Helena and the North Border Zone of the Boulder Batholith, Montana
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The geologic descriptions for this road log roughly follow the scalloped north edge of the Boulder batholith. The will be ample opportunity to examine the intrusive rocks, and to the north, the broad border zone of contact-metamorphosed Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks. The route will follow the highway eastward, with a stop in granodiorite of the batholith. The log then detours to the south into the mountains along Colorado Gulch to view skarn and hornfels developed in the Madison Group and Three Forks Formation in a "septum" (or "screen") of country rock caught between two lobes of the batholith. The log returns to Highway 12 and continues east to Helena's Reeder's Alley and Grizzly Gulch. After a visit to a talc vein and teh unconformity between Precambrian (Belt) and Cambrian formations, the trip leaves Helena southbound on Interstate 15. Near Montana City are stops at an outcrop of hornfelsed, stromatolitic Helena Formation (Precambrian Belt Supergroup) and at the contact with the Boulder batholith. The final stop is to examine the complex of intrusions, wall- or roof-rock inclusions and structures in the batholith's border zone. In this area, Precambrian, Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks dip southwest and south toward the intrusion. Within about one to two miles from the batholith, the sedimentary sequence is contact-metamorphosed, yet in most places sedimentary structures are remarkably well preserved. Less
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