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Hey Charlie
Now know why highways are red in WY .
" in NE Wyoming a lot of the road base has "scoria" mixed in with it, here is a good definition of scoria,
Everyone who has traveled through western North Dakota has noticed the colorful reddish layers and brick-like masses of baked and fused clay, shale, and sandstone that color and shape the landscape.These baked materials, known as clinker (or locally as "scoria"), formed in areas where seams of lignite coal burned, producing heat that baked the nearby sediments to a form of natural brick. Clinker beds typically range from a few feet to 50 feet or so thick in western North Dakota, but much thicker beds are found in Wyoming and Montana.
Also sand and gravel from the Chugwater Formation (Triassic age) has a lot of oxidized iron (Porsche speak - RUST) the red tinted gravel also is used for road base in a lot of areas. "
Cheers Guy
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