For those of you who don’t know, one of the fabulous course opportunities offered at Caltech is Regional Field Geology of the Southwestern United States (otherwise known Ge 136). This course is only offered pass-fail, and the only requirements are that you write and present a report on a course-relevant topic and attend the field trip! This term, the field trip was to Central Arizona, and our (Juni and Sulekha) presentations were on cacti of Arizona and the Navajo Nation.
While neither of us are geology majors, this trip was an amazing experience to learn in-the-field. The wonders of science surrounded us as we drove through barren landscapes with basalt mountains uprising suddenly and through surprisingly lush green forests in Coconino National Forest. The history and beauty of life seemed to spring forth as we learned about the prehistoric animals and plants that once roamed the very areas that were now developed (see more on the Petrified National Forest!)
Day 1: a whole lot of driving and some swimming in a pretty lake
At 8 AM, the class met up in Arms Circle to congregate for breakfast, mandatory COVID tests, and some instructions from Prof. Joe Kirschvink and our TA Nick. Then we split off into cars to begin the long 8-ish hour journey to our campsite in Arizona.
The first part of the drive was relatively uneventful. We were sitting in a car with two of our friends, and a staff scientist in the GPS department was our driver. Most of us did not know him super well, so everyone stayed pretty quiet for the first few hours, doing some combination of reading, sleeping, homework, or listening to music for the first few hours of the journey.
Around 2 PM we stopped at Cattail Cove State Park for lunch and a swim in the lake. By this point temperatures had reached almost 100 F, and standing outside almost felt like you were melting. Everyone was quite ravenous from the long journey, so the whole class chowed down on hummus sandwiches and fig bars. Once we finished cleaning up, we all ran down to the water for a dip.
As a native East-coaster (Juni), I am no stranger to large lakes, but something about the surrounding mountains, crystal clear water, blue sky (and overwhelming need to cool down) made this lake seem pretty incredible to me. While the first few meters of the lake were brown squishy, and swampy (ew!), but by the time I swam out to the buoy, the water was clean and refreshing. For the next 20 minutes, we frolicked in the water, cooling down and enjoying the view.
However, before heading out, we had to fulfill our one duty as students: giving presentations! The first two were on biomes and dams of Arizona, and as long as we were not presenting, we were allowed to stay in the shallower parts of the water (while dutifully paying attention of course).
After our dip, everyone loaded up in the cars for the last four hour leg of our journey. Exhausted from my swim and the less-than-ideal sleep schedule I had been managing throughout the last bit of term, I spent most of the time sleeping, but I did peep in and out of the conversation, and it seemed that car bonding between the undergrads (and our driver) was underway.
By the time we arrived at our campsite it was after dark, so we had to pitch our tents and cook dinner in the dark. Luckily, after our camping adventure the week before, we were experts, and we had our tend set-up in no time.
For dinner, we made tofu and pork thai cabbage wraps that were way better than any camping food we had expected to try. As a trip bonding experience, Nick made us go around in a circle, and we had to each share our name, major, and greatest fear (no easy fun facts for us …).
Day 2: visited some ruins, saw banded iron formations, swam in some icy water, and got kicked out of a museum
Thanks to a lovely wakeup from Joe (which involved shaking our tents and saying “wake-up” to us in various languages), we were awake and alert at the ripe hour of 6:30 AM. After helping make a hearty breakfast for the camp (bacon, eggs, hash browns, strawberries, yogurt, cereal, and muffins), we assembled lunches for the day, packed up our stuff, and got in the car to head to our first adventure of the day.
Our first stop was to the Tuzigoot National Monument visitor center, where we had the opportunity to wander around and through the Tuzigoot pueblo, which is a 100-room village that was built around a thousand years ago. The pueblo was built by the Sinagua people around 1125 to 1400 CE, excavated from 1933 to 1935 by the University of Arizona, and in 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt designated the ruins as a US National Monument. The name itself, ″Tú Digiz/Tuzigoot″ comes from the Tonto Apache term for “crooked waters,” which references the nearby Pecks Lake, originally part of the Verde River.
Outside the structure we were able to see the remains of infrastructure that has survived drastic changes in natural conditions, and inside, we walked through a small museum displaying many of the artifacts uncovered from the site. It was pretty incredible to see how well preserved the monument was even all of these years later, and the view from the top of the monument had a view of all of the surrounding mountains and landscape.
Next, we headed to Jerome State Historic Park for the Coconino forest to see some banded iron formations (otherwise known as BIFs). For reference, banded iron formations are units of sedimentary rock consisting of alternating layers of iron oxides and iron-poor chert. Most BIFs date back to the late Archaean, and BIFs can be found worldwide on every continental shield, accounting for a large portion of global iron reserves.
In the forest we were in, the ground was littered with BIFs of varying sizes, and after a lovely informational talk by one of our classmates on the history of BIFs, we were given some time to explore and go rock hunting. After collecting several cool rocks I (Juni) got a bit distracted by all of the cool cacti around the area and starting taking pictures of them instead …
After the forest, we really had to use the bathroom, so when we stopped at a nearby museum outside of Jerome (the town) to eat lunch we snuck inside to use their restrooms. However, upon returning to the group outside, we learned that the workers at the museum had forbidden the rest of the group from using the bathroom unless they paid for tickets. The group wasn’t planning on paying for the expensive museum tickets, so everyone else in the group just sadly ate their lunches outside. We were able to join the group for about three peaceful minutes before one of the museum staff came outside and kicked us all out.
Luckily, we were not far from Jerome, so the group headed there for some presentations in the park and a quick exploration of the little town. There were a lot of funky souvenir shops and cute coffee shops scattered throughout the tiny town.
After our stop in Jerome, we headed to the “castle,” which was A
We also visited Montezuma well, which is a 1/3 of a mile paved trail that shows off empty cliff houses, caves, stone pueblos remains from a 14th century farming community. After looking down at the water from above, it seemed to me to just be a rather small and shallow lake. However, I learned that the depths go as far as 80 m!
(Sulekha insert sedona part here 🙂 )
Day 3: went digging for “gold” (aka petrified wood)
The first stop of the day was to Lowell Observatory
Next, we headed to Meteor crater
One of my (Sulekha) favorite spots (the other being the watering hole we stopped at in Sedona, more on this earlier) was the Petrified Forest National Park. Not as flashy nor as popular as the Grand Canyon National Park, the Petrified Forest is a hidden gem. It was one of the first areas that Teddy Roosevelt set aside in the Antiquities Act of 1906 as activists sought to protect the very unique Rainbow Forest of petrified wood, the petroglyphs of Newspaper Rock, and the ruined village of Puerco Pueblo. And for good reason! The scenery of the “Painted Desert”, as it’s called, and the Blue Mesa were unlike anything I’d seen elsewhere.
After a 2 hour drive and short detour to drive down Historic Route 66 (Route 66 was a major highway from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California – a short drive away from Caltech’s campus. Petrified Forest National Park is the only national park that contains a segment of Route 66), we arrived at the relatively empty parking lot of the Visitor Center. After a quick bathroom break, the class circled up and Prof. Kirschvink told us about his personal connection to the park. Kirschvink’s great aunt and uncle had owned a curio store on land that was just along the planned route of the road the National Park Service (NPS) wanted to build through the park. Despite not wanting to sell their beloved shop, the NPS had its way in the end, forcing the curio shop to close and the land to be sold. While this in and of itself was quite the story (I haven’t done it justice here), Joe also told us of the (in)famous Lion Farm that used to be a short car ride away. Once quite the attraction, the Lion Farm is no longer, given an incident with a lion, paw, and an unfortunate altercation.
There’s a certain stillness to the park as you drive through. The expanse of the “Painted Desert” seemed to surround us as we drove through the park. It’s as if time has crystallized along with the ancient logs scattered across the desert floor. The colors were unlike anything I’ve seen — rich purples, ochres, and deep reds streaked across fossilized wood that once towered as living trees over 200 million years ago. When you first spot the logs in the distance, they resemble those of an ordinary fallen forest. But as we discovered in the field behind the park’s museum, a closer look reveals they are anything but.
Up close, the “logs” glint in the sunlight with streaks of crimson, amber, lavender, and deep black. The texture is glassy in places, rough and jagged in others. What once was bark is now stone, many of them fallen over and cut, revealing a dazzling cross-sections that looks more like gemstones than wood (because they are!). Some pieces lie scattered like broken pottery, while some large logs remain fallen over, massively long, anchored in time. It’s surreal — nature’s own alchemy, turning trees into sculpture.
We drove the 28-mile scenic route, stopping a couple times to take in the surreal vistas — the Painted Desert stretching out in pastel waves, Blue Mesa with its striped badlands – and hear a couple reports of the rich history of the landscape. Highly worth the visit!
Day 4: survived an encounter with a deadly predator and visited a copper mine
Unfortunately, day four marked the end of our adventure in Arizona, but luckily Nick had a few fun stops planned for our drive home to spread out the journey.
After a quick breakfast and camp clean-up we set off on our adventure. Our first stop was to Arcosanti, which is an independent experimental community in the middle of the Arizona desert. Founded in 1970 by Paolo Soleri as a response to urban sprawl, environmental degradation, and consumer culture, the city was designed to be a working prototype for a community meant to enable people to live in harmony with the land and its resources. Currently, Arcosanti is home to about 50 artisans, and the community sustains itself through a combination of art sales, educational opportunities (oftentimes artisans will pay to live and take classes at Arcosanti for a couple months), and donations. However, with the community a fraction of its original vision and facing economic challenges, Arcosanti might be forced to reevaluate its relationship with the outside world.
After arriving at Arcosanti, we were given some time to explore the building, and after taking a quick look through the different levels of the main building, I (Juni) made a beeline for the coffee shop (camping is rather exhausting …). While calmly sipping my latte and enjoying the gorgeous scenery, someone said “scorpion!” and my heart stopped.
For context, on the first day of the trip I learned that one of the graduate students in the course had brought a UV flashlight to go scorpion hunting. When asked about the severity of the threat posed by a scorpion to human life, he responded that it would be fine for someone of his size (he’s like 6’6”) but could be lethal for Juni (yes, he called me out explicitly). Needless to say, I was not excited to run into any scorpions on that trip.
Luckily, it seemed that scorpion sightings were a regular occurrence at Arcosanti, so one of the baristas calmly covered the scorpion with a clear plastic cup, allowing us to safely gawk at the vicious predator.
After our time was up, we got a short presentation on the history of Arcosanti from one of the graduate students, and then we all headed back in the vans to continue the drive back.
Our next stop was to a copper mine, and so after invoking four-wheel drive we headed back into the middle of the desert towards our destination.
Some backstory on the mine: about (XX?) years ago, the mine was abandoned, and years after the mine had been closed up this current owners of the mine went looking for abandoned mines and stumbled upon this gem. After some investigation, they learned that the abandoned mine was on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands and was unclaimed, giving them the opportunity to claim the land and set up their own two-man mining operation. The original owners of the land had found a copper vein around 200 feet down, so the new owners figured they could start digging towards that point to reach the jackpot. (at this point, they’re only about 80 feet down, so there may be a ways to go…).
In addition to their mining operation, they also have a homemade jewelry stand where they smelt down the jewelry-grade copper pieces from the mine into copper rings and bracelets. Our group gave the owners great business, buying several different pieces apiece.
For the rest of our time at the mine, we were given free rein to go rock hunting in the surrounding area. There were lots of funky-looking rocks, especially the blue-colored oxidized chunks of copper.
After our adventure in the mine, we set off on the last leg of our journey. After some traffic and bathroom/food breaks we ended up outside a Chipotle for a picnic and our last couple of talks, and Prof. Kirschvink led us in a short ritual in the Chipotle parking lot to close out the trip.
Arriving back on campus, we cleaned out the cars, did our laundry, and got started working on this blog 🙂
