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Utah

Notch Peak

by slgwv
High point (9654 ft/2943 m) of the House Range, in the Basin & Range of western Utah. Looking north from Highway 6-50. The cliffs are composed of metamorphosed limestone from cooking by a granite body, the edge of which is just visible on the skyline at left (the pinkish outcrops). Somewhere I saw it asserted that the cliffs here are the tallest in the Great Basin, but I haven't been able to track that claim down. I did a bunch of field work here back in the late 70s. Contact metamorphism of a limestone is a classic setting for tungsten mineralization, so there was a big network of prospecting roads coming in from the east side, which led to better access than you might expect. Dunno whether they're all shut off now, tho--
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11 comments

Don Sutherland said:

Great capture.
8 years ago ( translate )

Roger (Grisly) said:

Interesting rock strata and great light
8 years ago

William Sutherland said:

Stunning capture!

Admired in:
www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance
8 years ago ( translate )

Pam J said:

Just look at those strata !!!!!

Admired in ~ I ♥ Nature
8 years ago

slgwv said:

Thanks, everyone! I have pix up closer, but in morning light so the shadows are all wrong. Gonna have to get some this time of day--
Western Utah gets no respect--everyone thinks of the red-rock country instead--but it's got some spectacular places too!
8 years ago

Earthwatcher said:

Great photo and interesting description. The limestone bedding is very clear and surprisingly uniform for the most part. I can see the granite which you mention, but am wondering what is going on in the large wedge of broken topography which extends from the centre out to the right-hand margin? There seems to be some bedding but it looks quite steeply dipping to the right in parts and in other parts it's difficult to see at all. Is there some faulting or thrusting?
8 years ago

slgwv replied to Earthwatcher:

Thanks! There's some offset on a high-angle fault that follows the prominent drainage this side of the high point on the skyline, such that the prominent white marker bed in the foreground actually correlates to bedding higher up on the main cliff (marked with notes). The difference in weathering style above that bed, tho, is mostly due to the metamorphism--the high cliff is supported by calc-silicates, while the foreground is pretty much unmetamorphosed limestone, with the ragged weathering possibly exacerbated by some brecciation from the faulting. Lehi Hintze and his students mapped this quadrangle (Geology of the Notch Peak 7.5' Quadrangle, USGS MF-636, 1974), which like most USGS pubs these days is online as a pdf at their web site! So, I'm following their mapping.
8 years ago

Earthwatcher replied to slgwv:

Aha! - many thanks for the explanation. The photo makes much more geological sense now! The two correlation notes are especially useful. I hadn't at first appreciated that the set of peaks on the skyline was some distance behind the lower set of peaks in the middle ground.
8 years ago

Andy Rodker said:

Stark but excellent! YS. Best wishes, Andy
8 years ago

slgwv replied to Andy Rodker:

Thanks!
8 years ago

Peggy C said:

Thank you for adding to our group:
www.ipernity.com/group/virtualexplore
8 years ago
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