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I own no land, instead I have wheelestate. I’ve been a full time RVer since 1997. Working summers as a Park Ranger takes me to many beautiful places and playing during the winter takes me to many more. This blog is simply the story of my life's adventures.

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Saturday, January 23, 2010

Walk a dry wash


On the way to Stanton last Sunday we stopped to take a walk into a dry wash tributary to Antelope Creek.
Dry falls
Presumably, a lot of gold has been taken out of the washes in this area and almost all the public land has been claimed for mining. There are stakes and markers everywhere.

Water smoothed schist
But we really weren’t out gold mining, well maybe a few pretty rocks.
Quartz in schist
The surrounding rock in the Weaver Mountains is primarily granite and schist. The granite was formed by slow cooling in the earth’s crust about 1,000 million years ago. It is typically medium- to coarse-grained and created by magma made up of various combinations of primarily hornblende, feldspar and quartz.

Schists are formed from sedimentary shale or sandstone, igneous basalt or metamorphic slate under temperature and/or pressure. In fact schist is a Greek word meaning to split as the rock will break easily into slabs.

Mica in granite
Within certain areas of these rocks are found thin quartz veins which carry pyrite, galena, and gold. We did find some pyrite and a lot of mica in the rocks.

19 comments:

Unknown said...

Looks like it was a fascinating walk, love the rock formations and that piccie of you lol!

Anonymous said...

It looked like you were taking a cosmic slide ride through the layers of time. You certainly travel on many levels Gaelyn.

Unknown said...

I have so many pictures of Jim from the back from hiking with him. I wish I knew the names of rocks and stuff, I was just never able to get them straight.

Anonymous said...

How fun to see the rocks that you explored and admired! I like the picture of you on top of the world! You look joyful!

Arija said...

Beautiful rock faces and smile on human one.

blog with no name said...

I had a wonderfull time with you! It doesn't matter where we go or what we do,things just get better wuth you.

The Giraffe Head Tree said...

You guys are having so much fun together! Lovely rocks - thanks for the education!

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Gaelyn: What a neat place, I hope you didn't take the slide.
Dry wash is an impossibility here. We have had snow melt off and rain so the ground is saturated.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful - macro landscape and micro details in the rocks. It's such fun to read your blog, because you're obviously having a heck of a good time.

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

What beautiful rocks and formations Gaelyn.

Barb said...

Right where you are sitting, Gaelyn - and on the other photos of that area, too, I see a heart shape in the rock.

Bill S. said...

A lovely way to spend a day. It looks like you had a lot of fun. We will have to wait a few months before we have bare ground.

Janie said...

Interesting rock walls and geology there. Probably would be heaven to a rock hound, even if no gold is discovered.

Elaine said...

Beautiful closeups of the rocks!

Firefly the Travel Guy said...

Your searching for rock expeditions are always very interesting. But obviously you need to know some geology to know what you are looking for.

Jeannette StG said...

Ah are these your own rocks, Gaelyn? They're beautiful!

Silver Fox said...

Very nice walking country!

Quiet Paths said...

Love your close up pics of the rocks. I love rocks! It's crazy that people stake a claim for them...

Garry Hayes said...

Nice geology post! I liked it.

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