Our Second Geology Field Trip

This is our little study hill.


We sat here and had our breakfast burrito.


Trying to be more observant. Note the band of exposed red volcanic rock from the bulge to the left up to near the top. This is where we saw the red volcanic rock overlay an earlier (?) eruption of a grey rock. Also note the boulder field in the foreground. I believe these rocks can be dated to the Miocene, according to a geologic map I have of the area. Hmmmm?










This shot is looking back toward the I40 and N95 cutoff with the Dead Mountains in the background. Don't know why they are called "dead."














We started walking around our little mountain (hill, actually) to the right.

Thought we would just saunter around. But the terrain abuptly changed on the north side. There were many little gullies with medium-sized boulders in between. The gullies were made up of smooth lava flows and were fun to walk down and up. They looked to me like God's escalator. When we got this far around we came to an abrupt fall-off to an arroyo below.

This is a shot of an outcropping on the other side of the arroyo.






You can see the arroyo on the bottom left of the shot. In my younger days I probably would have continued on, but not now. Tee hee.









Here is a long distance shot with Flattop in the background. That is a landmark everyone would recognize.

Here are a couple of shots up the arroyo and down the arroyo.




















Here are the Dead Mountains from this vantage point.













I noticed this line of darker volcanic rock in the opposite direction of our little mountain (hill). Went over to investigate further this time. I believe I saw some green crystals sparkling here. So we will definitely go back. The next shot is up the line of black lava rock outcroppings.














Have no idea what rock specimens I might find in these environments, if any. We did look, but didn't spot anything I know about right now. I did notice the grey lava flow before, and on this trip I saw a small zone of very light grey bubbly sort of rocks that were probably some sort of projectiles from the volcano or vent. Hmmmm? Oh, well, Gaby and I had fun anyway playing on God's escalator and we'll definitely go back.

Here come the great finds:











I found this piece over by the escalators. I call it the Devil's Checkerboard.