Random Roadcuts #9: Union Pass on Hwy 68 in Northwest Arizona

[@shawnwillsey]

You can support my educational videos by clicking on the "Thanks" button just above (right of Like button) or by going here: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=EWUSLG3GBS5W8 or here: buymeacoffee.com/shawnwillsey

[@peterholmes2089]

I'm a proud member of the Random Roadcut Cult:)

[@geoffgreenleaf]

I’m a founding member too . Every rock tells a story. And Shawn is the best story teller.

[@marilynhutchings6666]

I lived in Arizona for several.years and never realized that so much volcanic history is involved! Thanks for the video.

[@timpate6259]

These random road cut videos are awesome. I’m frequently out somewhere by myself trying to figure out an outcrop and this series continues to be very informative about how I should go about making interpretations. Thanks!

[@protium32]

I love this series. Keep them coming!

[@Anne5440_]

2024 is starting with a bang for me. Watching and waiting in Iceland, 7.6 in western Japan, and a random road cut. I appreciate the observation and analysis skills you are teaching us with these road videos. As that it is okay to come to firm conclusions on first examination. I am thankful for commentaries of those who are familiar with each location. Thanks for a great start to the year!

[@stefanschneider3681]

This "Random roadcut"-series is really fun. I have nothing to do with geology, but living in Switzerland you cannot help but looking at all the lines and cracks as soon as you get a little closer to the Alps. We live in the eastern part, so the Alpstein region with Säntis as the highest point is quite close and we go there regularly. I grew up in Bern from where you have a great view towards the Jungfrau region and last but not least I spent many months in Zermatt while studying, earning some free skiing by working as a ski instructor. I am sure I don't have to explain the scenery around Zermatt ☺! Happy New Year!

[@maryt2887]

I had the good fortune to go on a skiing trip to Zermatt when I was in my 20s. I will never forget the size of the mountain, the beauty of the scenery and the snow and the village. As an American, it was the trip of a lifetime. You are lucky to have it in your backyard!

[@stefanschneider3681]

@@maryt2887 Yes, it's a special place - and the "Mattini" (people of Zermatt) know ... but even after a hundred times I had to stop and admire the beauty of the "Horu" (Matterhorn) for am moment on a sunny day on top of the Rothorn.

[@raenbow66]

It's fun to hear from people from other countries! ❤

[@bradley-eblesisor]

You've excited my curiosity, not only focused on the areas that you stop at, but in many areas near and far from my native southern Indiana. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I have limited mobility, so this series is particularly appreciated! ❤👍👍

[@stevewhalen6973]

Thanks, Shawn . This one's right near my locale in Golden Valley, about 12 miles east . I've always been intrigued about Union Pass and the Black mountains that It's located in , I believe, a tertiary volcanics long rift fault formed mountain range heavy with rhyolite deposit.

[@mommachupacabra]

So, is this past Golden Valley on the way to Bullhead? Past Bullhead on the way to Laughlin? I drive into GV to visit a friend pretty regularly, but the uphill to BHC stresses my poor old van engine so I don't really go that far.

[@Janer-52]

Great roadcut. I love the mix of dark and light rock - color, texture, formation. Thank you

[@JimSmithInChiapas2]

Sometimes I get so captivated by the observations that I forget to give a "like"!

[@chakatrain]

I am very much enjoying your Random Roadcuts series. I learn a lot from your approach and your interpretations. I was just in that area, just across the river in the Spirit Mountain Wilderness area, and looked east to that range thinking how interesting it looked. Thanks for sharing!

[@Rachel.4644]

It's definitely another interesting stop! It's cool that you let us see more closely the clasts, small offsets, slickensides, fault breccias, etc. Where might we expect to see rhyolite (what the pinkish part reminded me of)? Thanks, Shawn!!

[@scorpion-zi9fl]

I love the random roadcuts videos. They are a fun way to investigate and theorize geography. Thank you❤

[@susiesue3141]

Your videos bring to life the forming of our country. I'm old and I just never thought of the formation of our country much at all until now. Very cool! Thanks for sharing. 😊

[@LisaBelleBC]

Yay! Another random road cut! Very interesting! Thank you again!

[@alanharwood1636]

I like these roadcut vids, doing basic field work making observations of how rocks are related to one another :).

[@user-wk1mw9nj3i76]

Whether it’s a random road cut or a spectacular cliff in Yellowstone, I can’t watch your videos without thinking, “Wow!! “Cool!” and, “I want to see more!” Thanks for the mind-broadening education, keep going!

[@missannthrope365]

Wow, fascinating. I’ll never look at road cuts the same again. Thank you for this!

[@hestheMaster]

What a fascinating Random Roadcut. Lots of volcanic deposited materials from millions of years ago.

[@rufusmclean9770]

Your students have it easy with everything visible ...Here in the east, outcrops are hidden by saprolite and tons of vegetation. These are excellent presentations

[@hestheMaster]

It sucks being east of the Mississippi River because this kind of geology is buried underground , but there are a few places where good outcroppings occur mostly where mountains and big rivers are.

[@Peachtreedishes]

Thanks Shawn! I enjoy the road cuts videos

[@californiasun5866]

I'm always looking at road cuts, looking to see what I can find. Watching you go through this one, shows even more detail than I would have known or understood. Too, I compliment you for not pecking out every specimen you pointed out. Like I would have pecked out one of those angular claps to see what it looked like. But then if everyone did that, who saw your video, pretty soon there would be no clasps to be seen in place. So you impressed me in that you could identify and make your observation without doing major destruction to the formation being examined. I've experienced in known mining areas, I rarely find any white quartz. In some places there are no pieces of white quartz larger than a quarter inch. I even came across one site where there had obviously been a good size boulder of white quartz. And some modern "prospector" blew it up with a stick of dynamite. Nothing but pebbles of quartz left, and they were spread out in a large circle. They seemed to be looking for gold. I would tell would be prospectors today, to leave what you find, for others to see what it looked like. If all examples of a known material are gone, what was their purpose? Total Destruction? Thanks again for your insight and professionalism.

[@deniseatkins9407]

Nice find can definitely see the cake layers there pretty colours

[@BrianHutchison-u4l]

Really loving this new series! Thanks Shawn.

[@NativeTribe65JP]

Love this! I love looking at road cuts, grew up in Midwest. Some interesting cuts in Missouri and Illinois have intrigued me.

[@MrJosuecf]

What a nice way to start a new year! Thank you Mr Shawn for sharing your knowledge! Happy new year

[@LM79453]

Having been thru the southwest it's great getting to understand the fascinating geology. Thank you. Love thise series. Happy New Year

[@peggieincolfaxca3818]

Love random road cuts!

[@davidk7324]

"Fault Breccia" -- another new term along with step faults. Thanks Shawn, this one is a bit more mysterious.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

If the clasts are predominately less than 2mm in diameter, the correct term is 'fault gouge.'

[@lornaperryman489]

Sounds like another fun adventure. Thanks😊

[@skyepilotte11]

Thx Shawn...always interesting. There so many rock formations that tell how our landscape came to be. These are more exposed in the western deserts than say in the eastern u.s

[@s.nelsonpayne208]

Looking forward to Random Roadcuts #50. Love these.

[@shawnwillsey]

Oh boy. Let's take 'em one at a time for now.

[@sergiovelazquez1259]

Thank you for another video on the series, really enjoy them! Happy New Year from Brazil!

[@shawnwillsey]

Much appreciated. Thanks for the support.

[@puckingery915]

Dang it Shawn, you make roadcuts so much more interesting.

[@llanitedave]

Interesting how the portion of the cut on the north side of the road looks very different than the one on the south side. I think the entire stretch of the Colorado River below Hoover dam all the way beyond Laughlin is a Miocene rifting zone, with a chaotic jumble of volcanics, both felsic and mafic, metamorphics, high-energy sediments. It has lava flows, volcanic domes, old stratovolcanos, calderas,and basaltic eruptions. There are normal faults, strike slip transform faults, detachment blocks, plutons, landslides... it's a glorious mess! Love that you stopped there.

[@bobgnarley1]

Love this series, thanks Shawn!

[@susanwymer6912]

My favorite series! I identified the first unit correctly. Seeing all the faulting is so interesting. I just finished auditing a geology course here in Florida. As you may know there are no road cuts in FL. Honestly my professor should have been showing this series in class! Thank you and Happy New Year’s!

[@alexvonborstel4763]

Union Pass. I lived 20 miles away from there and really never looked or thought about the rock types. Close to this road cut are extinct volcanoes with only the center throat intact so what you see in the area is volcanic rock activity. Thank you for stopping and explaining what you saw. Hope you were there during the Winter months because the temperature can climb into the 100’s plus during Summer, baking the Colorado River Valley West of this cut.

[@TacticalTruth]

I love Randy Marsh from Southparth. He is the most famous geologist I know of. Thank you for the interesting and stimulating content

[@ericsarnoski6278]

I noticed at :40 sec into the video when you panned across to the other side of the highway , left side has horizontal layering but all the fractures seem to run verticle , on the right side the layering remains horizontal with a slight incline. at the base of the peak I think I see a fault line running downward diagonally from left to right at approx 40 deg angle .

[@Lowrideractual]

ALways informative and interesting. We're about 20 North of Kingman on the Western side of the Valley. No formations like those up here. Big black rocks and still volcanic appartenly.

[@maryt2887]

Professor “The Rock Whisperer” Willsey - thanks once again for asking the questions that we might not know to ask as we see these road cuts along the highway.

[@raenbow66]

Lots to see here. We're getting good bits of slicken lines lately: pretty cool Shawn. Other questions though about the diverse tuff/lava flow areas. Considering fault zones is helpful. Breccia...hmmm. It is so neat to recognize offset faulting. 👍🏼😁

[@nancysoto7184]

Really like your channel....love geology! Thank you

[@michaelmckeag960]

This afternoon we stopped at Union Pass. I replayed this episode for my wife and our host from Needles we are currently visiting. Earlier in the day we did the same after hiking up to the Newberry Detachment Fault; two Sean Willsey virtual field trips on one day, and two new Willsey fans.

[@shawnwillsey]

Awesome! Hope you had a great time learning and exploring.

[@LouinVB]

I pull over at road cuts. I've collected nice fossils & minerals at such sites. Thanks for the series professor.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

14:07. To me, the whiter tuff looks more plagioclase rich, while the pinker tuff looks more orthoclase rich. Maybe the separate rhyolitic eruptions were magmatically differentialed? (The more orange stuff looks like it was hydrothemally altered, or otherwise affected by groundwater, making it look more 'rusty,' likely due to high iron content.)

[@cynthiakelley9431]

Hi put me in the Road Cut Groupies! My favorite reel!

[@stevewhalen6973]

Thanks!

[@kirkstable]

How cool..

[@3xHermes]

Thanks Shawn, this one not so exciting but well worth the watch!

[@markday5797]

Happy NEW YEAR Shawn, and thank you for all you do, educating. And taking us along.

[@peterinburlington]

I love these.

[@krisaksonify]

The other day I was talking to my supervisor about our eccentricities due to either our education or jobs. I am a hydrologist with a fair amount of geology in my undergrad and I mentioned that I look at road cuts as I traverse AZ occasionally. She being a geologist was got excited and was trying desperately to remember the road cut that every geologist knows of. I asked if she was talking about the Charlie Brown roadcut at the southend of Death Valley and that was it. More obsidian than one could shake a stick at.

[@nickcaruso]

love these roadcut videos!

[@Dave_ohio_543]

6:12 is there anyway that might be a magma sill that got tilted? just a thought and thanks for all your hard work. stay safe!

[@shonaguthrie848]

@shawnwillsey, I think you would enjoy the road cuts on the pacific highway just north of Sydney Australia. Lots of Hawkesbury sandstone cuts.

[@milt6208]

I have driven over that road hundreds of times. I think the Peach Spring Tuff is there somewhere. Also on the other side of that pass is the edge of a caldera. All volcanic as you know. Across the street is a old gas station and motel that is pretty cool. Next time take old Route 66 from Cool Springs to Oatman.

[@brianlock7177]

Another interesting exposure, Shawn. My first reaction is that, if I were with you at the outcrop, i would immediately pull out my hand-lens, which, of course, no geology student should ever be without. If you have a macro lens on your camera, it would definitely add to the interest to show us a close-up view.

[@lynnemarieallan5013]

Your the best. Thank you and happy new year.

[@mikekilian5403]

I always learn from you.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

Thanks, Shawn. Happy New Year!

[@YOICHIHAGIWARA]

ありがとうございます！

[@stevewhalen6973]

Shawn , the area your looking at was subjected to pyroclastic fallout 18.8 million years ago from the nearby Peach Springs super volcanic eruption, located about 15 miles to the south of Union pass your position . It's remnant magma chamber is a few miles north of Oatman AZ. Moving along eastward on highway 68 from union pass , across Golden Valley (where I live) to Coyote Pass into KIngman there are fresh new roadcuts from current highway construction with beautiful massive displays of that very same pyroclastic white ash and that particular eruption.

[@shawnwillsey]

Thank you.

[@ruthdavey4692]

I love random roadcuts series, Would you consider doing the Cajon Pass?

[@supertoasting1011]

Any chance of you covering the Nine Sisters volcanic plugs near San Luis Obispo, CA? Beautiful area!

[@pauldietz1325]

Reading about that area, there's a large variety of volcanic rocks, and they're very thick too (> 1 mile). There's economic amounts of alteration products of the tuffs (clay, zeolite) as well as Arizona's historically largest gold mine (somewhat south of there near Oatman), which is also associated with the volcanic deposits.

[@CricketsMa]

Not a lot of pink on the other side of the road. How interesting!

[@quantumcat7673]

That seems to be a tough tuff!

[@pmm1044]

Way cool! Basin and Range faulting?

[@johncooper4637]

What would be nice to do is take one of these random road cuts and show us how to make field notes.

[@jackprier7727]

Okay, the slicksides are showy, and the color changes with the perhaps fluid-intrusions all add to a violent "goo" interaction of hot rocks. Would this roadcut show a single event? Days , weeks, months?

[@shawnwillsey]

Not much of a break between events based on contact so likely within the same year, perhaps?

[@BC_Cutler]

As I hike around in the mountains here in Utah, I often find what appear be large faults - surfaces that appear polished with slickenlines, offsets in the sedimentation, etc. But when I look at the geologic maps most of these faults aren't identified. Obviously, I understand that it would be impossible to identify every little fault that might exist, but is there some minimum requirement that must be met - in terms of fault length or depth or amount of offset, etc. - that must be met before a fault will be indicated on a geologic map?

Dear Reader, Is it possible that the zig-zag bands of different volcanic materials are a result of a heavy rainfall after a volcanic eruption, creating short lived mud streams? This can perhaps also explain the coloration differences. Parts of the rocks were more saturated with water (creating the rusting of metals) than other parts. It can also explain the pointed forms, where the energy of the water was gone. And if I'm just missing the point completely, I've got a perfect excuse. I come from a country without any form of geomorphological features; the Netherlands. Rivers and mud and reclaimed lands and blue sea clay. With Kind Regards, Michel F. van den Brun Dutchman living on polder clay

[@maurinedoyle9964]

Where is the vent this all came from?

[@shawnwillsey]

Not sure.

[@TheTikiMan]

Can we get a quick japan 7.6 video, please?

[@shawnwillsey]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHvZdIGHjJudb80

[@KaseyLee7820]

Will you be covering anything on the Japan's recent earthquake or tsunami?

[@shawnwillsey]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHvZdIGHjJudb80

[@geoffgeoff143]

Carefull of the ice

[@matthiasgutmann1735]

Hi professor, this is off topic, but what do you say about today's earthquake in Japan? Will you be able to give an update? Thanks from Austria!

[@shawnwillsey]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHvZdIGHjJudb80

[@BillRicker]

Edge contrast filter might be a little high, helpful though it is for seeing rock grain etc? (Way too high for human faces! )

[@Laserblade]

That verticle stripe @14:08 gives the impression of a dike, but shows little to no difference in hardness to the surrounding material judging from the weathering, but the particle size in it is very fine and homogeneous compared to the material on either side. Interesting. Thank you Professor!

[@herbf2700]

I'd like to suggest a better camera. Your current unit has a lot of compression artifacts and if the camera is moving in the slightest, the picture is unviewable because of some kind of weird jittery ghosting. My little Insta360 Go3 can remove most shake, smooth most motion, and record in a raw format. I should test it out doing footage like you're doing. I'm sure there are better little handy cameras out there. I think DJI also makes some vlogging cams. Just a suggestion.

[@shawnwillsey]

I’m open to other options.

[@Steviepinhead]

Not really seeing most of these motion artifacts, myself.

[@davidsabbagh6815]

Do you ever get the State Police stopping to ask you what's going on?

[@shawnwillsey]

Not usually.

[@robbirobin9657]

All those cars whizzing by, and they don't know what they are missing.

[@garyb6219]

Actually it's just a jump to the left and a step to the right.

[@jfmezei]

You're obviously not an important-enough youtuber to be able to close a highway while your shoot your video :-) QUESTION: up here, freezing temperatures cause any water infiltration in rocks to freeze, expand and cause cracks to enlarge. is this penomena unique to where there is a long period of winter with freezing temperatures that can go a metre down from surface, or would this phenomena happen south even where there is no significant frost?

[@llanitedave]

I'm not Shawn, but the answer I would give is that until a few decades ago the rock of that road cut had never been exposed to freezing temperatures. They were simply buried too deeply. The road construction exposed the rocks to the surface, but at that southerly latitude freezing temperatures are rare, and the climate is very dry. Any frost wedging to this time would be very minor, little more than incipient.

[@StellaVinum]

In looking on Google at that area I came across Finger Rock/Thumb Butte and the two buttes to the southeast of that (Finger Rock at 35.1782663, -114.4317772). I am wondering if Finger Rock and those other two formations are old volcanic throats?

[@BrianHutchison-u4l]

Thanks!

[@shawnwillsey]

Much appreciated. Thanks!