Mount Blanco

Mount Blanco is a small white hill — an erosional remnant — located on the eastern border of the Llano Estacado within Blanco Canyon in Crosby County, Texas.[1] With Blanco Canyon, it is the type locality of the Blanco Formation[2] of Texas and Kansas, as well as the Blancan fauna, which occurs throughout North America.[3][4]

Mount Blanco
Mount Blanco viewed from above
Highest point
Elevation3,074 ft (937 m)
Coordinates33°47′29″N 101°15′11″W 
Geography
Mount Blanco
Geology
Age of rockBlancan, Quaternary
Mountain typeButte

Geology

The term "Blanco Canyon beds", later shortened to "Blanco beds", was first applied to this formation in 1890 by William F. Cummins of the Geological Survey of Texas.[5] The Blanco beds are considered to be of lacustrine origin – deposited in a Pleistocene lake basin set upon the Ogallala Formation of Pliocene age, which underlies the upper surface sediments of the Llano Estacado.[6] The thickness of the Blanco beds varies from around 22 to 26 m (72 to 85 ft) thick.[7] The formation mainly consists of light-gray, fine-grained mudstone, sandstone, and some conglomerate. These light-colored sediments contrast sharply with the locally rust-colored sediments of the Ogallala Formation.

Fossil fauna

All fossil fauna are from Mount Blanco modified from Dalquest (1975) unless otherwise noted.[8]

Images
  • Early photo of Mount Blanco (1891)[9]
  • Mount Blanco viewed from east (2002)

See also

References
  1. Holliday, V.T. 1988. Mt. Blanco revisited: soil-geomorphic implications for the ages of the Upper Cenozoic Blanco and Blackwater Draw Formations. Geology 16(6):505-508.
  2. "Geologic Unit: Blanco". National Geologic Database. Geolex — Unit Summary. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  3. Cope, E.D. 1892. A contribution to a knowledge of the fauna of the Blanco beds of Texas. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 44:226-229.
  4. Schultz, G.E. 1977. Blancan and post-Blancan faunas in the Texas Panhandle. In: Schultz, G.E. (ed), Guidebook: Field conference on late Cenozoic biostratigraphy of the Texas Panhandle and adjacent Oklahoma: West Texas State University, Kilgore Research Center, Special Publication 1, pp. 105-145.
  5. Cummins, W.F. 1890. The Permian of Texas and its overlying beds. In: Dumble, E.T. (ed), First annual report of the Geological Survey of Texas 1889, pp. 183-197.
  6. Izett, G.A., Wilcox, R.E., and Borchardt, G. 1972. Correlation of a volcanic ash bed in Pleistocene deposits near Mount Blanco, Texas, with the Guaje Pumice Bed of the Jemez Mountains, NM. Quaternary Research 2:554-578.
  7. Evans, G.L. 1948. Geology of the Blanco beds of West Texas. In: Colbert, E.H. (ed), Pleistocene of the Great Plains (symposium). Geological Society of America Bulletin No. 59, pp. 617-619.
  8. Dalquest, W. W. 1975. Vertebrate Fossils from the Blanco Local Fauna of Texas. Occasional Papers The Museum Texas Tech University 30:1-52.
  9. Cummins, W.F. 1892. Report on the geography, topography, and geology of the Llano Estacado or Staked Plains. In: Dumble, E.T. (ed), Third annual report of the Geological Survey of Texas 1891, pp. 129-223.
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