Geology of Nevada

By Michaela Vos University of Phoenix 01/01/2011

Geological Features & Events

One thing about the topography and geologic structure in Nevada is that it is tied to the climate of this desert state. This is because of the Sierra Nevada mountains (which is part of the Pacific Mountain system), and other high mountains trap moisture that comes off the pacific ocean. Nevada is actually the driest state in the nation if you can believe it. Because of the fossils found in different areas of Nevada and California geologists estimate that the Sierra Nevada mountains only rose the its current elevations within the last six million years.

Geological Feature
The most prevalent rock type of the Sierra Nevada mountains are mostly made up of igneous granite rock. Igneous granite is a felsic rock, which means that the mineral composition of the rock type is mostly feldspar.

Geologic Time
It is hard to say how old my geologic feature is, because the formation of the mountains started about 100 million years ago. The absolute age of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is at leas 40 million years old. We know this because one of the methods used was when the scientists conducted a chemical analysis in the mid 1800s during the California gold rush of ancient raindrops!

Geological Event
What geological event that occurred that created the Sierra Nevada mountains was a few things, first about 250
million years ago there was the plate tectonics. These plate tectonics are also what caused the seismic and volcanic activity that we see today. Because of all the pressure and friction the crust of the Pacific plate ended up melting, creating plumes of liquid plutonic rock which floated up to the surface. Then the plutons came together to form the batholiths that is the Sierra

Nevada Mountains. So about 80 million years ago, as the batholiths started to rise the layer of marine sedimentary rock which
covered the mountain slowly eroded away and deposited in the valley. There are still remnants of the marine rock that still cling to mountaintops.

Weathering and Erosion

The types of weathering and erosion that have effected the Sierra Nevada Mountains are Chemical and mechanical weathering as well as water. Although those three factors play a role in the appearance, the major type of weathering and erosion would be glaciation, this is because it has shaped the terrain of the mountains as well as removed most of the soil.

Igneous Rocks
McKee (2010) Tertiary igneous rocks in Nevada are of two fundamentally different petrochemical types that are the result of two regional tectonic regimes active in western North America during the latter half of the Cenozoic. Many hydrothermal mineral deposits in Nevada clearly reflect these two tectonic regimes and their associated igneous activity. The older petrochemical igneous type is of late Eocene through Oligocene age, is intermediate calc-alkalic in chemistry, and is related to subduction of the Pacific (Farallon) plate beneath the continental North American plate (Ch.6, Para. 1-2).

Sedimentary Rocks
According to Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Today the area is underlain primarily by volcanic and sedimentary rocks that are between about 24 and 11 million years old (part of the Miocene Epoch, Tertiary Period, Cenozoic Era), and there are no active volcanoes nearby. The most abundant rocks are white and pink tuff (rock composed of ash, crystals, rock fragments, and pumice violently erupted from a volcano); gray, green, and brown andesite (lava flows and feeder intrusions to the lava flows); and white, bedded sandstone composed largely of volcanic debris. Quaternary (less than 1.8 million years old) alluvium unconsolidated sediments eroded from older rocks fills stream bottoms and underlies gentle fan shaped slopes leading from the highway up to the bedrock areas. Some older sedimentary rocks (chert, argillite, shale, siltstone, sandstone, and limestone), which were deposited during the Cambrian to Devonian Periods, between about 500 and 350 million years ago, occur approximately one kilometer to the west of this locality and occasionally as rock fragments in the tuffs. Erosion during the last several thousand years has sculpted the tuffs into unusual and picturesque shapes (GEOLOGY, para. 3).

Metamorphic Rocks
Boone (2010) Metamorphic rocks, common to uncommon around Las Vegas depending on the type, are formed by changing the structure of pre-existing rock. This usually is due to high pressure and temperatures deep within the crust of earth, but rocks can be chemically altered. Metamorphic rocks are never melted in the process, just heated and squeezed such that the minerals in the original rock are changed (Metamorphic Rocks, Para. 1).

Water, Desert, and Glaciers

A significant desert of my region, and the process involved with creating it would be the whole state. Nevada is known for being one huge desert, although there are three specific deserts that go across it which are the Black Rock Desert, the Mojave Desert, and the Great Basin Desert which covers most of Nevada and was formed by a volcano and earthquake. Christensen (n.d.) Ecologists distinguish between the Great Basin Desert - the cold, northern, high-elevation desert dominated by sagebrush - and the Mojave Desert - the hot, southern, low-elevation desert of cactus and creosote bush. But the two deserts blend into each other (What is the Great Basin, Para. 9). These deserts were created as a result of very high mountains. Because of the mountains the costal winds from the ocean are unable to reach Nevada, making Nevada the driest state in the United States (as mentioned before).

Mojave Desert

Black Rock Desert

Great Basin Desert

Resources
Resources that are abundant in this region would include natural energy because of the deserts sun. Also, Nevada is abundant in mineral resources. Nevada also has amazing scenery and climate. There is also Las Vegas' Nevada which has many casino's and nightclubs which provide the state with a thriving tourist industry. Nevadas wealth mainly comes from the tourism to Reno, Las Vegas, Virginia City, and Lake Tahoe. With out the tourism Nevada would loose a lot of its income. Virginia City

Scenery

Conclusion
The reason I choose the Sierra Nevada Desert was because of the beauty within the mountains. You drive to Carson City Nevada and look up and all you see is this majestic beauty covered in snow. Nevada is full of openness and wild animals, and un-touched land. You can actually drive and not see any buildings, just wild horses running through the desert. The mountains are part of the reason we have this desert and the beauty within. You can look up at night and actually see the billions of stars because there arent a lot of lights out in the desert. I wouldnt want to live any where else.