Cerro Gordo mines & Geology Death Valley CA

cool that is no one's like people shoot hey guys and welcome back to Ellie knows rocks right now I am standing in Death Valley let's get on with this journey thank you guys so much for watching and being part of this adventure let's go see what we find [Music] recap from our last video I left my house at 3am in order to get to Las Vegas to meet up with Brian to go to Death Valley and see some amazing metamorphic rocks and the coolest endangered lizard I've ever seen in my life now we're headed to Panama Springs Rainbow Canyon making our way to Cerro Gordo Panama Springs has a view of the Panama mountains it's a short rugged fault block mountain range it runs about a hundred miles long forming the Western Wall of Death Valley and the highest peak of the Panama range is telescope Peak the rock that we're looking at is a migmatite and is highly metamorphosed the thrust fault that controls this block system placed older paleo protozoic rock over younger Cretaceous rocks want mountains nothing that pretty this beautiful beautiful metamorphics they've been folded and tilted and so cool really cool hoist and grabbing system right there in the middle [Music] this is Rainbow Canyon yeah [Music] apparently you get really cool fighter jets they'll come like blazing through this area all of this is a bunch of volcanics all of us area on Rainbow Canyon it's amazing because of different plate convergence and spreading the ground apart if all your metamorphic rocks over there and then you have all your volcanics over here that you can tell at the very bottom layer down here looks like also has some metamorphic action with all the volcanics layering down on top when in fact that is metamorphic rock it's actually marble it's metamorphosed Paleozoic Limestone and the layers above it are actually Basalt flows and lippili beds from the Darwin Hills volcanoes which last erupted sometime between two and four million years ago during the pliocene Epic there's also hyroclastic rock that can be seen here as well and the weathering from the variety of rocks here create the beautiful colors of the canyon walls metamorphic action down there at the very bottom some cool fall thing happening over there some dikes and cross-cutting relationships that are really neat so we've got all this like pyroclastic flow that's what this is a solidified Ash volcanic ash this is one of the buildings from the Civilian Conservation Corps in Death Valley otherwise known as a CCC camp in 1933 Franklin Roosevelt wanted to get the country back on its feet after the Depression and a major part of that effort was establishing the CCC camps which took unemployed men throughout the country and put them back to work Death Valley was turned into a national monument in February of 1933 in October of that same year 400 men entered Death Valley to get the monument into shape for the American public and over the next nine years 12 companies would work throughout Death Valley and these Crews graded 500 miles of Road created airplane Fields installed water and telephone lines and built 76 buildings for themselves they were paid 25 a month with 20 going to their family and five dollars staying in their pocket the men in the CCC camp were among the first to be called to the war effort in May of 1942. today you can still see their efforts in the campgrounds roads and some small buildings that still stand Death Valley could not have accommodated visitors within the first years without the help of the CCC camp as I eat my snack at Panama Springs a huge storm is blowing in now keep in mind when I got down to stovepipe Wells it was about 90 degrees right now it's about 76 degrees so the temperature is cooling off rapidly and we're about to make our way up to Cerro Gordo California it's open nine to five so you know we've got to sign that yeah look how cool that is so that's pretty neat I just like a lot of entries that's really cool here we go a sticker in there because yep it's there that's cool a little Prince Albert can oh yeah that's awesome and we're off on the dirt road to Cerro Gordo if you're gonna travel this road you definitely want an all-terrain vehicle or a four-wheel drive or high clearance the scenery is awesome in between these two peaks is an old mining tram the geology is pretty awesome down these narrow roads we have sedimentary rocks like Limestone and metamorphic rocks like quartzite and on top of all of that we have sightings of historical mining features oh cool I Love mining stuff oh boy we're going up this guy's in the van and we're on our way up this steep portion of the Hill it's actually a lot steeper than it looks and we're not in a four-wheel drive van we're in a two-wheel drive van that has extra suspension good tires and the tires have been deflated to eight pounds Brian from Mojave wave has put a lot of love and care into his vans in order to give people an awesome ride and now the trip we're on today is a little off the beaten path but he's with a random geologist who loves Old Mines so let's go see what we find well look how rough this stuff is about to get and the van is hanging on like a trooper now for those of you looking at the ground if you can see it there are tons of trumpet plants out there and no one freak out whereby a lot of Mines so of course there's going to be a lot of trumpet plants it just means there's heavy mineralization and heavy metals in the ground you know when you see old tails and dump piles like this you're coming up upon a big mine all right Old Mill processing dump piles we love this now just as everything is running smoothly and great and we're seeing all this old workings there's a little bit of trouble I'm worried we're gonna get stuck oh I don't want to be you can get closer to this I can also get out and help if you need first attempt didn't work so we are trying it again the last thing I want to do is walk any further because actually my ankle still does really hurt but we are slipping and can't move once more so we're giving it a third try okay one more attempt guys here we go thank you and that clearly worked no no no the cable I was like yeah that's going to keep people out check it out guys it's been a bit since we've been to a new abandoned mine holy crap oh my gosh yes we have Timbers and rock work oh that's powder Shack okay oh good lord sweet ah sorry I'm touching the stuff here oh and there's more stuff over there and you guys look at this pretty freaking sweet look at how they stacked these rocks up is that not insane look how cool that is ah that area over there that's been like okay you see it buried and whatnot we're gonna go inside this guy hopefully there's no Critters [Music] I'm sorry oh yeah this would have said stay out stay safe stay alive that kind of thing it's been ruined okay there's like fair amount of tracks and whatnot wow this is all metamorphic oh wow oh it'll burn her hand that's going on in here all this stuff guys holy crap oh this is cool this is creepy oh so how far back does this go Facebook .com oh you haven't you haven't gone back the full distance I love all the lights together this is awesome earlier oh this how cool is that I don't have a black light on me wow appetite in there and then I think that might be cast I don't have my edger with me yeah you can scratch it with a fingernail so this is calcite crystals that's awesome you know those holes actually that you're looking at for Dynamite those are made by it with a jack leg and they're really really long drill well that's always great to see stop I think it might have been us echoing I'm just making sure that it's not like something coming at us yes good gosh yeah I want your flashlight this could possibly be a Florence since the fault makes a weaker Zone around the Limestone meteoric water could be precipitating out dissolved salts creating this white fluffy mineral burn you Fair oh gotcha wow I think that we could probably spend half a day in here dust is insane so cool all right no turn your lights out this was barely walked in here like maybe quarter like eighth quarter mile-ish something like that we haven't even walked in that far and it keeps going it's got triple that distance if you think about it going way way back in there light power oh my gosh that is such a trip if I had like more time we would go in like massive explore but I didn't know this was here I had no idea well I mean I knew there was a bunch of abandoned mines up here but I didn't know that you know yep that well if you're in a cold area your hands are going to be warm right there's a door that's heavily used by a critter a bed in there look at that what's it say s store in dry Place High explosives dangerous they were making the top with dynamite boxes that's fabulous oh oh we will be very careful how cool yep mama has four little eggs the way they have this powder Shack split up is actually very common they would have higher explosives near the back usually behind a Better Door than just a screen door but nevertheless they would have it split up in some way and powder Shacks were always put as far away from the mine as they could be conveniently and even in here you can see the metamorphic striations in the Rock I think that's pretty awesome but no Dynamite boxes oh the van is doing a great job the thing is pretty cool got us up here oh okay so they were digging up there too way up top these are old tracks guys this is pretty cool most Old Mines would put their dump and tailings piles right out in front of whatever Shafter added that they were working on and they would run big long tracks out to the edge which made it easy for them to push their ore carts all the way to the end and keep extending their dump pile making it so that it was further away from the entrance and keeping their area clean now dump piles were material that didn't get used for ore an ore pile would have gone down an ore shoot and been processed somewhere else this material is just considered the overburden but it makes for spectacular features and it's a great thing to look for when looking for abandoned mines look at the lake guys that's Owens Valley down there Owens Lake the Sierras on the other side first time that lake has had water in it about a century wow the road right here another batch of already gone stacked rocks and then both of those right over there definitely buildings of some kind because that just wasn't put there because it needed to catch the dirt or hold anything back and that was probably a road to the mine that went up around the side of a hill no trespassing no drippy sink as we get closer to Cerro Gordo we keep seeing more and more old mining artifacts this area was home to a lot of different silver and lead mines if those addeds all over the hill one right there big one up there two smaller ones and all of the month oops workings 55 degrees that's cold you all know I'm a chicken in the cold it's freezing we have made it and it is cold we officially made it to the Cerro Gordo mines also known as fat Hill in Spanish mining officially began in Cerro Gordo in 1865 after it was discovered by Pablo Flores and in 1867 the word spread and scores of Prospectors were arriving from all over the country seeking their Fortune we're gonna go check in at the flag but we are here in Cerro Gordo it was pretty neat so far a bunch of old mining equipment and Mining stuff mining houses this is fantastic in 1867 a local businessman Victor budui he opened a store and acquired several mining claims including interest in the union mine we're checking in at the flag and it's 52 degrees oh wow by 1869 Cerro Gordo was the largest producer of silver and lead in the nation and teams of mules would travel from Cerro Gordo to Los Angeles California turning in their ore in Cerro Gordo's Heyday the town was home to several different mines and hundreds of structures including bars a general store and the famous American Hotel now with the town being as isolated as it was it gave way to a lot of gun fights that were recorded in its history unfortunately the mine and property of Cerro Gordo was very short-lived in 1877 a fire ran rampant throughout the mines and burned down a lot of the infrastructure and with the prices of lead falling and silver falling it was really the final straw and most of its inhabitants and minors left as quickly as they came thus leaving a lot of their belongings and things behind as you see in these shelves a few years later in 1905 the mine was brought back to life for a short period of time as it was used for zinc processing the town was mostly abandoned except for a few stragglers who stayed behind in 2018 the town was purchased for 1.4 million dollars by several different investors among them was Brent Underwood and he's been living there since the pandemic in 2020. he intends to develop the area as a tourist attraction while maintaining the historical nature of the mining property as well as make it an artist's destination for tourist groups and accessible to the public as well and in light of the American Hotel being burnt down in June of 2020 he is on the mends to rebuild it and the structure is looking good at this time the general store has mainly been restored as well as there's a library put in an old core and assay shed that has been revamped adorable little outhouses that I had the privilege of using and a few other small homes including the one that Brent stays in we signed the book beside the book and while I was visiting I had no idea if I would meet Brent or not but it turns out he was there and I got to chat for a few minutes and say hi I really wanted to ask him if I could record him saying my tagline if I'll see you on the next one but I chickened out and instead I got a few pictures and something special Gosh guys we are going to the Hoist house at Cerro Gordo Cerro Gordo Ryan's behind me now let's talk geology for a second this whole area that we're looking at is in large part sedimentary and is about the Jurassic age and then we have some early Mississippian witches mostly shallow water marine carbonate rocks and by contrast they're overlaid with late Mississippian to Jurassic strata which represents a variety of Deep Water Marine shallow water marine and non-marine depositional settings this reflects a lot of tectonic activity in the area now what we're about to see is called the Hoist house this is where the main head frame was stored or at least sheltered and this hoist House was built over the belshaw shaft now try saying that three times fast even though I wasn't allowed to go into the area just for safety reasons I was able to look at this massive head frame and that head frame was built over a main shaft that goes 1100 feet into the ground off of this main shaft there are several drifts that go out to different layers of the mine and some of them if you've seen in some of Brent's videos they're impassable because they've either filled with water or they've collapsed so for me seeing the preserved history of this area was fantastic I was lit up like a Christmas tree can you just imagine being here in its Heyday I mean even just the view of looking at the mountains it's spectacular I have to give a huge thank you to Brent's helper for taking us up here it was awesome since he took us up there he asked me if he could pick my brain a little bit about a few geology questions he had back at the main shop so he took me down and picked my brain for a little bit about a couple geologic scenarios [Music] belshaw shaft that's okay we were just looking at cool okay so this one goes way down yep awesome so you can see down here there's an 1100 level and then there's a 900. the Stelton was trying to get to that 700 we should be a five pairs of five fifty as we go on to chat and point and discuss things that conversation will remain between us as we get ready to leave of course I'm filming what I can I love the old remnants of things and we're planning the next three stops that we have along the way before we even get done with this trip which includes two other mines and two other stops within Death Valley before I'm completely done with this trip thank you guys for joining me on this adventure and I'll see you on the next one

Channel: Elley Knows Rocks

Views: 206,840

Keywords: geology, geologist, rocks, minerals, crystals, mine, mining, adventure, hiking, outdoors, smart, smartgirl, nerd, rockgirl, chrysocolla, pyrite, copper, gold, arizona, cabbing, rockhound, tiktok, geo, cool rocks, outside, elleyknowsrocks, elley knows rocks, part of my adventure, explore

Id: 9DimvFv3N8c

Length: 25min 9sec (1509 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 02 2023