Old Mines of Southern California: Desert-Mountain-Coastal Areas Including the Calico-Salton Sea Colorado River Districts and Southern Counties — John Shaqi
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
Farther down the cañon the rock assumes a fragmental appearance, having
masses of feldspar in a dark matrix. It finally becomes a pronounced
breccia, being formed largely of angular, felsitic fragments. The base
in which these fragments lie decays away and leaves them standing out on
the surface. This may be a tuff formed in water, but the matrix has
undergone such alterations that nothing certain can be said about it.
This breccia continues to the lower end of the cañon. An interesting,
light-colored dike was observed here. It is so filled with minute
spherical amygdules as to resemble in structure an oolitic limestone.
The breccia continues as far as the Sweetwater Dam, where it is replaced
by feldspar porphyry. The porphyry shows much variation; in places no
feldspar crystals are present, chlorite taking their place. These rocks
disappear a quarter of a mile west of the dam, and mesa-like hills
extend down to Chula Vista. These consist of soft sandstones and some
calcareous deposits. Dark rocks, belonging to the series just described,
outcrop near the mesa road from San Diego to El Cajon. It forms a long
ridge south of La Mesa. The rocks are in part tufaceous, and in part
dark green and massive, with felsitic inclusions. Near the Eleven-Mile
House the granite is filled with dark, bowlder-like inclusions.
Hornblende is an important constituent of the granite. It is more than
likely that many of these so-called granites are really diorites. The
mesa formation terminates in an abrupt escarpment on the west of Cajon
Valley. The valley comprises many thousand acres of very fertile land.
Granitic knobs rise in many parts of the valley, showing that the
alluvium deposit is underlaid by it at no great depth. North of the
valley, for a number of miles, the crystalline rocks are covered by the
mesa conglomerates. Granitic rocks are the only ones exposed for many
miles east of Lakeside. Just above Forster’s there is a small outcrop of
gneiss and mica schist; strike north 35° west, dip 70° northeast. The
rock exposed along the grade is a coarse biotite granite, with much
quartz and glassy feldspar. A dike of quartz porphyry varying to granite
porphyry outcrops by the road at the top of the grade. This does not
seem to be sharply defined from the adjoining granite. A dark hornblende
granite or diorite begins here and outcrops along the road for several
miles toward Ramona. Three miles from the town there appears a dark rock
with a somewhat resinous luster. It is probably a diabase. The Santa
Maria is a large, plateau-like valley, with low granite hills
surrounding it. Light-colored granite, becoming somewhat hornblendic,
extends some distance east of Ramona, when it is replaced by a dark
diorite. The latter extends along the road for 2 miles. It has glassy
feldspar, and in places much mica. Four miles west of Ballena the
granite is filled with pegmatitic veins, running in a northwesterly
direction.
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