Old Mines of Southern California: Desert-Mountain-Coastal Areas Including the Calico-Salton Sea Colorado River Districts and Southern CountiesFairbanks, Harold W. (Harold Wellman)
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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
There is not the slightest doubt as to the presence of a non-conformity
between the Miocene-Tertiary and the coral-bearing sandstones. Specimens
of the coral were sent to the National Museum, and were pronounced
similar to some from the lowest Cretaceous of Texas. As to the age of
the limestone and associated metamorphic rocks, they are unquestionably
Carboniferous or older. A float piece of silicious limestone was found
containing some shells, but no opportunity for their investigation has
yet occurred. The Tertiary beds are covered, wherever any of their
original surfaces yet remain, by a great variety of washed bowlders.
With regard to the structure of this eastern slope of the Peninsula
range, I can hardly agree with the views before expressed, that there
are to be seen here evidences of an enormous fault, to which the steep
escarpment toward the east is due. The eastern side of the range, so
precipitous in places, has been compared to that of the Sierras in
structure and general features. It is true that this descent is very
abrupt in places, but in others it is almost as gradual as the western
slope. For instance, the gradually descending ridges which extend east
from Banner for nearly 30 miles, show no indication of any fault, save
at the mouth of Carrizo Creek, where there has undoubtedly been a fault
of considerable importance. The very abrupt descent east of the Balkan
and Laguna Mountains is due solely to enormous erosion, for both north
and south ridges extend past them for many miles into the desert.
The San Jacinto Mountains also send out long arms into the desert, and
below the boundary Signal Mountain and a connecting range seem to be
merely a spur of the main system. The rocks of the metamorphic belt at
Julian and Banner, and farther south, dip to the northeast, indicating a
great fold rather than fault, with the most strongly pronounced
intrusive granites and diorites at some distance on each side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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