Twelve Months of LFD (2012)

I missed this retrospective meme last year, but here it is, back again, as per DrugMonkey:

The rules for this blog meme are quite simple.
-Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year.
I originally did this meme, after seeing similar posted by Janet Stemwedel and John Lynch.  Prior editions include 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.

Previous takes on this Twelve Month meme at LFD were posted for 2008, 2009, and 2010. As usual for LFD, I've also added the accompanying first photo of the month, where there was one with the first post of the month.

January:
I went on my first walk of the year earlier today, out along a creek in Anchorage, AK.

February:
I thought I'd back up to a time a week before our stop at The Geographic Center of Nevada, a time just prior to our soak at Spencer Hot Springs. 

March:Upon getting out of the truck at the north end of the Monitor Valley playa, it became rapidly clear to me that it was very cold. 

April:
I thought I'd actually have time over my 5-day break to get caught up on some blogging, but that hasn't been the case, and things aren't looking all that great for the coming 8- or 9-day work week and the break following that, so I'm posting a few views from the new area.

May:
Just a quick post showing a photo I took about two weeks ago at 5:50 am, on my early morning ride to work. 

June:
Yesterday I received an email while at work telling me that there was a hummingbird moth in one of our two pots of chocolate mint, which are sitting outside on the front porch. 

July:
These stitched photos were taken about three weeks ago near the site of Preble (just off the map to the west).

August:
These relatively small pinnacles are located in the canyon of Midas Creek, just north of the town of Midas, Nevada.

September:
Besides the obvious greenish feldspar, the countertop rock is composed of black pyroxene, gray metallic minerals (magnetite or ilmenite are likely, but I didn't bring my magnet, magnetometer, or portable xrf), and pyrite.

October:
In the morning after I wake up—while I'm drinking my first, second, and maybe third cup of coffee—I often think of things to write for the blog, how to write them, maybe even what pictures to use.

November:

I got to thinking after taking another looking at my arc photos, that this shot may show a weak tangent arc above the also weak 22 degree halo around the sun.

December:
We came in from the east or north, depending on how you view the direction of I-80 as it traverses the entire north-south length of the west flank of the Humboldt Range from Florida Canyon to Limerick Canyon northeast of Lovelock.

Recent Hike: Slope Aspect Effect

During the hike I posted about a couple days ago, I realized I was viewing the slope aspect effect in Water Canyon from an unusual perspective: I was standing and hiking across snow and ice in the bottom of the heavily shaded canyon, while looking across the canyon at the relatively snow-free and sunny, south-facing slopes.

Standing in snow not far below half-mile canyon, looking across the canyon to nearly snow-free, south-facing slopes.

Snow in the bottom of the canyon; minor snow on the south-facing slopes as seen from farther up the road/trail.

Recent Hike: Ice and Snow

Because it's that wintry time of year, with holidays coming on or already here, I thought I'd post a few photos from a recent hike up Water Canyon.

Ice instead of water in the lower, rocky part of our hiking road/trail.

A small crevasse or crack in the ice, scale in the next photo.

Ice textures at one end of the crevasse, hiking pole for scale.

Looking back toward the same general area.

Closer view of the upper end of the icy road/trail.

The creek crossing uphill from half-mile canyon.

Small ice fall, with creek running below the ice, at the same creek crossing.

The location linked to below points to the creek crossing below half-mile canyon. (We've marked certain landmarks on the way as 1-mile this, 2-mile that, etc., based on GPS mileage readings that change somewhat depending on the strength of our satellite connection or other, unknown variables.)

Upper Champion Mine Workings

Now we've turned the corner from the lower workings of the Champion dumortierite mine area and are looking straight up the old, now impassable road that once led all the way to a prosepct at the top of the hill. The dump for the uppermost prospect — with small juniper tree growing on it — is barely visible on the far left end of the uppermost outcrops in the left part of the photo, just beyond and behind the reddish brown, cliffy outcroppings of the middle foreground.

After hiking up the wash a little ways we came to this old ore bin, which is still connected to the upper workings by cables.

Looking inside the ore bin via the chute.

I looked inside the ore bin to see if there was still any ore. What I found, besides a few patches of thin snow, were a few small pieces of purplish blue (or lavender) dumortierite, which I'll show later. These chips, and a few similar ones lying around on the ground below the chute, were a different color than the standard purplish red (or rose) dumortierite I've always seen in the area, and it made me wonder if the bluish color indicated anything significant to the miners, or if it was just a chance find on my part, or if it indicated a possibility that the upper workings were entirely in the purplish blue variety of the mineral.

An adit next to the ore bin. 

A few of the cables going from the upper workings to the ore bin are bolted into the outcrop above the adit.

Closer view of the opening to the adit, its door more than half open.

Looking at the upper workings from the ore bin, the cables strung overhead.

At this point, we decided our hike and prospecting of the area was done for the day, so we didn't make it up to the upper dumps. We saved the area for later.

Instead, we had this view of the upper workings when we stopped at the Humboldt Queen (mentioned here) before driving on to Rochester Canyon.

Google Earth view of the entire Champion Mine area.

Related Posts:
Friday Photo: Dumortierite
The Road to the Champion Mine
Rock Walls at the Champion Mine Lower Workings
Dumortierite at the Champion Mine, Nevada

Dumortierite at the Champion Mine, Nevada

Here we are, back at the lower workings of the Champion Mine, standing on the second wall, looking at a funny, corrugated outcrop. If I look at this outcrop with a tilted head, I might imagine a sideways, not-quite-upside-down Nevada with corrugations of the Basin and Range forming large-ish mountain ranges (or I might imagine caterpillars crawling).

Closeup of the corrugated outcrop.

Most of the outer edges of the corrugations are terminated by planar, thin rinds of fibrous, purplish-red dumortierite. I'm not really sure what created the shape of the corrugations, but I'm thinking that they might be structural in origin, combined with some incipient cavernous or spheroidal weathering.

Thin rinds of dumortierite on schistose, Triassic rhyolite.

Fibrous to bladed dumortierite up close.

The orientation of the fibers or crystals reminded me of the slickenlines one might see on a slickensided fault surface, but I didn't have time to really check out this possibility by taking a lot of orientations with my Brunton.

Dumortierite in irregular veins cutting the Rochester Rhyolite.

Veins and a vein breccia.

Nice vein of fibrous dumortierite.

I'll have some more photos of dumortierite and dumortierite-sericite schist later, and soon, we'll head up towards the upper Champion Mine workings.

To be continued...