AN ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIP TO MAP TSÉ BIT'Á'Í (SHIP ROCK)

The geology programs at Fort Lewis College and Diné College, neighboring institutions on the Colorado Plateau, have entered into a partnership with the immediate goal of providing field-mapping and petrologic research experiences for undergraduate students at both colleges, and the long-term goal of creating a multi-themed, large-scale map of the Ship Rock exhumed diatreme and dikes, the signature landform of the mid-Tertiary Navajo volcanic field. Ship Rock, known to the indigenous Navajo as Tsé bit'á'í, Rock with Wings, is ubiquitous in geology textbooks and Southwestern photography, but it has not been mapped in detail at the 1:10,000 scale we envision.

Our project began in fall 2002 with reconnaissance fieldwork, photography, and sampling for petrographic analysis. In the winter of 2003 students from the Geographic Information Systems program at Diné College will create a digital topographic base map of the dikes and diatreme. This same semester, students in the Igneous Petrology class at Fort Lewis College will continue geologic mapping, and undertake a variety of field research projects at Ship Rock that will include investigation of the compositional and textural variations within the diatreme, provenance of xenoliths and megaxenoliths, and geochemical interactions of minette with country rock. Future research will involve systematic 40Ar/39Ar dating and compilation of Navajo ethnogeologic knowledge of the landform. Results of these diverse activities will be compiled into a geologic and thematic map and accompanying digital media. The project is being undertaken with the permission of the Navajo Nation Minerals Department.