Week Six – Geological
Interpretations
The
family and I sent out to learn about the geology and to find some gold this
weekend in California. To begin our journey,
we went to the city of Downieville, CA to make our base camp and explore the
Sierra County. The Sierra county is just
northeast of Sacramento, CA and directly west of Reno, NV. We can see from the Geologic Map of
California that Sierra County contains numerous types of rocks these include
quaternary sedimentary, teritary and quaternary volcanic, granitic, Mesozoic
metamorphic, Paleozoic metamorphic, preCambrian metamorphic, and serpentinized ultramafic
rocks (Department of Conservation, n.d.a).
With all these different types of rocks in the area, we need to get the
information where the quartz rocks are located at. Since we know that quartz rocks are a good
location to find gold and that quartz is a type of Granitic rock, we would need
a detailed map of where the granitic rock is located within the county. Next since we are just a family we will not
being using any heavy equipment, so we need to find current rivers or old
riverbeds that currently or previously flowed over the granitic locations. This way we can either pan for gold or use
slush boxes to find the heavier gold that has settled at the bottom of the
river with the other sediment. The last
piece of information is to look for locations in those areas that have produced
gold in the past. More than likely there
is still gold in the area, but it no longer provides enough return on
investment to make the effort to mine gold out of that particular
location. To do this we would need to get
a location of formally procuring claims and areas associated with them.
During
our adventure we are going to observe and learn about the geology of the county
as well. Part of this educational
process is to talk about how the sierras were formed and how long ago the rocks
were developed and pushed up to create the mountains. To get a comprehension of the age of the
rocks I would like to see the data on radioactive decay on the rocks. Then we could show the kids how the decay
process works and how they are used to determine the age. Next, I would also want to know what types of
fossils are found in the county. Using
this information, I could explain to the kids that the date of a particular
layer of rocks are of a certain age based on the types of fossils found. This is because only certain fossils are
associated with certain ages of the rocks.
Another item to look for since we are on a mission to get rich and find
gold this trip. I would like to find out
where fault zones are located within the county, to see if the corresponding
gold site correlate with the faults zones as the article from mining.com
indicates. This would allow for
explanations of fault activities and how they form and how they impact the
rocks and formations around us while being a location for possible gold
deposits as well.
Generalized Geologic
Map of CA (Department of Conservation, n.d.a).
Simplified Fault
Activity Map of CA (Department of Conservation, n.d.b).
References
Department
of Conservation. (n.d.a). GENERALIZED
GEOLOGIC MAP OF CALIFORNIA. Retrieved from http://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/Documents/Note_17.pdf
Department
of Conservation. (n.d.b). SIMPLIFIED
FAULT ACTIVITY MAP OF CALIFORNIA. Retrieved from http://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/information/Documents/simplified_fault_activity_map_8x10.pdf
Google Maps. (n.d.). Sierra County. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sierra+County,+CA/@39.5838429,-120.8103922,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x809c75c2c35b796f:0x175028ce53c29d94!8m2!3d39.5532845!4d-120.2512728
Mining.com. (2013). Fault lines lead to gold. Retrieved from http://www.mining.com/web/fault-lines-lead-to-gold/
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