Siberian Haze in North-Central Nevada

It is often — more commonly than in the past, IMO — hazy or dusty in north-central Nevada where I routinely work and often travel, here and there across basins and over ranges. And in summer and fall (and probably much earlier this year than usual due to the abnormal Californian and western drought) the basins will often fill with thin and wispy to thick and dense smoke from wildfires. I was a little surprised though, when I noticed little wisps of what looked like smoke coming from the northwest early on the morning of April 18th.

In this view of the Owyhee Bluffs and Jake Creek Mountain, the reddish sunrise looks a little smokey to me. Photo taken 18Apr15 from Location 1.

For all photo and a few geographic locations, see the map embedded below.

In this next, closer view of the same cliff and the Midas Trough to the south (the lowlands to the right of the highest cliff), the possible smoke is harder to see, though the lower part of this sunrise photo shows the same red-orange glow as the first photo.

Mostly gratuitous sunrise photo, taken 18Apr15 photo from Location 2.

Here, below, is a similar view of the Midas Trough in denser smoke, taken from a bit farther away on the next afternoon — the first photo was from 26.5 miles, the second from 14 miles,  and this third is from 20 miles. By this time, I knew that a broad bank of smoke had moved in...but from where?

Photo taken 19Apr15 from Location 3.

I turned around (below) at the same location, impressed by how much smoke was hanging in the air between the Sonoma Range and I. That's Sonoma Peak at 9396 ft (2864 m) in the center.

Photo taken 19Apr15 from Location 3, looking southwest. It's about 16.5 miles to Sonoma Peak as the raven flies.

I'm not sure which day I found out that the relatively dense smoke was coming all the way from fires in Siberia, but I surely knew by the 20th (and probably knew on the 19th). Read a little more about smoke from the Siberian fires here, here, here, and here.

I took a few more pictures on the morning and afternoon of the 20th, then settled into a few more days of working inside, with the smoke staying about the same as you can see in my photos below. The first shot is a crudely stitched-together photo I took from Location 3, which shows the Osgood Mountains on the left (northwest) and the plateaus and cliffs north of the Midas Trough way to the right (northeast).

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 3, looking to the NNE. The bright light in the center is most likely a vehicle coming back from one of several (4-5) mines. It's that time of the morning!

And to get that photo stitched I had to finally figure out how to get Photostitch (Canon's program) downloaded onto this 8.1 computer. In the mean time, I had tried several free downloads and online programs, and Microsoft ICE, and none of them could do a thing with my poorly shot photos. (Surprisingly enough, I still don't own a copy of Photoshop, even though I had an early Mac version several years back, when it was a very simple and straightforward program.)

Here's another shot of the Midas Trough from that same old standby location, Location 2. This is one of the best places to stop to take photos along S.R. 789 and the Getchell Highway as far as getting out of road traffic is concerned, but there is a lot of roadside junk to shoot around, and there are always the pervasive power lines.

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 2. The bright light to the left is a vehicle on the Midas road, probably coming back from the mines.

On this morning, my sunrise photo shows a lot of the reddish orange glow reported in the northwest and elsewhere in the western U.S., although my photos are nowhere near as spectacular as those shown here at the Siberian Times. In fact, it seemed that the density of the smoke was wiping out the sunrise I was seeing, but maybe I was too early that day, and I didn't have time to wait for the sun to peak through.

Later on the 20th, I took this picture of Jake Creek Mountain through very dense smoke from about 14.5 miles away.

Photo take 20Apr15 from Location 4.

Below, I've stopped at my favored Location 2, at the junction of the Midas and Getchell roads, and taken one more shot looking off toward the Midas Trough. This very hazy photo was taken with the same focal length as my second photo, and not only can you just barely see the cliffs and lowlands, you can barely see the power line wire in the foreground!

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 2.

Off in the distance to the southeast (next photo, below), I could barely see the outlines of the Valmy Power Plant (North Valmy Generating Station), couldn't see the Shoshone Range beyond Battle Mountain some 60 miles distant, and could barely see the outline of Buffalo Mountain, which is a kind of northern splinter of the Tobin Range beyond the low eastern hills of the Edna Mountains (far right) and beyond the long flat of Pumpernickel Valley (hidden from view). In the original, pre-stitched photos, the vague outline of the Valmy power plant is clearer, and a ghostly mountain beyond the horizon down that long dirt road can be seen: Battle Mountain. Note: Wikipedia shows this mountain as the Battle Mountains or Battle Mountain Range, but the semi-circular mountain is officially known as "Battle Mountain" — see the USGS TNM 2.0 map here — and everybody in Nevada, at least those north of Tonopah, knows this. Also note, if you click through to view the topo map of Battle Mountain the mountain, you'll notice the central, highest peak, Antler Peak. Antler Peak gave name to the Nevada-famous, late Devonian to Pennsylvanian(?) Antler orogeny.

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 5.

Just a few miles down the road, I was impressed enough to take one more picture, this time of the Sonoma Range and Sonoma Peak from a pullout overlooking the Humboldt River near Preble. In this shot, Sonoma Peak is about 13.5 miles distant. The snow fields surrounding Sonoma Peak are harder to see in the closer shot than they were in Photo #4 from 3 miles farther away!

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 6.

When I left the area on the 23rd, the hazy smokiness was still in full swing, and I was getting quite tired of it. During this time, the haze was fairly dense, but a strong smoke smell was generally absent. One or two days I wondered if my eyes burned just a little, but it wasn't like last summer during the densest smoke, when it was hard to work outdoors, or even indoors without A/C. I figured that this time, because the smoke (or most of it) was coming from so far away, we were getting mostly the extreme fines, not any of the larger particles that cause breathing and eye problems (at least in me, IANAD).

When I came back less than a week later, I was welcomed by a great clearness, one that isn't seen in the northern Nevada desert that often these days, what with more wind than I'm used to anywhere but in the Mojave of southern CA. A large T-storm or Pacific front came through, and the air was fresh and clear. I drove to work, sans camera unfortunately, and thought I'd take some pictures the next day from the same spots, to show how these shots would look on a day rivaling the clearness of the 70s or 80s — but on the next day, the 30th, haze began to move back in, and I once again wondered whether it was all from the northwest (reported Oregon fires), or if it was partly or entirely from Siberia. Were the fires over there still going?

It turns out that they were, so the haze that persisted into the next week and a half, until at least May 5th or so, was at least partly from continued field burning in Siberia, China, and Korea, as noted here, here, and here. NOAA first reported — on their HMS Fire and Smoke page — about this second band of incoming smoke on April 29th, and continued reporting it through at least May 7th.

And so it goes...

View Midas Trough and Siberian Haze in a larger map.

Back to Midas

At long last, we're back on the Tuscarora Loop, with the turnoff to the small town of Midas just up ahead. On our loop trip, taken way back in early June, MOH and I passed Midas by, in favor of making it all the way to Tuscarora. At the time, I had been to neither place, but Tuscarora seemed more out-of-the-way, and therefore more exotic, so down the road we went.

We came back in mid-July, and instead of following the main road, old S.R. 18, to the right, we took the side road up the canyon to the left.

Signs at the turnoff to the Midas road.

Sign at the entrance to the town of Midas, and green trees.

Acme Beer sign, reportedly dating to about 1936.

I was on the lookout for a bar that had been open in 1979 or 1980, a bar I knew as Kirby's Midas Bar, a name given to me by a friend of mine, a young woman who was working as a geologist while staying in Midas in a company trailer. Seeing the old sign for Andy's Midas Bar made me somewhat hopeful about finding either Kirby's or Andy's bar, although Acme Beer dates back primarily to the early 1950s and before. Acme Beer did have a short revival in 1975 to 1979; could it have possibly been being sold in Midas while my friend was in town?

While in Midas, my friend could make or receive phone calls on one of the two phones in town, which had the phone numbers of Midas #1 and Midas #2. Phone numbers like these were fairly common in the 1970s and early to mid- or late 1980s in the small, outlying towns of Nevada. These numbers confused operators outside the state to no end. To place a call into Midas or Getchell, for example, you would dial 0 for an operator and then ask for Midas #1 or Getchell #2 as needed. If dialing in from out of state when trying to reach one of these types of numbers, one learned quickly to ask the out-of-state operator for a Nevada operator, because many outside operators didn't believe that phone numbers like that could even exist.

While I was looking for, and not finding, the bar I'd heard of long ago, MOH and I were hoping that the one known-to-be-operating establishment in Midas, the Midas Saloon and Dinner House, would be open, but it wasn't. This became a concern during a later, uphill, in-the-rain adventure of ours.

Mine dump, ore cart, and portal (?) a little ways up Midas Creek.

Old cabin, garage, or storage shed.

Road to somewhere.

After a quick pass through town, we headed up the hill to the west on this relatively innocent-looking side road. The partly cloudy weather became more and more threatening as storms to the south moved in, creating an unexpectedly muddy situation.

Folds in Volcanic Rocks near Midas, some Wildlife, and an Aside about How to Use Lizardtech ExpressView

After passing Sawtooth dike on the Tuscarora Loop tour (driving ENE on the Midas Road into the Midas Trough), you need to immediatedly look south for the next three miles or so at some spectacular folds in rhyolitic volcanic rocks. The folds are in hills east of the junction of Evans and Clover Creeks (MSRMaps location), with photos beginning at hill 1762, above, and running to the gap southwest of hill 1938. Also see the Midas Area Google Maps view below for specific photo locations.
An enlargement of the first photo — with giant copyright notice because my online watermark site once again went down — in case the first photo was too small.
Geologic map of the Snowstorm Mountains and vicinity, Elko and Humboldt Counties, Nevada (Wallace, 1993), courtesy U.S. Geol. Survey.

The folds are entirely within an upper Miocene unit mapped by Wallace (1993) as Trpy — younger rhyolite porphyry — which consists of rhyolite and rhyodacite flows and domes.

By the way, I finally figured out how to download useable geologic maps from the USGS website. Here's the map. After downloading, or right-clicking and "Save Target As", one then needs to go here, go to downloads-viewers, and download/install the ExpressView Browser Plug-in (MrSID) for Windows. After installation, then just double-click, or right-click and "Open", the downloaded, saved map file, which has a .sid extension. The map then opens automatically in a useable page in your browser (IE or Firefox). This is so much easier than the old way, when one had to use the command line to open the saved maps. So, ignore these instructions listed as "Help in using this map" on the linked-to USGS map page. Although the instructions might be useful for some purposes, they are unnecessary for making a GEOtiff, tiff, jpg, gif, png, or bmp of a map or some portion thereof. The toolbar that comes with the viewer is a bit obscure; one does some things by right-clicking on tiny icons in the upper left and upper right corners. Saving is accomplished by right-clicking almost anywhere, which brings up options for printing, saving, and other useful items.

The main part of the hills, with some nice folds on the right.

A closer view of those folds.

These last two photos are looking at the northeastern contact area, where the Trpy rhyolite has been faulted against several formations, including the older volcanic rocks of Jake Creek Mountain — rhyolite and rhyodacite flows, domes, and ash-flow tuffs that cap the Owyhee Bluffs to the north — and the older rhyolite porphyry unit (Trpo), which on Owyhee Bluffs is fed, in part, by Sawtooth dike.

First photo, above, is from late spring; photo below is from mid-summer. The cheat grass is partly green and purplish brown in the first photo; everything has turned straw-colored in the second.
This general area, from the WSW opening to the Midas Trough to the turnoff to Midas, is a great place to spot antelope:

Antelope in early June.

Antelope in mid-July.

We also spotted a large flock of ravens coming back out of the area in mid-July...
...and several vultures feeding on roadkill.

View Midas Area in a larger map

Selected Reference:
Wallace, A.R., 1993, Geologic map of the Snowstorm Mountains and vicinity, Elko and Humboldt Counties, Nevada: U.S. Geological Survey, Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-2394, scale 1:50000.

Sawtooth Dike

Backing up somewhat from Midas on the Tuscarora Loop, one of the first places of interest on the way to Tuscarora from the Golconda side — besides the Midas Trough itself, which the Midas Road goes through to get to the turnoff to Midas — is a spectacular rhyolitic dike, Sawtooth dike (Zoback and Thompson, 1978), named after Sawtooth Spring (MSRMaps location).

Heading eastward into the Midas Trough on the Midas Road, the Owyhee Bluffs in the distance on the left.

Sawtooth dike running up the face of the Owyhee Bluffs.

This dark-colored, rhyolite dike is a feeder for a thick section of rhyolite flows that immediately underlie the rhyolite to rhyodacite volcanic rocks of Jake Creek Mountain, the latter of which cap this portion of Owyhee Bluffs. The older rhyolite flows fed by Sawtooth dike are, in aggregate, 10 to 400 m thick (more than 30 to more than 400 feet thick).

Air photo of Sawtooth dike (from MSRMaps).

A bit of geology: dike sections in turquoise, fault in blue.

Sawtooth dike is in two main sections, offset by a small left-lateral fault, with a small portion caught up along the fault. According to Zoback and Thompson (1978), the dike is a syntectonic intrusion, syntectonic with extension producing diking in the northern Nevada rift and with extension-related strike-slip faulting (a little more about the northern Nevada rift here). The south end of the dike is reportedly cut off by the north bounding fault of the Midas Trough (Rowan and Wetlaufer, 1973, per Zoback and Thompson, 1978).
Another view of the dike, from Zoback and Thompson (1978), used here as per GSA fair use policy. (Thanks, Andrew Alden!)

View Midas Area in a larger map

By the way, the entire road from its turnoff from I-80 or old Highway 40, through Golconda and out along what is now S.R. 789 to the current road usually called "the Midas Road," past Midas and out to Tuscarora, was known as S.R. 18 prior to the 1976 renumbering program (see this 1975 state roadmap). I'll be listing all non-40, non-I-80, non-789 roadside geology (and other) posts related to the Midas Road under the tag "18" as below.

A Few References:
Rowan, L. C., and Wetlaufer, P. H., 1973, Structural geologic analysis of Nevada using ERTS-1 images: A preliminary report, in Symposium on significant results obtained from the Earth Resources Technology Satelite-1, Vol. 1, Technical representations, Sec. A: Natl. Aeronautics and Space Adm. Paper G-20, p. 413-423.

Wallace, A.R., 1990, Geologic map of the Jake Creek Mountain quadrangle, Elko County, Nevada: U.S. Geological Survey, Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-1672, scale 1:24000.

Zoback, M.L., and Thompson, G.A., 1978, Basin and Range rifting in northern Nevada: Clues from a mid-Miocene rift and its subsequent offsets: Geology, v. 6, no. 2, p. 111-116.

Tuscarora Loop

View Tuscarora Loop in a larger map

This is a Google Maps version of a road trip MOH and I made back in early June. The loop part of the trip begins in Golconda, goes north on the Getchell Mine Road, east on the Midas Road, past the turnoff to Midas, across a bridge at Rock Creek, past the turnoff to the Hollister Mine and Ivanhoe mercury-gold district (not shown), up Willow Creek to the Willow Creek Reservoir, over the Tuscarora Mountains to Tuscarora, down S.R. 226 (or Tuscarora Highway) to the Taylor Canyon Resort, beyond the resort to S.R. 225 (or Mountain City Highway), south to Elko, and west on I-80 to Golconda. As a loop, one can essentially start anywhere, not necessarily at the gas station in Winnemucca where we started. The Midas Road from the turnoff to Hollister and over the mountains to Tuscarora isn't always open in winter and can be muddy in spring to early summer.

Places shown:
1. gas station in Winnemucca
2. not quite downtown Golconda
3. turnoff from Getchell Mine Road to Midas Road
4. Sawtooth dike
5. folds in rhyolite
6. turnoff to Midas
7. Rock Creek
8. Willow Creek Reservoir
9. Tuscarora
10. Taylor Canyon Resort
11. Elko
12. Golconda underpass
13. gas station in Winnemucca

Besides the pinnacles and "Nodding Rock" in the Midas area, we'll be seeing some other sights from along this route in the coming days and weeks. The Midas Area map will be added to as needed.


View Midas Area in a larger map

Places shown:
1. turnoff to Midas
2. Midas
3. pinnacles
4. "Nodding Rock"