King Canyon Hike
John Wakefield spent 25 years traveling the world, to Botswana, Portugal, Spain, Zambia, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil as an exploration geologist and visiting professor. During this period, geology was an all-consuming passion as well as a job. In February 2024, after nearly 40 years without hitting a rock in anger, John decided to dust off his trusty Estwing and see if his rock-hammering skills were still operational.
And guess what? He wasn’t alone on this adventure! He had the company of the one and only Mike “West Virginia” Breiding, a hiking guru now based in Tucson who knows the local flora and fauna like the back of his hand. (Marvel at Mike’s hiking achievements by following this website).
Together, they embarked on the King Canyon hike to Gould Mine, drawn by its awesome rock exposures and ancient Native American petroglyphs.
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Tucson Mountain Park served as their playground, boasting a colossal volcanic caldera that formed a whopping 70 million years ago, back when dinosaurs still roamed the land.
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Picture this: we found a dislocation in the Amole arkose, a rock formation dating back around 80 million years, caused by what we call a “normal” fault. If you’re scratching your head about what that means, don’t worry – take a look at the image below to see the difference between a normal and a reverse fault.
Here’s the interesting part – structural geologists use mesoscopic (outcrop-scale) structures to help figure out regional or large-scale geological structures.
Notice how the extensional stresses that caused this minor fault are the same type of forces that created the crustal extension that occurred about 25 million years ago.
Just imagine the Earth’s crust playing a game of tug-of-war, with one side pulling away from the other. That’s basically what’s happening here.
(Note to geologists: Spencer et al. (2019) believe this extension was associated with “core complex” uplift which occurred in Oligocene to Miocene times – follow this link for details.)
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Petroglyphs
Finally, we fast-forwarded from 75 million years to a few thousand years ago as we examined cryptic petroglyphs – Native American art chipped through the desert varnish to intrigue and puzzle modern-day hikers.
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After nearly 40 years without hitting a rock in anger, John Wakefield decided to dust off his trusty Estwing and see if his rock-hammering skills were still operational.
