"Where in North America is this?" Section VI

[jayree]

In the mean time, here is another 'rock' to be identified.


Photo by: Jerry Kendrick

1) What is the name of the rock?
2) Where is it located?

I'll check later on to see if anyone needs a clue.
Jerry

[Foy]

........of Montana mining geology, glacial geology, and geomorphology. And while I earn my living pushing paper nowadays, my interest and fascination with field work continues unabated, as it has since the early 1970s.

We took our sons on a 2 week fly-n-drive RoadTrip in 2000 and the Big Hole, the Pioneers, the Beartooth Highway, Yellowstone, Butte, and Rock Creek canyon were on the tour. We visited the Berkeley Pit while in Butte, just after the mining museum tour.

The story on the Pit is a great many underground mines had become sub-economic over time. The claims were assembled and a program of open-pit mining was undertaken. I don't recall how long that went on, but I believe it was over a period of decades leading up to the 1970s.

Once persistant low copper prices ended mining for good, the Pit began slowly filling with groundwater. The groundwater interacted with sulfide minerals in the rock and the result is some of the most acidic surface water to be found anywhere. Unless there's been a breakthrough in recent years, the experts are still perplexed over what to do with all that acid water. The Pit is one of the largest excavations on the planet and now it's largely full of bad water.

Marcus Daly built a large smelter a ways downhill from Butte at what became Anaconda, MT. I believe there was large-scale electricity production from electric locomotives where gravity brought millions of tons of ore to the smelter and the locomotives were rigged to act as generators on the downhill run. Between harvest for underground mining timbers and the effects of localized acid rain and particulate deposition from the smelter, an extensive area around the smelter was reduced to a moonscape. The smelter is closed but the extensive piles of tailings and a huge smokestack remain.

I love me some Montana geology!

Foy

[CalOldBlue]

On the road out to Josie's place:


Photo: Don Casey

Getting out of a plane in Butte one February evening was the coldest experience this California boy ever had. Took all 60 miles of driving up to Helena with the heat turned up high to defrost my mustache.

[Mark Sedenquist]

I'll check later on to see if anyone needs a clue.
Jerry

Jerry,

Don, (CalOldBlue)nailed this one in just under an hour of your posting it --So obviously, we need some more of your rocks here!

Mark

[jayree]

You are right it is one of the stops on the Tour of theTilted Rocks in the Utah section of Dinosaur Nat'l Monument. I'll try to find a harder one next time.
Jerry

[Mark Sedenquist]

Foy keeps making noises about contributing some of his extensive photo collection from the southeastern sections of the USA -- but his knowledge is about the west is pretty darn good too...

Mark

[jayree]

This rock may be a little harder to identify because there are not many visable clues, but it does have a name.


Photo by: Jerry Kendrick

1) What is the name of the rock?
2) Where is it located?

Jerry.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Good grief -- what body of water is that sitting in?

Mark

[UKCraig]

Yes, the one I posted earlier was from Stanley Park as Marks suggested.

Here's another whilst you ponder the latest photo:

[jayree]

I guess this is a superior puzzle! The name of the rock has to do with it's distance from the nearest town.
Jerry