Old Mines of Southern California: Desert-Mountain-Coastal Areas Including the Calico-Salton Sea Colorado River Districts and Southern CountiesFairbanks, Harold W. (Harold Wellman)
History
Old Mines of Southern California: Desert-Mountain-Coastal Areas Including the Calico-Salton Sea Colorado River Districts and Southern Counties
Fairbanks, Harold W. (Harold Wellman)
Geology -- California, Southern; Mines and mineral resources -- California, Southern
As the cañon opens out to the desert, hills appear on either side formed
of volcanic tuffs. They dip northeast 30°. Underneath is a sandstone
wholly unconsolidated and dipping in the same direction 40°. This
contains no lava pebbles. The fragments of the tuff are quite varied in
character and generally quite angular. They are imbedded in a volcanic
mud, free from granitic detritus. In some of the strata appear thin beds
of lava, seeming to represent a flow. These tufa hills extend
northwesterly along the base of the granite mountains for 10 miles or
more. It is not known how far they go in a southerly direction. In
places they form mountains of considerable size high up on the side of
the range. The range of mountains between this point and Carrizo Creek
appears also to have some volcanic beds on its southern slope. The open
desert at the foot of the mountains has an elevation of 1,200 feet. It
slopes gently for miles in an easterly direction and consists largely of
loose sand.
Between Mountain Springs and the summit is another illustration of the
fact that lamination in a crystalline rock is no proof of its
sedimentary origin. A small dike less than 2 inches thick cuts across a
coarse biotite gneiss at an angle of 30°. It is separated from the
gneiss by a thin layer of quartz and feldspar. It is made up of the same
constituents as the gneiss, arranged so as to show a well-pronounced
gneissoid structure. This is very similar to the large dikes seen in the
cañon.
The road was followed back to Campo, and from there the Laguna Mountains
were climbed. The road ascends a long, narrow cañon on the southern
slope. At the entrance to the cañon, 4 miles southeast of Buckman’s
Springs, the mountains are high and rocky, being formed of thin-bedded
gneisses, which, in many places, blend into mica schists. They strike
parallel to the mountain axis, a little west of north; dip 70°
northeast. Three miles up the cañon the gneiss becomes thick-bedded and
is finally replaced by mica diorite, which forms the hills on both
sides. Granitic dikes outcrop near the junction and sometimes apparently
in the diorite. There is often a blending between the two, as if the
intrusion of both took place nearly at the same time. The region east of
the southern end of the mountains is formed of coarse granite,
decomposed to a considerable depth. The mica diorite extends northward,
forming the whole central and western part of the mountains. On the east
it is bordered by a slightly higher ridge, forming the crest of the
mountains. This rock does not decompose as easily as the granite and
gneisses on the west, and there consequently remains a mountain plateau
having an elevation of about 5,500 feet. There is a considerable amount
of pine timber and open meadows. The dark diorite forms one of the
highest peaks of the Laguna Mountains, rising 6,250 feet. The highest
portion of the mountains lies to the northeast, and is formed chiefly of
a quartzose mica schist.
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