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_2170757.JPG - What the class (and you) have been looking at are the basement rocks of a very large mountain chain created in a collision between two continents. This particular mountain range formed during the Yavapai Mazatzal Orogeny over 1.8 BY ago. Based on surrounding sediment thicknesses, we guess these ancient mountains were over 33,000 feet tall and had since eroded flat. The gneiss that is now exposed was most likely many miles below the surface during the time of the orogeny, and has since been bouyed up by the detachement faulting within Death Valley ( you can see fault scarps in the background.

What the class (and you) have been looking at are the basement rocks of a very large mountain chain created in a collision between two continents. This particular mountain range formed during the Yavapai Mazatzal Orogeny over 1.8 BY ago. Based on surrounding sediment thicknesses, we guess these ancient mountains were over 33,000 feet tall and had since eroded flat. The gneiss that is now exposed was most likely many miles below the surface during the time of the orogeny, and has since been bouyed up by the detachement faulting within Death Valley ( you can see fault scarps in the background.

Date: 2/17/08 4:45 PM

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