Ammonite Managing Partner Skip Hobbs realized a life-long dream in late August-early September when he participated in a 10-day geological field trip by river raft through the Grand Canyon.  Dr. Lewis Kleinhans led the trip, and Skip’s sons came along as “field assistants”. The river raft experience, the geology and the incredible grandeur of the Grand Canyon were spectacular.  There are thick sequences of Mississippian Age carbonates with vertical fracture systems in Grand Canyon. Springs flow out of the Mississippian joints and fractures along the canyon walls.  Ammonite is currently working on a project in the Mississippian Lime SCOOP and STACK plays in Oklahoma where horizontal wells have high water cuts due to intersection with the water-bearing fractures.  It was very interesting to see at outcrop the geometry of the fractures and water flow in otherwise tight rocks.

Skip, Gus and Alex Hobbs at The Great Unconformity in Blacktail Canyon in the Grand Canyon @ mile 121. The Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone (505 Ma) overlies the Early Proterozoic Vishnu Schist (1750-1680 Ma). There is a 1.2-billion-year gap in geologic history.

One of the field trip participants, Prof. Madeline Marshall of Albion College in Michigan, had a license from the US Park Service to sample a rare locality of Devonian Age tree root systems in the Temple Butte Formation incised valley fill.  We spent a day describing the formation and collecting samples which then had to be carried down steep canyon walls to the expedition rafts. It is rare to actually be able to do new geological research in a national park.

Skip and Dr. Marshall examining the outcrop with Devonian tree roots.