The theme of the 2004 GSA Annual Meeting and Exposition, “Geoscience in a Changing World,” covers both new and traditional areas of the earth sciences. The Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and the High Plains preserve an outstanding record of geological processes from Precambrian through Quaternary times, and thus serve as excellent educational exhibits for the meeting. With energy and mineral resources, geological hazards, water issues, geoarchaeological sites, and famous dinosaur fossil sites, the Front Range and adjacent High Plains region provide ample opportunities for field trips focusing on our changing world. The chapters in this field guide all contain technical content as well as a field trip log describing field trip routes and stops. Of the 25 field trips offered at the Meeting, 14 are described in this guidebook, covering a wide variety of geoscience disciplines, with chapters on tectonics (Precambrian and Laramide), stratigraphy and paleoenvironments (e.g., early Paleozoic environments, Jurassic eolian environments, the K-T boundary, the famous Oligocene Florissant fossil beds), economic deposits (coal and molybdenum), geological hazards, and geoarchaeology.

This volume emphasizes the interaction of the Cordilleran thrust belt and Rocky Mountain foreland in studies of regional structural geology, geophysics, and sedimentology from west-central Montana to Arizona. The volume outlines how the nature of the Rocky mountain foreland and its deformation affect the geometry of the Cordilleran thrust belt. Many of the structural and geophysical studies reported in this volume also address the question of which structures - forland or thrust belt - developed first in a specific region and how early formed structures influenced later ones. Several chapters address the nature and style of foreland development.

"This Memoir focuses on 7 'turning points' that had specific and lasting impacts on Laurentian evolution: The Neoarchean, characterized by cratonization; the Paleoproterozoic and the initial assembly of Laurentia; the Mesoproterozoic southern margin of Laurentia; the Midcontinent rift and the Grenville orogeny; (5) the Neoproterozoic breakup of Rodinia; the mid-Paleozoic phases of the Appalachian-Caledonian orogen; and the Jurassic-Paleogene assembly of the North American Cordillerar"--

"This guide's 14 chapters, which span the Rocky Mountain region's 1.7-billion-year history, give a retrospective glimpse of early geologic ideas being forged, bring the latest mapping and analytical results from classic locations, and introduce techniques that will form the bedrock of our geologic understanding in the years to come"--

Title available in Digital Reprint form on CD-ROM