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| Hooray Sandstone | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hooray Sandstone |
| Type | Geological formation |
| Period | Cretaceous |
| Primary lithology | Sandstone |
| Other lithology | Shale; Conglomerate |
| Named for | Hooray Valley |
| Region | Western North America |
| Country | United States; Canada |
| Subunits | Lower Hooray Member; Upper Hooray Member |
| Underlies | Greenleaf Shale |
| Overlies | Basal Conglomerate Unit |
Hooray Sandstone is a Cretaceous-age sandstone formation notable for its extensive outcrops across western North America and its role in regional stratigraphic frameworks. The unit has been the subject of studies by institutions such as the United States Geological Survey, the Geological Survey of Canada, and university departments at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Alberta. Hooray Sandstone is correlated with other continental and marginal-marine units studied by researchers associated with the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Society of Economic Geologists.
The formation was first described during fieldwork by geologists from the United States Geological Survey and named during mapping campaigns that included contributors from the Smithsonian Institution and the Royal Ontario Museum. Early stratigraphic work drew comparisons to the Dakota Formation, the Belly River Group, and the Morrison Formation, while lithologic and paleontologic comparisons referenced collections at the Natural History Museum, London and the American Museum of Natural History. Subsequent revisions involved collaboration with staff from the British Geological Survey and the Geological Society of America.
Hooray Sandstone is dominantly medium- to coarse-grained quartzose sandstone with interbeds of claystone, siltstone, and minor conglomerate, characteristics documented in petrographic studies at California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Detrital zircon geochronology performed in labs at the University of Arizona and University of Texas at Austin links provenance to sources comparable to those inferred for the Sevier Orogeny and sediments shed from basins examined by researchers at the Colorado School of Mines. Heavy-mineral suites compared with collections at the Field Museum of Natural History demonstrate affinities with sandstones in the Bighorn Basin and Powder River Basin.
Biostratigraphic and radiometric constraints place the Hooray Sandstone in the mid- to late-Cretaceous, overlapping temporal ranges used to correlate units such as the Mancos Shale and the Bearpaw Formation. The unit is commonly subdivided into a Lower Hooray Member and an Upper Hooray Member in regional mapping by the Alberta Geological Survey and the Utah Geological Survey, and is intercalated with marine transgressive intervals studied by teams from the University of British Columbia and the University of Montana. Sequence stratigraphy analyses mirror methods applied in studies of the Wilcox Group and the Tuscaloosa Formation.
Fossil content includes plant macrofossils, palynomorphs, and vertebrate remains recovered during excavations coordinated with the Royal Tyrrell Museum and the Canadian Museum of Nature, and curated in institutions like the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History. Dinosaurian material is fragmentary but has been compared with taxa described from the Hell Creek Formation, the Two Medicine Formation, and the Judith River Formation by paleontologists affiliated with Harvard University and Yale University. Palynological assemblages used for age determinations were examined using collections and expertise linked to the Natural History Museum, London and the Paleontological Research Institution.
Sedimentologic and ichnologic evidence interpreted by researchers at Texas A&M University and Oregon State University indicates fluvial-deltaic to marginal-marine depositional settings comparable to models developed for the Mississippi Embayment and the Western Interior Seaway. Paleoclimatic reconstructions employing stable-isotope data from laboratories at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory suggest warm-temperate to subtropical conditions similar to those inferred for contemporaneous deposits in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Alaska Shelf during the Cretaceous.
Prominent exposures occur in canyon walls and badlands mapped by field parties from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Saskatchewan, with key type-locality sections documented near Hooray Valley in surveys coordinated by the United States Geological Survey and the Canadian Geological Survey. Additional notable outcrops have been described from roadcuts adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway and in protected areas managed by Parks Canada and the National Park Service, where stratigraphic sections are accessible for educational programs run by institutions like the Smithsonian Institution and the Royal Ontario Museum.
Hooray Sandstone serves as an aquifer in parts of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin and supplies groundwater resources studied by the Environment and Climate Change Canada and state agencies such as the Utah Division of Water Resources. The unit has been evaluated for hydrocarbon reservoir potential in basin assessments by the Bureau of Land Management and industry partners including ExxonMobil and Shell plc, using exploration workflows developed with input from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Additionally, quarries exploiting the sandstone for dimension stone and aggregate have been operated by regional companies with oversight by provincial and state mineral agencies.
Category:Sandstone formations Category:Cretaceous geology of North America