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I picked up a very informative book on geology, A Field Manual for the Amateur Geologist by Alan Cvancara. With the public land closures, I have been checking out road cuts and trying to figure out what happened in the past. Land forms can tell a story.

I saw a book in Flagstaff called "Volcano's of Northern Arizona" (I think thats what it was called." It lists every major volcano in the Flagstaff area. I wish I picked it up, but I had no money at the time. The book tells how every volcano was formed near flagstaff. It also tells every volcano you see when you are on certain roads, such as I-40 between Williams and Flagstaff, highway 180, highway 89 north of Flagstaff and others.
Geology is a very interesting thing.

geology rocks !

sorry

You mean there are actually people out there who go hiking, and they don't know what they're looking at? Bummer . . .

Some people just take their schist for granite.

Ugh.

Desert Dweller - you're killing me! Punns! NOOOOOOOO!

Actually - that was one of the funniest things I've read in quite some time. Kudos.

If geology is what your into, hike all around the mineral mountain area. Hundreds of different minerals to find

Jeremy, is Mineral Mountain in Pinal Co. down around Superior someplace?

Speaking of geology, many experts discount the possibility of gold occurring in the Superstition Mountains due to the fact that it is considered to be a collapsed caldera of a long extinct volcano and therefore not the right goelogy. However some have pointed out that it lacks any of the common characteristics of such a caldera in that it is a mountain instead of a basin, and it does not have a circular shape. The "caldera types" then insist that this is because the magma below pushed the surface upward as it cooled.

All I know is it has been described as "one mile in, and you're in the slag dumps of hell". No wonder I love the place so much!

The Mineral Mtns. that I am refering to are located North of the Gila River, South of US 60, East of AZ 79 and West of 177.

Mineral Mountain is south Florence Junction. Take US 60 TO 79 Then turn on Cottonwood Canyon Road or look for a flag pole to the east. If there is a red flag flying on the flag pole, Don't go in. The military does training around there sometimes. Last time I went I watched tanks doing some target practice. Pretty scary. There are some great mines to explore all around there too. Some of the mines are holes in the ground that keep going and going and going....

Many of the mine openings were blasted shut by the military when they started using the area in the early 70's on a regular basis. If you check the signs on the Mineral Mtn. Road on US 60 and Cottonwood Canyon Road on AZ 79 it will list the dates the military is using the area. I was once camped near the old silver mining community of Reymert (apx. 1880's to 1900') and when I was coming out at about 10 pm several of those big guns opened up (the target is a shell impact area apx. 10 miles south) about 200 yds north of where I was driving. I visited Reymert last week
http://hikearizona.com/t2002/dated/0603 ... t5_02.jpeg
and the photograph depicts the smelter. The spring near by was running and the Mesquite bosque around the spring was quite lush. Several other mining communities include DeNoon, Price and Twin Buttes.