Two Years Ago Today: The Loneliest Phone

Two years ago today, just past the western sign marking the turnoff to Sand Mountain, near Churchill County milepost 47 east of Fallon, Nevada...
...the loneliest phone in America - or at least the sign for the loneliest phone - was in plain view on Highway 50 on the side of the road. The two photos above were taken on April 30, 2007.
This photo of the sign on the east side of the Sand Mountain turnoff was taken on December 28, 2006. The sign is a bit shot up, which is a fairly standard thing in Nevada. I have no photos of the so-called loneliest phone, but you can read about it here and here, and see a great photo of it here. It is described as a microwave, solar-powered phone.
By April 12, 2008, the signs and phone were both gone. The phone was removed by the phone company, according to this site, for getting shot up by passing drivers and Sand Mountain recreators too many times. I don't know exactly when the phone disappeared, and I never made a call from it.

There are, or have been, phones and phone booths farther out in the middle of nowhere - and probably far lonelier, given that Sand Mountain is a major recreation area near Fallon and is only about 1.5 hours from Reno - including this now-gone loneliest phone booth near Cima Dome in the Mojave Desert of California.

Lone Mountain Stratigraphy in Brief

We are back at Lone Mountain again (the Lone Mountain in central Nevada), this time looking straight down on the mountain via two slightly enhanced Google Earth images (click to enlarge).

The second image - otherwise identical to the first - shows the main geologic formations present at Lone Mountain, along with their approximate boundaries. Contacts were taken in part from Google Earth's aerial and oblique views of the area, from this regional-scale map, from my memory of E.R. Larsen's Geology of Nevada class in the late 1970's, and from my memory of exploration mapping done in the late 1980's. The stratigraphic section shown, from west to east (left to right) and older to younger is as follows:

Op: The mostly Ordovician Pogonip Group carbonates, mostly limestone, as defined by Nolan and others (1956). At Lone Mountain, only the early to middle Ordovician Antelope Valley Limestone is present.
GEOLEX: Pogonip.
GEOLEX: Antelope Valley.

Oe: The middle Ordovician Eureka Quartzite.
GEOLEX: Eureka.

SOh: The middle Ordovician to early Silurian Hanson Creek Formation, which at Lone Mountain consists of 318 feet (Merriam, 1940) of “medium- to dark-gray dolomite and dolomitic limestone” (Nolan et al, 1956).
GEOLEX: Hanson Creek.

Srm: The mostly Silurian (early Silurian to early Devonian) Roberts Mountains Formation has a total thickness of about 740 feet at Lone Mountain. It's basal black chert bed, 85 to 100 feet thick, is overlain by dark gray dolomitic limestone and dolomite.
GEOLEX: Roberts Mountains.

DSlm: The early Devonian to late Silurian Lone Mountain Dolomite, which has its type locality at Lone Mountain. It's a light gray to medium gray dolomite, is about 1570 feet thick, and has gradational contacts at its base and top.
GEOLEX: Lone Mountain.

Dn: The Devonian Nevada Formation. This is a formation name that was first used in 1876; the formation was revised many times (see Nolan and others, 1956, and GEOLEX) and was abandonded in 1982 (Hose and others). The name does not have current usage, but it can be found on county maps and is sometimes used for regional mapping. Lithologically, it is composed mostly of dolomite (Nolan et al, 1956). It consists of or is equivalent to several other formations including, in places, the Simonson Dolomite.
GEOLEX: Nevada.

Dd: The middle to late Devonian Devils Gate Limestone - a limestone that used to be part of the Nevada Formation. About 1100 feet of Devils Gate Limestone is exposed on the east flank of Lone Mountain.
GEOLEX: Devils Gate.

Some References:
Hose, R. K, Armstrong, A. K., Harris, A. G., and Mamet, B. L., 1982, Devonian and Mississippian rocks of the northern Antelope Range, Eureka County, Nevada: U.S. Geol. Survery Prof. Paper 1182, 19 pages.

Merriam, C. W., 1940, Devonian stratigraphy and paleontology of the Roberts Mountains region, Nevada: Geol. Soc. America Special Paper 25.

Nolan, T. B., Merriam, C. W., and Williams, J. S., 1956, The Stratigraphic Section in the Vicinity of Eureka, Nevada: Revision of the pre- Tertiary stratigraphy of east-central Nevada: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 276, 77 pages.

Desert Critters: Horned Lizards

Lizards, of the type variably called horned lizards, horned toads, or horny toads [that's how I've always heard it!] were out sunning when MOH and I stopped at our central Nevada hiking spot while traversing Highway 50 the other day.
I photographed two, though there were others I missed. This one was first resting in a spot on the trail to the Cold Springs Pony Express Station. As soon as we approached, it ran off to blend into the shadows under a sagebrush.
Horned toads are of the species Phrynosoma; this one, with three large horns at the back of its head, is probably a Phrynosoma platyrhinos.
He(?) kept one eye on me almost all the time. After hiding under the bush, he ran out into the middle of a relatively unvegetated area (dirt) and froze, flattening his body against the ground as a way of hiding in plain view. He was difficult, indeed, to follow on the viewscreen of my camera.
One last view before our horny toad runs under another bush.
And here's a small horned lizard - I think this is the same kind as above, but a youngster!

Horned lizards have their very own conservation society: Phrynosoma.Org.

This post is an entry in the Carnival of the Arid #4, hosted by Chris Clarke at Coyote Crossing.

Friday Flower Photos

Just a few more flower photos from recent hikes for weekend enjoyment. First, one of my favorite flowers on the hill so far, above, the same bright red Indian paintbrush seen a few days ago. Photo: April 20th.
Above, some of the tiny yellow flowers, April 20th, growing around the rusted cans of an archaeological site near some old mine dumps (date of cans unknown). These yellow flowers are the same ones, seen in an earlier post, that were in full bloom lower on the hill on April 12th.
Two days later, on April 22nd, these flowers have faded with time and the graying of a cloudy day, and are starting to go to seed.

Lone Mountain: Intro to Stratigraphy

As you may remember, a short time ago we were sitting alongside Highway 50 in central Nevada, looking north at Lone Mountain (map). The reason we were doing that - besides the fact that Lone Mountain breaks up an otherwise long stretch of Highway 50 between Austin and Eureka - is because Lone Mountain provides a good exposure of a portion of the Ordovician through Devonian stratigraphy typical of eastern facies rocks in central Nevada. “Eastern facies” refers to rocks in the lower plate of the Roberts Mountains thrust, a regional thrust that formed during the late Devonian to Mississippian Antler Orogeny (300-375 Ma or 380 Ma).

During the Antler Orogeny, western facies (eugeoclinal) Ordovician siliceous rocks (mostly cherts and black shales with minor greenstones) were thrust over eastern facies (miogeoclinal) Cambrian through Devonian carbonate rocks along the Roberts Mountains thrust (Merriam and Anderson, 1942). Mississippian paleogeography, showing the Antler highland and foredeep.

<-----The Roberts Mountains thrust is sometimes erroneously called "Roberts Mountain thrust" (after Roberts Creek Mountain??) and is also sometimes erroneously shortened to "Roberts thrust." The latter name is presumably in reference to Ralph Roberts, who worked extensively in the area mapping the formations and the thrust and naming the Antler orogeny (Roberts, 1949; Roberts, 1964). He is often known as the father of the Carlin Trend for defining the Carlin Trend and the Battle Mountain-Cortez-Eureka Trend and for telling everyone where to find gold in the region (Roberts, 1960; Roberts, 1986).

The eastern and western facies units, and the Roberts Mountains thrust itself, were then partly covered by a Mississippian through Permian overlap sequence of shallow-water carbonate and siliclastic rocks. All three facies or sequences – western, eastern, and overlap – occur at Lone Mountain; the eastern facies dominates, with western and overlap sequence rocks occuring only in low-lying pediment areas south and east of the mountain.

One summary of major geologic events in Nevada.

Geotectonic evolution of the Great Basin - Dickinson, 2006 - see Figure 2, page 355: A time-space diagram of lithic assemblages in the Great Basin and adjoining areas.


Some References:
Merriam, C. W., and Anderson, C. A., 1942, Reconnaissance survey of the Roberts Mountains, Nevada: Geol. Soc. America Bulletin, v. 53, no. 12, p. 1675-1728.

Roberts, R. J. 1949, Geology of the Antler Peak quadrangle, Nevada: U.S. Geol. Survey Open-File Rept 49-47, 108 pages (superceded).

Roberts, R. J. 1960, Alignment of mining districts in north-central Nevada: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 400-B, p. 17-19.

Roberts, R. J., 1964, Stratigraphy and structure of the Antler Peak Quadrangle, Humboldt and Lander Counties, Nevada: U.S. Geol. Prof. Paper 459-A, 93 pages.

Roberts, R. J., 1986, The Carlin story in Tingley, J. V., and Bonham, H. F., eds., Sediment-hosted precious-metal deposits of northern Nevada: Nevada Bur. Mines and Geol. Report 40, p. 70-80.

Speed, R. C., and Sleep, N. H., 1982, Antler orogeny and foreland basin: A model: Geol. Soc. America Bulletin, v. 93, no. 9, p. 815–828.