Dikes Around Turkey Creek

[beardog]

I haunted the Northern Bradshaws during my trip to Az in the winter of 2012 - 13. One of the things that had me amazed were all the Dikes. I was drawn to them and gave them all a visit. Many times I went away empty handed but never without amazement.

Turkey Creek, and surrounding area, had me wanting for more. I just could not get enough, entertaining the fantasy of buying a mule and disappearing into the hills.

I could not believe how mineralized this area is. From Cleator down thru Turkey Creek, Black Canyon and surrounding area was like an Alice in Wonderland experience.

What we see in these photos is Iron Stone and what I think are Basalt dikes. The Iron Stone usually projects below the Basalt dikes.

During my research on the Bradshaw Mnts. I learned that these mnts., since their creation, have eroded down from 100 - 400 ft. Any alluvial deposits from that erosion happened many, many eons ago. These deposits, along with exposed hard rock veins have been worked and worked over and over. But guess what, there is still much to be found.

I had my good days, hiking out with my pickers and, many days, I hiked out with a skunk.

[beatup]

Great photos and story

[Steve Herschbach]

Great set of photos - thanks for posting!

[Tortuga]

It's cool to have an entire mountain range that's mineralized in that area. So much potential to take a hike, hit a wash and find a new patch that no one has ever been on before.

In southern Arizona we mostly seem to just have little concentrations of placer deposits that run the length of a few gullies and washes here and there that everyone and their brother already knows about.

[beardog]

Tortuga - there's gold in them thar hills! 

 

In the draws and washes where I managed to beep some crumbs I would also be able to dry pan and find more. Unfortunately, distance to travel on foot was extreme. Packing in dry washers or high bankers was out of the question. Sometimes, as night was falling, I would have to make a camp for the night, being as much as 12 miles out. Hiking thru that country in the dark did not interest me. Many times I would go on 3 day journeys spending 2 nights in the splendor of nature.

 

There are so many draws and washes in that country it is not possible to hunt them. My approach was to check the bottoms of each one that caught my interest. Maybe I would hunt up them a way but I would usually have a destination in mind, my focus being to follow my plan.

 

I'm sure if a man wanted to strike it rich that would be the country to do it in. My gut feeling is, there are places out there that hold a lot of gold. Problem is, a man could spend a lifetime out there and not find it. It's just that big!

 

When I get time I will post more photos, next time - "the tunnels".

 

HH Bro

[Tortuga]

That sounds really cool. I'd like to do a prospecting trip like that. Pack all my stuff in and make camp when it gets dark. Then get up the next day and do it all over again. Atleast until all the batteries die on my detector

[tvanwho]

What is a dike exactly and why does it form? Related to faults and such? Don't seem to have these back east in the flatlands.

[beardog]

Dikes are formed during the uplift, the interaction between oceanic and continental crust pushing together, like a folding of the land.

 

The basalt dikes are from the country rock, or, the crust of the earth. The Iron Stone dikes (the black dikes) are intrusions of magma, forced up into voids in the country rock after the uplift. These intrusions are where all minerals are formed, depending upon how hot the intrusion is and how the cooling process takes place (slower cooling always produces more minerals and crystals) gold can form along with many other precious metals.

 

Keep in mind that the mountains in the east are much older than the mountains in the west, having worn down many degrees more than, say, the Rockies or Sierras. Eastern gold is very old and has been ground down into flour over the eons of erosive processes.

[tvanwho]

Beardog,

 

Do you metal detect the dikes themselves, the base of the dike at ground level, the red dirt areas near the dikes?

Just wondering what your strategy is, if any?

 

-Tom

[chickenminer]

 

 

I could not believe how mineralized this area is. From Cleator down thru Turkey Creek, Black Canyon and surrounding area was like an Alice in Wonderland experience.

 

 

 Great thread beardog !

   My wife and I spent 3 weeks hiking/rockhounding around AZ a couple years ago. This was the first time I had been out of Alaska in 50 years.

It was incredible!  The hiking and exposed surface were so unreal that I kept thinking "is this heaven" ?

  It really was, as you say, an Alice in Wonderland experience.

  Love that area !