Geology of Red Mountain Open Space

Larimer County’s Red Mountain Open Space, located within the Northern Front Range foothills, is a geologic jewel. Excellent rock exposures and easy trails provide access to a sweep of earth history spanning from 290 million years ago up to the present time. Rocks from this period are part of the geologic record of many global and continental scale events, such as: Supercontinent Pangea, Ancestral Rocky Mountains, Late Paleozoic Ice Age, Sand Seas, Permian Extinction, Modern Rocky Mountain Uplift, Western Interior Seaways, and Supervolcanoes. Even so, the Larimer County foothills rock record is not complete and includes periods where millions of years of erosion and/or non-deposition took place. Red Mountain also includes textbook examples of geologic features such as compressional folds, inverted topography, and a superposed stream. And many of the rocks that can be examined here continue to be useful as natural resources. Sandstones, limestone, and gypsum have been quarried throughout the Front Range foothills since European settlement, and in the subsurface, porous sandstone and conglomerate serve as important freshwater aquifers and hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Presenter Mike Kendrick worked as a petroleum geoscientist for 33 years and retired to Fort Collins in 2018. He teaches a popular course entitled Hiking the Geology of Colorado’s Northern Front Range Foothills for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CSU. He is also a volunteer naturalist for the City of Fort Collins Natural Areas Department and a Certified Interpretive Guide. Mike loves teaching geology in the field where he has led geology hikes for the Geologic  Society of America, the Northern Colorado Geologists, and the Fort Collins Newcomers Group. In September of 2022, he published the book: Our Geologic Heritage in Colorado's Northern Front Range Foothills—A Guide to Larimer County Natural Areas.