Include this rubric.

Point
s

Library Research Works Cited Page

APA style; relevant content; college-level sources; websites not allowed sources
must be articles, books, or documents.

/20

Site Visit
-

Field Observations Form - hand written in field, fully completed.

/10

Photos - 6 of your own photos, 2 per page, descriptive photo captions in complete
sentences, photos are original and show relevant geologic features. Photos copied from the
internet will result in a grade of zero for the assignment.

/10

Map Your own final hand-drawn map of the site showing geologic features,
includes title, north arrow, scale bar, legend of all map elements; use color, show location of
photos, show location of relevant geologic features and label them, show human features like
roads and trails. This has to be a neat hand drawn map of the park.

/10

Final Report - Three-page research paper

Content - Relevant observations and explanations of geologic features, good
relationship between your observations and the results of your library research. Scientifically
relevant physical geologic features. Show relationship between geologic features to your
observations.

/20

Writing style - Research report style that is objective, cites references, and is concise,
direct, organized, and structured. Will be free of grammatical and spelling errors. Topic
sentences for each paragraph, all sentences in paragraphs relate to main point of paragraph.

/20

/10

In-Text Citations: Followed in-text citation procedures for APA correctly.

Total Points

/100

Bells Canyon Team Field Trip

By: Garrett Granja, Patrick Sayers, Shalese Chavez, and Colby Lutje

Bells canyon lower reservoir

As we drove towards Bells canyon, there was clear evidence of glacial erosion on both
sides of Little Cottonwood canyon as we parked. It was a clear U-shaped canyon all the way
down to the bottom right where we parked to start our hike, up over right remain ridge separating
LCC from Bells canyon. There was also evidence of other valleys, where other cirques would
have run down, and joined in from the side and met the main glacier. This would have led to the
formation of moraines, as the lateral moraines from the sides of the cirques were picked up by
the main glacier. We started up over the ridge, I, immediately enjoying being outside on a hike
for what ended up being about 4 hrs. and not in a class room for 3.(no offense;))It was a
beautiful afternoon, and we had a view in behind us of the entire Salt Lake Valley. But to work,
in front of us was now what appeared to be the second canyon formed by a glacier.
The first evidence, was a few very large large, moving truck/van sized boulders, laying
about. The rest of the surrounding area consisted mostly of about 2-4 foot high brush, covering
some sharp low, fluctuating, mostly granite rock. To see a few rocks of that great a size, with no
friends anywhere near them what so ever, seemed like they must have been glacial deposits.
They were a little too far away from the edge of the cliff to have broken off during a freeze/thaw
cycle last winter, and a little too large to have been carried that great a distance in an avalanche
over the last decade. The rocks deposited there by the glacier, if we had more instruments and
time, would allow us to take samples and trace the glaciers route back as well as its rate of
regression. The second big clue to a very, very beginner geo student like myself was a lake,
carved out at the top. There is also another lake at the top of LCC that I would believe would be
a tarn. It is now a small clear lake that is often covered in ice until late June. Turning around
behind us again to look out over the view, but this time, still with our thinking caps on, it made it
easy to see the Salt Lake Valley as an outwash plain, as the glacier melted out wash debris would

have fanned out across the entire valley. As we looked out over the valley, it was incredible to be
in a place that had so much beauty, but also so much to contribute to the educations we had just
paid for. The sun began to lower, and the crowd began to increase because it is a wonderful place
to watch the sunset over the valley from. Me being somewhat anti-social, decided to head down.
I love to spend an evening watching a sunset with my friends, but Id rather do it somewhere
special we've come up with, then where 35 or 40 people all love to go hike to.
The bells canyon lower reservoir is a small reservoir along the bells canyon hiking trail. It
is a manmade body of water meant to provide drinking water to the inhabitants of Salt Lake City.
Specifically the Metropolitan water district of salt lake and sandy. The water that gathers in the
bell canyon reservoir is treated at the little cottonwood water treatment facility where it is
distributed among citizens of the sandy area. This reservoir s extremely important to the people
of the valley because if we hadnt created it there wouldnt be access to the fresh water that flows
from bells canyon.
The reason that the reservoir is able to exist is because humans have created a wall that
prevents the water from passing into the valley. Instead of having a river it was turned into a full
on reservoir. The effects this has had on the surrounding environment is greater than it appears.
Now there is more water allowing trees along with other flora to grow. This will prevent the dirt
from moving around severely from wind and water. If humans hadnt dammed off the river this
reservoir would have never existed and neither would any of the wildlife that surrounds it now.
The advantages to creating this reservoir include providing clean drinking water to humans along
with a nice area to hike to and fish at.
The river that flows into bells canyon lower reservoir is from another reservoir farther up
the canyon that carries much more water and contains the water from all of the upper canyon.

Including all rainfall and groundwater that flows to the surface. As it flows down the canyon it
will gather in the reservoir and form a body of water. At the bottom of the reservoir all of the
sediments from the mountain are being deposited and filling it up from the bottom up. Eventually
this reservoir will overflow due to the mass of sediments that have been deposited in it. These
sediments have been deposited recently by the river but even before then the glaciers that roamed
left their mark as well. These glaciers left granite mostly in bells canyon.
One of the most apparent rock along our hike was the shocking amount of granite. At the
beginning of the hike we hadn't had much of a vantage point to see all there was, but granite was
still revealing itself along the trail. Sections of this granite you could see have been carved out
and harvested, mostly taken and used for the LDS church. As we gained some altitude and had a
better perspective of the canyon we could see a vast amount of large rock spread all across the
canyon, some areas more concentrated than others and some of the larger rocks being more
separate from the rest. After further investigation and analysis we found that seemingly all of the
rocks we could see and find were in fact granite. From what we know of granite and how it is
formed at such a slow rate it makes sense that we would see so much in a mountain range that is
so old, the granite whether it came from glaciers or emerging from the earths crust, most likely
from the Precambrian age, this seems like an ideal location to find granite, and we did! Because
of this amount of granite in the area, Little Cottonwood Canyon may be known as a batholith.
One assumption I would like to make about this mountain side and its granite locations in this
valley is that I suspect there to be much more granite on the westward facing slope of the
mountain, this is because a significant portion rainfall and snow melt descends this west side
rather the east slope, and because of this flow of water it would have transported more rock into
this canyon and left behind.

References
Metropolitan water district of salt lake and sandy (2009). Metropolitan water district of Salt
Lake and Sandy. Retrieved from http://www.mwdsls.org/
Stauffer, B. (N/A). Man-Made reservoirs. Sustainable sanitation and water management,
retrieved from http://www.sswm.info/content/man-made-reservoirs
Pearson, (N/A), Natural Hazards Earth Processes as Hazards, Disasters, and catastrophes 4th
edition by Pearson
All Trails National Geographics (N/A), Bells Canyon trail. Retrieved from
alltrails.com/trail/us/Utah/bells-canyon-trail

Pic 1

Off in the distance you can

see a

large white boulder we think

was

deposited by a glacier.

Pic 2/3

These 2 pictures are showing an odd protrusion coming from this rock. Most
likely formed from weathering and erosion.

Pic 4

This rock caught our attention due to how it appears to have slipped off the
other rock while still remaining intact.

Pic 5

this rock was interesting

because it had a large fault down the middle possibly caused by either
earthquakes or humans requiring access to granite.

This rock has had years of weathering on it that appears

to have been done through water falling over it. It struck me as particularly interesting.

Map of the local area near bells canyon

(Legend included)

Your Name: _________Shalese Chavez_____________

canyon___________
Date of Site Visit: ____7/30/15______
Patrick,________

Site Name: _Bells

Other People Present: __Colby, Garrett,

Rock Samples Collected: ______Granite, shale, quartz, sandstone,