It appears that the two basalts are both eroded into an irregular scarp, making it unlikely that they (both) were the front of a flowing stream of hot lava. It seems likely that they were eroded by a river- not the type of seasonal flow of runoff that now occurs there. We will try to find any indication of gravels below the basalts or near the present scarp. In the ice age up to 10k years ago, there was much more precipitation than now, and even arroyos may have continually flowed.

 

FINDINGS;

 S6, T42S, R13W has an outcrop of indurated Pc (Pleistocene-Pliocene conglomerate) on a road approaching Sullivan's Knoll (the cone is 2 km to the east), containing both Mesozoic and PV Mtn. intrusives. This shows that there was no Virgin River channel to the north of this location (where the river now exists) in Pc time, since the PV clasts could not have gotten there otherwise. The deposit is at 2940 feet elevation and orients NE-SW (the same as the PV Mtns and the Virgin anticline). It appears that the flood plain ran SW and then turned towards the present Virgin canyon. Although the present drainage from Sand Hollow dam is northward, and crosses this old drainage, erosion has re-oriented the old streams cutting through the Quaternary basalts to create a wide valley going northward in Pleistocene time. This all hints that the old Laverkin drainage passed through the town of Hurricane on its way to the present airport (making good soils along the way, such as with a lake bottom), then turned and went westward and northward past the Sand Hollow dam to the present Virgin canyon.

 Most of Pc information is from loose clasts just above the bulldozed roadway, but there are a few bedrock outcrops just above the Mesozoic redbeds. Many of the clasts are cherts, which are well rounded, but the few granite-like boulders show that definitely the gravels moved from the PV Mountains- some ten miles to the north. That this was a wide valley is confirmed by tracing the clasts uphill for some 100 meters, where they disappear upslope. This downslope to the west is some 5 degrees or more, indicating that the whole sequence has been uplifted by the rising magma to the east (the slope is too large for the clasts found in the interface of the basalt-redbed transition). No clasts have been found further south, where the basalts form a scarp-like N-S undulating cliff, although a foray was made in one of the NE-SW side canyons to search for them.

 What was found was socialogically interesting- in a more southerly box canyon, some kilometer to the NE. One of the so-called Crop Circles was found where the grass and landscape had been flattened. There was no indication as with dung or animal tracks, as to the origin of the flattened ground. A creosote bush also had a flattened ring around it, as did a relief area to the east. No artifacts or tracks were left, but it appears that the area had been used for some social activity. It was left clean, with no debris of any kind. Although there was some boundary markers nearby, there were no tracks of vehicles for entry by surveyors. The ground was not entirely flat, but had a slope of  5 degrees or so (not appropriate for camping or for a tent). We'll file this later under GEO-Poetry.

 The reason why I am spending time researching the water drainage, is because of the lack of information on the sequence of uplift of the Hurricane fault. We already see that the fault moves steadily upward <1 mm/year, but occasionally there is a renewed cycle- where lurching and vulcanism occurs. Simultaneously with a renewed cycle, it appears that vulcanism is re-started. Since there at least 3 cycles, as evidenced by terraces above the Hurricane fault, there probably were three or more eruptive cycles also. The first of these looks to be in Zion Park, the second in the scarp area, and the last further west. These could be dated by radioactivity, and may be in the literature somewhere, so anyone with a bit of time could report on this. I will look at them relatively, as to how they re-arranged the drainage.

 After understanding the successions of drainage, I will work again on the distortions on the west side of the fault. Distortions are many there, with few on the east side; the large exception being that of the Kaibab which is tilted sharply upward north of Toquerville- but there are splays of the main fault, and they probably are related to those. We will work this all out, looking at the literature after doing all of the field work (to see if we have missed anything significant). This way, we will not be biased to reach the same conclusions as earlier workers.

 The main value to my approach is to incorporate measurements made on the dynamics of the region-not just on classifications of rocks and primary deposition. Variables which are usually omitted by conventional geologists are those in the secondary category:

1. Subsurface water movements, such as which cause color changes, mineralization in the rocks and water, liesgang rings, hot springs, and cementation;

2. Heat flow, caused by later intrusions or extrusions and convection around faults and large fractures (this generally infers presssure changes in both the rock matrix and in the fluid phase- rock stress by overburden alone is more than twice the normal hydraulic pressure, 1 psi/ft, compared to .433 psi/ft for pure water);

3. Uplift long after the original deposition, which distorts the original rocks. There are three time intervals of value to any outcrop or rock investigated at the surface:

 a. The time of deposition;

 b. The time of initial distortion- as with a thrust or stress change; and

 c. the time of uplift and erosion, to the time of observation where you are able to look at the rock.

4.Radioactivity and chemical changes in the rock and water. These data are available in shallow water wells and measurements- I have found that the ions which move readily to yield anomalies, which are easily noticeable, include F, B, K, and Li. Lithiium is not usually available, but Boron and Flouride are of interest to health and are now commonly  measured. All of these are available from the state or USGS filles, but geologists do not normally see the connection between shallow water samples and deep dynamics. Highly stressed areas open pathways for mobile ions to easily work their way to the near surface. Mapping of a particular compound such as K (normalized by non-reactive chloride) allows anomalies which may occur deep in the earth, to yield location of the zone in two dimensions in the shallow water wells. This K/Cl allows the location of active faults, when linears are found on a county wide contouring of the shallow ions, from water wells.  The active faults keep the fractures open, so that the ions which have small hydrated size can easily move vertically. I found this to happen for depths of 10,000 feet in The Wattenberg Field of Colorado and other Rocky Mountain locations.

 It is easily seen that a method of evaluating the dynamics of an area require measurement of variables which are sensitive to change (P,T, and composition c, in the vernacular of Chemical Engineers). These can be used to develop a model, which is somewhat physical and mathematical. Ones based on classification alone are inadequate, and yield a taxonomists' approach to understanding. However, one must use the present system of classification of rocks and deposition to lay the groundwork for a continuum, or physical model. As Chris avers: "Words come before Ideas", so that a connection between entities awaits a classification or taxonomy (words).

 An example of a model of Dynamics is one I have worked on near the Uranium deposits at Ambrosia Lake- near Mt. Taylor of NM (near Grants). Mesozoic sandstones were deposited on terrain near the sea, in Jurassic time (1). These were later uplifted and highly stressed by the Laramide subduction (2) and then by magma rising near Mt. Taylor in Miocene and later time (3). Consequently, there was highly porous sandstone (1), then flushing by subsurface waters (2), and finally uplift by rising magma with its thermal waters (3). These gave rise to a deep aquifer (1), to exotic dissolved chemical contents (2) such as precipitating silica, stimulated by organic carbon (wood and plants), and finally to hot waters producing a roll cloud of chemically reductive Uranium and other radioactive compounds, which interchanged with the  previous carbon compounds.