TALES FROM THE FIELD Field Work: Geology and More... Albert L. Lamarre, CPG-06798
Late on a summer afternoon in 1978, I was sitting atop the Castle Mountains near White Sulfur Springs with my eager field assistant Steve Richardson. Having examined the rocks on the way up, we then watched huge cumulus clouds rise like
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oing minerals exploration field work pro- vides vast opportunities to learn about the part of the world that you are in that extends well beyond just the geologic setting. I experienced many such fas- cinating educational adventures while conducting exploration for molybdenum in Montana in the late 1970s.
have looked like below us in the mid-1800s when thousands upon thousands of buffalo roamed those vast plains. It would have been a sea of black.
On our drive back to our office our route took us through Three Forks, Montana, the location of the headwaters of the Missouri River west of Bozeman, Montana. Here, the Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison Rivers, named by the Lewis and Clark Expedition as they passed through the area in 1805, merge to create the Missouri River, that mighty river draining the east side of the Northern Rockies. This storied river carries sand and silt from the Rockies north and east- ward across Montana, through the Great Plains’ wheat fields
At one time the Ringlings owned ranch land in the area amounting to about one-hundred thousand acres; they even considered establishing their circus headquarters there, but didn’t. Who knew!
fury in the late afternoon heat, as if they were boiling. “That could generate a tornado,” Steve commented. A few days later while hiking up one of the mountain valleys there, we were surprised to see that all the trees on one side of the valley had been knocked down in one direction, and those on the other side were lying in the opposite direction. We surmised that a tornado must have passed through there in the not too distant past, but not that week. Even though this happened more than forty years ago it stands out to me as clearly as if it were yesterday.
Later that summer as we were driving adjacent to the nearby Crazy Mountains we passed through the small com- munity of Ringling, Montana, named after the Ringling brothers of Ringling Brothers Circus fame. At one time the Ringlings owned ranch land in the area amounting to about one-hundred thousand acres; they even considered establish- ing their circus headquarters there, but didn’t. Who knew!
During the summer of 1979 three of my summer field hands and I departed from our exploration office in Missoula, Montana, and drove to the area around Lewistown, Montana— almost the geographic center of the state—where we looked at several mineral properties in the Judith Mountains. Over a three-week period we mapped and sampled eleven areas of potentially favorable geology and examined some old under- ground workings in the Central Montana Alkalic Province. None of these prospects was worth pursuing any further, but the sight of the wide-open countryside of the northern Great Plains’ vanishing prairie off to the east was well worth the visit. Had our vision been better, we could have seen Minneapolis from the summit of the Judith Mountains; there was nothing to impede our eastward view for 750 miles, except for the curvature of the Earth. While standing on the high peaks of the Judith Mountains we imagined what it must
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of North and South Dakota, past Council Bluffs, Iowa, then to the Mississippi River where it eventually is deposited as the vast delta at New Orleans. Because of the conveyor belt action of the Missouri River, the Mississippi River delta is comprised in large part of detritus from the Rocky Mountains. Terrain that is being worn down in one place (Montana) is being built up in another (Louisiana). Without this process, there would have been no land on which to build the city of New Orleans. This is geology in action!
Let me end this by telling you about what could have been very frightening. For a while we explored around the town of Lincoln near the Continental Divide in Lewis and Clark County. We did not know it at the time, but this is where Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was living as a recluse in a remote cabin. This domestic terrorist was fabricating mail bombs which he used in his nationwide bombing campaign against people involved with modern technology. From 1978 to 1995 he ended up killing three people and injuring 23 oth- ers. It’s a good thing we did not run into him!
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