Colorado Springs geology rocks!

OK, it's a bad pun, but seriously, where else can you find over a billion years of the geologic record exposed in the city limits? When the Rockies popped up about 70 million years ago, during what's called the Laramide orogeny, they upended hundreds of millions of years of ancient seas, deserts and forests that had been hidden by time (click on the map above for a larger view.) There's a brief explanation of the different layers visible in Garden of the Gods here.

Unfortunately, the Colorado Springs area doesn't have a good, on-line tour of local geology, but the rocks near Golden, 70 miles north, are almost identical, and they do have a good guide, with pictures. Check it out.

The west side of Pikes Peak is a whole different story, instead of up-ended sedimentary beds, it's a complex of volcanic debris and lake sediments that created, among other things, the Florissant Fossil Beds.