Roadside Geology of ArizonaThe rise of mountains and the spread of deserts has marked the geologic history of Arizona. Landscapes that we see today are here because of landscapes of the past, and because of tremendous forces deep within the earth, forces that carry continents into collisions and then drag them apart again, forces of heat and pressure and the slow churning boil of the earth's interior. Landscape features result, too, from more comprehensible, more recent forces: the unending attack of water and wind and frost, the building of volcanoes, the short-term geologic happenings like landslides and rockfalls, earthquakes and floods, and a gopher digging a hole. |
Contents
SOME GEOLOGY BASICS | 1 |
Introduction | 25 |
Casa Grande to Gila Bend | 40 |
Copyright | |
35 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
anticline basalt Basin and Range Bidahochi blocks Catalina Central Highlands Chelly Chinle Formation cliffs Coconino Plateau Coconino Sandstone color Colorado Plateau conglomerate copper Crater Creek Cretaceous dark deposits dikes dome drainage dunes east edge eroded erosion exposed farther faults feet Flagstaff floodplain formed fossil geologic Gila River gneiss Grand Canyon gravel gray highway hills igneous intrusions Jurassic Kaibab Limestone lake Laramide lava flows Little Colorado River magma Mesozoic metamorphic core complex metamorphic rocks Mexico milepost miles million years ago minerals mines Mogollon Rim monocline Mountains National Monument Nichols photo Painted Desert Paleozoic Peak pebbles Permian Phoenix Pleistocene Pliocene Precambrian Precambrian gneiss Precambrian rocks Quaternary Redwall ridges roadcuts rock layers sand Santa schist sedimentary rocks sediments shale siltstone slopes strata stream surface terraces Tertiary thick tilted Triassic Tucson tuff uplift valley fill Verde volcanic ash volcanic rocks Wash weathering