Desert Rocks Close Up
Desert rocks are sculpted, colored, moved,
deposited and broken down,
Text and Photos by Dawn Nelson
Rocks -. Deserts have a lot of them. Actually, all environments have a lot of rocks. Dig down through the rich soil of a deciduous forest, or the thick mucky history of a peat bog, or even the sand of a beach, and you will eventually come to bedrock. Depending upon the environment, you may find plenty more rocks than just the common underlying bedrock sheet.
I grew up in Maine, which is strewn with the broken remnants of old mountains, ground down to rocks and discharged on the land by glaciers. Digging in Maine’s soil is a test of the will. And all those stone walls of Maine? Simply a place to deposit this year’s latest crop of rocks forced to the surface by the processes of freezing and thawing.
Most environments hide their rocks beneath layers of soil or shield them under a blanket of thick vegetation. A stream may scour the land away to reveal bare rock. A stony prominence may thrust upward through the trees, but the rocky heart of most environments lies hidden.
But the desert is different. The veneer of life is thinner. Desert life seldom hides the richness of the mineral earth. In the desert, rocks reign supreme. Desert rocks are sculpted, colored, moved, deposited and broken down by the relentless forces around them. Desert rocks seem to take on a life of their own. It is recorded in millions of years of resisting, and finally yielding, to the wind, sun and water.
In desert rocks, you can read the story of the slow, patient progression of stone into sand, and then possibly even back again to stone. You see the fingerprints of an incomprehensibly ancient past, you can only imagine the whims an unfathomable distant future.
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Joshua Tree National Park - Black Eagle Mine Road Video - Beginning 6.5 miles north of the Cottonwood Visitor Center, this dead-end dirt road runs along the edge of Pinto Basin, crosses several dry washes, and then winds up through canyons in the Eagle Mountains. The first 9 + miles of the road are within the park boundary. Beyond that point is BLM land. Several old mines are located near this road.
Ocotillo Wells - Are You Riding Your ATV Over Gold? One of the most famous prospectors of the time, trapper/gold seeker "Pegleg Smith" traveled through the Anza Borrego region. It's rumored he discovered black gold somewhere in the east part of the Park. Where he found his gold has never been discovered, or if it has, the location has never been published or verified.
Randsburg, Living Ghost Town Video
Randsburg, California is located southwest of Ridgecrest, just off of Highway 395. Gold was first discovered here in 1895 at the Yellow Aster Mine. The mines of the area have produced over one million ounces of gold. Today the gold mining activities have been replaced by tourists shopping for antiques, part-time prospectors, and off-roaders looking for food and a rest stop.
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