Structural geology and mineralogy at Calico

ZZYZX, CALIFORNIA–It was surprisingly cool this morning in Zzyzx as we left for our day of fieldwork, but we were not surprised by the wind at our first stop, Calico Ghost Town outside Barstow. Every time we’ve been there it has been blustery. Calico is an old silver mining site with a complex geological structure complimented by hydrothermal mineralization driven by dacite intrusions roughly 17 million years ago. Shelley Judge showed us how strike-slip faulting (ultimately a result of movement on the San Andreas Fault to the west) produced compressional folds in the Barstow Formation. Meagen Pollock talked about how the silver rich veins were formed by thermal alterations of the sedimentary rocks on the flanks of the Calico Mountains. We then spent a little time in the town itself eating our packed lunches and enjoying cold sarsparilla!

About Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson is a Professor of Geology at The College of Wooster. He specializes in invertebrate paleontology, carbonate sedimentology, and stratigraphy. He also is an expert on pseudoscience, especially creationism.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to Structural geology and mineralogy at Calico

  1. Hassan Naseer says:

    I have learn several excellent stuff here. Certainly price bookmarking for revisiting.

    I wonder how a lot effort you place to create one of these excellent informative website.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.