Author Description

Nowhere in the country is the roadside geology better exposed than in the mountains and deserts of Arizona. With this photo-filled book as your guide, you will experience the rocky scenery of Arizona with a new appreciation, as you learn about colorful badlands in the Painted Desert, past environments preserved in Sedona's red and white sandstone cliffs, fossilized logs at Petrified Forest National Park, and the copper mined at Bisbee, Morenci, Bagdad, and elsewhere. Impressive gorges cut through the landscape, including those of the Little Colorado, Gila, and Salt Rivers, but the most spectacular gorge is the Grand Canyon, with its famous layered walls underlain by 1- to 2-billion-year-old rocks. Related ancient rocks are readily observed in parks on the outskirts of Phoenix, Tucson, and Prescott, and in the mountain ranges of central and southern Arizona. From the Colorado River's earliest stream deposits near Yuma to ancient sand dunes preserved in the walls of Canyon de Chelly in the Four Corners region, and from volcanic tuffs near Kingman to silver veins at Tombstone, Roadside Geology of Arizona crisscrosses the state to cover all its fascinating geologic history.