around it.	Arjun "Tex" Heimsath, sporting pink tape on a climbing-induced jeans-tear, talking about soil production, steady-state, convexity, price-earnings-ratios, and negative-yield bonds.
The high-thinking modelers shown in the clump here are debating whether convex-up constant-curvature hillslopes really exist.	Roman DiBiase standing in the Mormon Tea expounding on hillslope processes and the Universal Law of Truth of Erosion.
Matt Rossi raising some fascinating issues about badlands, in view of the Mancos shale, one of the candidates for "rock" units creating the ugliest scenery in the western U.S. (though not here). Now watch me get hundreds of emails from defenders of Cretaceous shales and badlands topography. Puleaze.	Pediment city, developed in the Glen Canyon Group, beneath the bullfrog after which Bullfrog basin/marina/etc. are named. See it there jumping up towards the top of that diamond-shaped peak. Down by those cars I was bit multiple times by an angry ant that got caught in my sandal. It caused me the most intense pain I've ever felt from an insect bite--it felt like my toe was breaking off and it wouldn't go away for several hours. What a crybaby.
Kelin Whipple's horny friend he found out there. It seemed pretty happy to be held, and didn't even squirt blood out of its eyes, somewhat disappointingly.	Joel Pederson introducing the legendary "Bone of Contention" award. Apparently last year's award went to our friend Frank Pazzaglia, who managed to earn it with only half-a-day's attendance at a multi-day meeting.
More pedantic pediment pedagogy, but not by Pederson.	Some nice rootcasts (?) in the middle of the Moki Dugway. Geologist for scale.
Looking down to the mighty Colorado River.	Same scene, different geologist.