Death Valley Trip, Getting There: Walker Lake, Road Stories, A Bit about Copper, and Some Folds near Luning

MOH and I left the area where we had stopped to hike (shorelines, remember?), and we steered steadily south—south to south by east—between the steep eastern face of the Wassuk Range and Walker Lake's western shore.

It can be hard to drive by Walker Lake without stopping for photographs, though I find myself doing that more often than not. Sometimes the lighting is off, with the sun high in the sky or at the wrong angle, other times the lake and mountains are obscured by a pervasive haze. Consequently I have few good photos of the lake. I got lucky in the spring of 2008.

Between a rock and a guardrail: the steep eastern side of the Wassuk Range, looking north along Highway 95.

I've always found this precipitous range front fascinating when driving past at 40 to 60 mph (o_O)—the granitic rocks along the range front look shattered, presumably munched by the Wassuk Range fault zone—but I've rarely pulled over to examine anything closely because of unusually minimal standing room on the inboard side of the highway.

Looking south toward Hawthorne from a pullout near what is now the north end of Walker Lake.

A strangely stitched agglomeration of six photos. Notice the pronounced shorelines in the foreground and in the distance on the left.

Driving toward Hawthorne, I had hoped to skirt town by breezing through on the hazardous waste bypass road, but our gas gauge read low enough to make me wonder if we would make Tonopah. I suspected there would be no open gas stations between Hawthorne and Tonopah. (It turned out that there weren't any, open or not!)

The first station we stopped at in Hawthorne was immediately frustrating for some reason, so I went to another station. The second station seemed to be still residing in the dark ages, without usable card readers, so I went inside. "Do you want to fill up? Leave your card here," the attendant said with her hand out. I looked at her like I'd never heard of such an archaic procedure, and she relented, "Go ahead, take it with you, just be sure to pay after." I filled up and went back in to pay. She apologized for the inconvenience, but I wasn't convinced that their card readers were actually broken. I thought it was at least 50-50 that the station was just trying to get customers inside to buy a drink or a snack or two. But maybe the out-of-order signs were legit...

For some reason I found the whole having-to-stop-in-Hawthorne situation just almost too much to handle, even though the city used to make you drive into town no matter what. Now there is a bypass. Then there was a great little Shell station at the downtown corner where you turned left after stopping at the town's single red light. It was a perfect opportunity to get excellent gas.

We pulled back onto the 4-lane part of Highway 95 near the west edge of Hawthorne and turned right onto the bypass.

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Two things come to mind when I go through Hawthorne. First, I'll remember a dream I had once where I took the Hawthorne bypass and drove around town, north to south, and the bypass itself seemed to be the whole point of the dream. Second, after turning east onto Highway 95 at the south end of the bypass, my mind will go into a driving reverie and take me back to a time in the late 80s. I was telling someone that if I had enough money, I would quit my work in minerals exploration and just go out and map. Here or there. I'd seen a lot of places I thought were interesting, and I loved mapping. So, I'd just go out and map. And I'd start a map publishing company.

My unnamed sidekick said that mapping should have a point. Like I shouldn't just go out and map; maybe instead I should try to figure out something in particular about the geology of the area. I disagreed. The USGS mapped tons of quads and the whole point was getting the entire area (the West? the U.S.?) mapped. My mapping would be more detailed than quad mapping, and I would just go out and do it. Maybe I'd start right there—up ahead in the volcanic rocks near the pass outside of Luning. Maybe I'd start at any of several places I'd already done some detailed mapping, part of the point being to make the mapping available to the general population of geologists working in the area, not just to one exploration company.

Volcanic rocks in the Benton Spring area of the Gabbs Valley Range, about 7 miles north of Luning.

I drive east, my mind goes into this same reverie, and I remember that time—and how, when it came down to it and I had some money and some free time, I didn't do that.

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MOH and I drove into Luning, and rather than stop at the Luning Rest Area, we took a dirt road going toward the hills of Black Dyke Mountain, accidentally choosing a road that would have eventually delivered us to the Blue Ribbon Mine. It was in this area that I learned how to test for the presence of copper in black Mn-oxides by using cold, dilute HCl to plate copper onto a rock hammer. This method tests for copper wad or neotocite (a hydrated Mn-silicate sometimes containing enough Cu to be considered an ore mineral), or a few other black copper minerals such as chalcocite and tenorite.

Not too far ahead, in the low hills of Black Dyke Mountain, we spotted some folds in unknown rock formations:

Folded, contorted rocks in the hills less than 2 miles SW of Luning.

Zooming in on the folds.

And that's it for this part of the road trip! We'll continue on towards Tonopah and Beatty next time.

Location map

Related Posts (in order of posting):
Death Valley, "Super" Blooms, Turtlebacks, and Detachments
Death Valley Trip, Part 2: More of the Badwater Turtleback Fault
Death Valley Trip, Part 3: Northward, and over Daylight Pass
Death Valley Trip, Getting There: Wave Clouds beyond the Sierra
Death Valley Trip, Getting There: A Hike to Pleistocene Shorelines

Meeting a Second Time

So, I met with Dana Hunter, the prolific and excellent writer, who not only has ONE, TWO (count 'em) blogs at two distinct blog networks (Freethought Blogs and the SciAm blog network), but is also (rumor has it) writing other stories, books, and — we hope — field guides (like those in this awesome series).

I met her at the usual place (usual for us, so far): the area outside security at the SeaTac airport. We had our usual drinks (see this post about our first meeting), and we ate a lunch of sandwich and salad. We talked and gabbed and had a great old time for a few/couple hours (whichever it was: time flew past rapidly, much faster than the Horizon turboprop I boarded after our meeting).

Anyway, things we discussed? Everything from A (Alaska) to E (her newish Etsy: Dana Hunter's Gneiss Schist) to F (field trips: field trips past and field trips future) to G (geology — yes, what else would geo-types like us hone in on) to K (Kittehs and Geokittehs) to N (networks: blog networks such as SciAm and FTB in particular) to P (phones: types, providers, and plans) to W (writing: blog writing and other writing) to...

...yes, there was more here, more that was somehow lost by the offline Blogger app I was using to block this post out while flying between Seattle and Reno...

We also discussed, at least briefly, geobloggers, geoblogging, and geological locations (at least from Washington to Nevada, and at least briefly between other topics) — and also a few other things that didn't necessarily take us all the way to the Z of the alphabet, but included South Africa, Mt. St. Helens, travel, wireless networks — oh, did I already mention that? We talked about scribbles (mine), focus (how it can be hard to accomplish at least for me), and cats (hers, because I don't have any and haven't for many years). Also, holidays and family (a little, and possibly mostly mine) —  and what else?

...to Z for Zinfandel (no, really, we didn't make it to Z!).

Inevitably it was time for me to go stand in the non-Pre security line, for the second (and thankfully final) time that day. We hugged for the second time — and went onward toward 2015.

Across the West and Back Day 2: Beyond the Wasatch

It was a cloudy and soon to be stormy day, and we were just about over the Wasatch, just about to U.S. 189, which runs in a northeasterly direction through Provo Canyon toward Heber City, where we planned to meet up with U.S. 40. On our way to 189, still on S.R. 92, we passed by one or two roadcuts exposing some tilted beds, a general configuration that was rapidly becoming familiar on our trip, one I soon came to think of as "another tilted section." In this case, it turned out that we were looking at the basal member of the Oquirrh Formation: the Bridal Veil Limestone.

Bridal Veil Limestone member of the Oquirrh Formation, Pennslyvanian in age.

I found out later—from Geolex—that this medium to dark gray, thick to thin bedded limestone, which was named for Bridal Veil Falls on the south side of Provo Canyon, is about 1200 ft thick.

We made it into Provo Canyon. About 3 miles up the canyon, Highway 189 crossed from the north side of the canyon to the south side, ending up south of the dammed Provo River at Deer Creek Reservoir.

We started seeing some modified roadcuts.

A modified roadcut of the Bear Canyon member of the  Oquirrh Formation.

These types of roadcuts, where the steep rock exposures appear to be cemented for slope stabilization and then painted or stained to look somewhat like natural rock, became another hallmark of our trip, being seen fairly commonly at least in Utah and Colorado. I found these types of roadcuts to be fascinating, and I consider them to be better (more scenic? an attempt at a "natural" look?) than some types of wholesale roadcut destruction.

An original part of the roadcut can be seen in the gully ahead, although I imagine it might be hard to examine.

Moving along past Deer Creek Reservoir, we finally came into a downpour. Visibility was worse than shown in this photo, for several miles. We were entering the part of the west that was having an abnormally wet monsoon, although we didn't realize how wet it would really be until later.

With it still raining, we finally hooked up with U.S. 40, which we had lost in Salt Lake City before we started our unplanned side trip through the Wasatch via American Fork Canyon and Utah S.R. 92.

When I first started this series last summer or fall, I was really planning on doing more with it than I seem to have time for now, and I was planning on making notes about the geology on the road trip and the formations being seen in these photos. I also have been keeping the locations of photos up to date on the map seen in the last post (link here, not updated at the moment). I'm finding this level of detail to be just too much at this point, so am going ahead with things the way they are right now.

What I noticed when looking up info about the rock formations on this part of the trip and in the last post, was that it's possible that the Bear Canyon member of the Oquirrh Formation and Ely Limestone may be at least in part correlative (also mentioned here). It's a similar age (or the same?), reportedly has abundant nodules of black chert (Geolex), and some fossils in certain parts of the Oquirrh have been tentatively identified in rocks possibly correlative with the Ely (1998 paper here).

Selected References:
Baker, A.A., and Crittenden, M.D., Jr., 1961, Geology of the
Timpanogos Cave quadrangle, Utah: U.S. Geological Survey
Geologic Quadrangle Map, GQ-132, 2 sheets, scale 1:24,000.

Interactive geologic map of Utah (UGS)

My initial notes: Bridal Veil overlies Manning Cnyn Shale, but although the next formation we see looks like it could be a shale, it's more of the Bear Canyon Member of the Oquirrh. This was named as the basal member of the Oquirrh Fm in an area where the Bridal Veil Limestone does not occur or doesn't otcp.

Geloex (Bear Canyon): says "gray to tan and reddish-brown, limy to quartzitic sandstone with thin to thick beds of gray to black limestone, in part sandy, and in part with abundant nodules and stringers of black chert" -- both of these units, their age and description (and not so much what I've seen of their otcp or exposure) remind me of the Ely Limestone, which we saw here and here (search blog="oquirrh" for one, including "ely") (blah blah). And indeed, the fossils within certain parts of the Oquirrh have been tentatively identified in rocks possibly considered part of the Ely (1998 paper here)

Going back to Roberts Horn (last post) and here - it might even look like the Ely!

Related Posts:
Across the West and Back Day 2: Over the Wasatch Range
Across the West and Back Day 2: Are We Lost Yet?
Across the West and Back Day 2: A Hike along a Limestone Ridge
Across the West and Back Day 2: Across the Salt Lake Desert
Across the West and Back Day 2: A Side Trip in West Wendover
Across the West and Back Day 2: Pequop Summit to West Wendover
Across the West and Back Day 2: Looking for an Old Roadcut
Across the West and Back: The First Day
Intro to Recent Western Loop Trip

Across the West and Back Day 2: Over the Wasatch Range

Possibly I can now -- now that holidays are over -- get back to the western road trip MOH and I took last August, where, if you remember, we're still on day two, and about to head into American Fork Canyon south of Salt Lake City, Utah.

As a reminder, we're here on Utah S.R. 92.

As we approach, it appears that the canyon bisects an anticline, with bedding dipping north on the north side of the canyon and south on the south side.

Closer view of the south wall of American Fork Canyon.

South of the canyon and on the left side of the photo, the sequence of mostly Mississippian sediments is definitely dipping southward, according to the online, interactive geologic map of Utah. The section includes the Deseret Limestone, Humbug Formation, and Great Blue Limestone.

A closer view of the north canyon wall.

On the north side of the canyon, the geology is more complicated, but at least part of the section dips to the north.

As we head into the canyon, the road fairly suddenly becomes a very narrow two laner (? -- more like 1.5!!) and goes upward and into the mountains. Not knowing at all what to expect at this point, we hope we have made a good choice in not turning back toward SLC (you'll have to read the last installment to find out more about why we ended up in American Fork Canyon in the first place).

Nevertheless, despite the demanding road and my migraine, we see some good scenery (and awesome rock formations).

North Timpanogos Peak (or North Peak), rising to 11441 ft
(3487 m), reportedly underlain by the Bear Canyon Member of the Pennsylvanian Oquirrh Formation. 

Here we are a little farther on, looking back down South Fork toward American Fork Canyon.

Much of the drive was through fairly dense trees, often aspens. And, like I said, the road was fairly narrow, and it lacked a viable shoulder, making some of the curves and brief overlook sites rather startling.

We approach the summit, which is marked at 8060 ft.

More aspens.

Our first glimpse of Mt. Timpanogos, 11749 ft (3581 m), also in the Bear Canyon Member of the Oquirrh Formation.

Something not clear from most of these photos: it was a dark, cloudy day, always threatening rain. 

Roberts Horn, with the peak at 10993 ft (3351 m), same formation as before, looking about the same.

Roberts Horn is a true glacial horn, surrounded by several cirques: Primrose Cirque, with two cirque basins (Emerald Lake and Hidden Lakes basins) above the main cirque, lies to the south; the Timpanogos Basin to the north is an elevated cirque that above the Giant Staircase, a cirque and glacial valley.

At this point in our trip across the Wasatch, we've almost made it down S.R. 92 to our next road, and hopefully the last section of the trip report for Day 2.

View Day 2: Elko, NV to Vernal, UT in a larger map

Related Posts:
Across the West and Back Day 2: Are We Lost Yet?
Across the West and Back Day 2: A Hike along a Limestone Ridge
Across the West and Back Day 2: Across the Salt Lake Desert
Across the West and Back Day 2: A Side Trip in West Wendover
Across the West and Back Day 2: Pequop Summit to West Wendover
Across the West and Back Day 2: Looking for an Old Roadcut
Across the West and Back: The First Day
Intro to Recent Western Loop Trip

My Travels in 2013 (A Belated Travel Summary)

I apparently haven't participated in the Year of Travel Meme since 2010, possibly because I traveled back and forth across the same old roads in 2011, 2012, and 2013 -- or possibly I was just too busy at the holiday time of year to get that kind of blog post together. This year, Evelyn Mervine got her Year of Travel 2013 post up right at the end of the year; I'm getting mine up before the end of January, 2014. What follows is a brief summary.

January: Returned from a trip to Alaska.

Spruce on snow.

February: Visited Unionville, NV, in scenic Buena Vista Valley, stopping to take a photo of a cabin that purportedly once belonged to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain).

Old cabin.

March: Visited Leach Hot Spring in Grass Valley, NV, and Kyle Hot Spring in Buena Vista Valley.

Leach Hot Springs.

At Kyle Hot Spring, looking across Buena Vista Valley toward Unionville.

April: Drove within sight of Wheeler Peak in eastern NV.

Wheeler Peak seen from Highway 50.

May: Drove by and contemplated the badlands near Rye Patch Dam several times.

Looking west from I-80 just south of Rye Patch Dam.

June: Drove several parts of old Highway 40 in Nevada, including this one near Humboldt House:

Old 40 looking northeast between Humboldt House and Imlay.

July: Crossed the Humboldt River, drove on the Applegate Trail past Haystack Butte, and visited Sulphur, NV, host to large piles of sulfur and scattered old junk.

Sulfur at Sulphur.

August: August was the month in which MOH and I rapidly toured parts of five western states. I blogged about the trip a little, but not as much as I hoped. Besides places already mentioned, we stopped briefly at the North Rim.

Distant view of the San Francisco volcanic field from the North Rim,
with the cherty Kaibab Limestone in the foreground.

After so much travel in August, I apparently didn't go anywhere until the last day of October.

November: Family matters took me to Alaska, where I took very few non-family-related photos.

Mt. Susitna. A little more about the "Sleeping Lady," as she is often called here,
and a bit about the Sleeping Lady brewpub here.

December: Another trip to points north.

Mt. St. Helens, Spirit Lake, and the Toutle River.

It is, perhaps, a little too late for this post to be considered part of a 2013 travel meme, but if you haven't posted a travel compilation for the year yet, feel free to take my cue and give yourself til the end of January!

De-Icing at the Anchorage Airport

Not sure I've ever seen this orange de-icing goop before, although maybe
I've only previously noticed de-icing operations at nighttime.

Orange de-icing fluid being sprayed over the snow-covered wing.

De-icing fluid dripping down the window from the top of the aircraft.

It turns out that the orange color indicates that a Type I de-icing fluid is being used.

Can I Create a Draft with the Blogger App While Offline?

I'm sitting here inside flight 112--I think--with my phone in airplane mode, wondering if I can create a blog draft that I can save and post later. Obviously, the rest of this test will have to be completed after switching out of airplane mode and connecting with a wireless or other network.

And now for an obligatory photo upload to accompany this post.

UPDATE 4Jan2014: I just changed the picture size and formatting, because the app doesn't allow real manipulation of text and photos and doesn't have an HTML editor.

Across the West and Back Day 2: Are We Lost Yet?

We left this meandering trip report almost two weeks ago, after MOH and I had taken our short hike into the limestone at the Grassy Mountain Rest Stop. From there to Salt Lake City, we cruised while admiring the shorelines of ancient Lake Bonneville.

Lake Bonneville shorelines in the southern Lakeside Mountains, looking northeasterly from I-80 about five miles northwest of Delle, UT.

And then: Salt Lake City.

Driving into SLC can make me somewhat apprehensive unless I'm going directly to the airport, and I had already started wondering if I was getting a migraine — possibly from normal trip concerns, possibly from driving, maybe from poor sleep the night before, possibly from some other, unknown cause.

I had looked at our route on Google Maps and had looked at the interchanges and major turns in Street View. Examining the route online is not the same as having a physical map in hand while driving (or in the navigator's hand, as the case may be) — at least not for me, or at least not unless I have some ingrained or recent familiarity with the particular roads in question. The last time I'd driven (or been driven) east through SLC without turning onto I-15 to go either north or south was in 1957 when I-80 didn't exist — and the 1957 trip definitely didn't count as recent, maybe more like Ordovician, or even late Precambrian.

I knew I was looking for the turnoff from I-80 to U.S. 40 — not that far past SLC, I thought — but I don't think I'd written down the miles to the exit, and I know I hadn't written down the exit number. And for some mysterious reason I was thinking that Park City (which I've never been to, except possibly on that long ago 1957 trip) was a lot closer to SLC than it really is.

Consequently, when the interstate turned a bit to the northeast and headed upward into the fairly tight canyon of Parleys Creek, I instantly freaked and thought it was the even narrower Echo Canyon, which I remembered from coming west out of Wyoming on I-80 on a 2006 trip. I was sure I didn't want to be heading into Wyoming on I-80, so I thought I must have missed the desired exit up somewhere near Park City (!).

I turned around at the first opportunity amidst a rash of roadwork, blocked exits, and narrowed lanes.

I knew I needed a map, so we got off at what turned out to be Exit 4 on 215. We pulled into a gas station and got some gas and a relatively small scale map of Utah. It was at this point that I was sure I had a migraine — and migraines do this funny thing to your overall thinking and analysis skills.

After examining the map while experiencing fairly moderate noise, light, and motion sensitivity that caused me to have problems looking at the map and then looking anywhere else, like at the road, I decided we were on an "outer" loop around SLC that I was previously unaware of. (This "outer loop" actually consisted of I-84 from Ogden, east and southeast to I-80 at the beginning of Echo Canyon, and south and then back west into SLC on I-80, but that part of I-80 wasn't marked, neither was 215 marked, and the insert for SLC was surprisingly small and lacking in detail.) We were actually at a gas station along the 215 partial ring road, and I probably knew that fact when I had turned on to it after turning around in Parleys Canyon.

I figured all we'd have to do was get back onto this previously unheard of "outer loop" and head east or south to our desired exit onto U.S. 40 near Park City. Wrong.

The map in question.

By this time, MOH had wisely taken over the driving while I endeavored to determine our exact location. With a blur of freeway lanes, cars and trucks, and exits coming too fast to comprehend (this should have given me a clue), what I was seeing on the map (how could Alta and Snowbird already be north of us?) wasn't matching the route I'd incorrectly figured was the one we were on, and it wasn't matching my still intact knowledge of where we really were along the Wasatch.

Suddenly, the "outer" ring road turned due west, and I knew something was very wrong. I realized where we had to be (on the "inner loop" road, i.e. 215) just in time to navigate properly and direct us onto the exit for I-15 south. Whew!

At this point, we thought it would probably be just as easy to take the next road south over the Wasatch than to turn around and go back for I-80, Park City, and U.S. 40. As for this thought: not exactly correct.

View Our Crazy Route through SLC in a larger map

Because we went (unexpectedly, for sure) south on I-15, I was able to get a pretty decent, albeit somewhat grainy, shot of the Bingham Canyon copper mine.

View of the Bingham Canyon copper mine, looking west from I-15.

It has been quite a while since I've been to Bingham Canyon — and I've never had a tour into the pit itself — but I strongly recommend going to the overlook and Visitors Center (the latter of which I've never seen) when they are reopened. The overlook area has been closed since the April 10th landslide (see a pre-landslide panorama of the pit here, view Kennecott's photos of the slide here, and read about the slide on several blog posts by Dave Petley).

Looking east toward American Fork Canyon.

And so, with our most recent trip decision finally behind us, we proceeded down I-15 to the Utah S.R. 92 exit, onto 92, and into the Wasatch via the easy, wide-looking American Fork Canyon.

View Day 2: Elko, NV to Vernal, UT in a larger map

The embedded map above shows the location of the three photos in this post (and also the rest of the Day 2 photos already posted, if you move around inside the map or view it in an enlarged version).

Related Posts:
Across the West and Back Day 2: A Hike along a Limestone Ridge
Across the West and Back Day 2: Across the Salt Lake Desert
Across the West and Back Day 2: A Side Trip in West Wendover
Across the West and Back Day 2: Pequop Summit to West Wendover
Across the West and Back Day 2: Looking for an Old Roadcut
Across the West and Back: The First Day
Intro to Recent Western Loop Trip

Across the West and Back Day 2: A Hike along a Limestone Ridge

Where were we? Oh yes, it was *still* day two of our giant western loop trip (as I have so fondly labeled it), and we were at the Grassy Mountain Rest Stop, and we were about to take a hike through a bit of limestone.

The first stop on the short hike is a small window in limestone of the Pennsylvanian Oquirrh Group that may be equivalent to some part of the Ely Limestone (judging by its air-photo outcrop pattern alone — I haven't looked for diagnostic fossils). The online, interactive Utah geological map isn't specific to formation in this part of Utah.

Small window in limestone, looking south.

Same window looking back toward the rest stop, with MOH's hand for scale.

View to the west or southwest from our limestone ridge.

While hiking along the trail, the portion of the Great Salt Lake Desert that we crossed between Wendover and the rest stop was just barely visible through the haze. It's not that first white line out there before the rocky hills in shadow; it's the vague flat area beyond the shadowed hills on the right.

The trail continues to the south between two ribs of limestone, amidst the cheat grass and halogeton.

The view looking south toward unnamed hills, also underlain by Pennsylvanian limestone.

Pack rat midden in tiny cave.

We speculated about the formation of the limestone window, and wondered if something as mundane as a packrat's midden could have contributed to creating a small cave in the limestone, with uplift and erosion later leaving the window isolated from most of the exposure.

Trail's end. A part of the Cedar Range in the distance on the left; the unnamed hills seen earlier on the right.

Once again I've added the locations of these photos to the day's trip log (map) embedded below.

View Day 2: Elko, NV to Vernal, UT in a larger map.