Colorado Geological Survey bulletin 32

Prairie, Peak, and Plateau: A Guide to the Geology of Colorado

Gold was discovered in the bed of the South Platte River in 1858. Prospectors flocked to Colorado as they had flocked only a few years before to California. They worked the sands and gravels of Cherry Creek, Clear Creek, Boulder Creek, and California Gulch. Exhausting the placer sands of the stream bottoms, they moved higher to mine gold-bearing veins at Central City and Blackhawk. Mining camps sprang into existence overnight, each heralding some new strike, each populated by a new rush of fortune seekers. As lower areas were mined out, prospectors moved yet higherto Breckenridge, Gold Hill, and Empire, Aspen, Leadville, and Cripple Creek. Silver was found as well as gold, then iron, and later tungsten and molybdenum. The metallic ring of mining tools echoed from Colorados peaks. Fortunes were made here. Legends were born. Prospectors and miners were not, however, the first people interested in the rocks of Colorado. Earlier, bands of nomadic Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians had searched Colorados hills for flint for arrowheads and brightly colored clays for warpaint. Cliff-dwelling Pueblo Indians in southwestern Colorado sought clay for their pottery and fossil seashells for the magic of their medicine men. And from farther to the southwest, Navajo tribesmen came to Colorado for turquoise. From clay to gold, much of Colorados wealth has come from her mountains. But after the rush to the mines, as veins were mined out and placers worked over, as values and prices changed, her population sought the riches of the prairies: fertile lands for agriculture, and in the rock layers below, black goldvast accumulations of oil and natural gas. The tablelands and plateaus west of the mountains yield their wealth, too. Here are valley farms, fed often by irrigation water, and ranch country. Here is more oil, and in some areas precious metals and uranium. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 60143
Author: Chronic, Halka
Release Date: Aug 21, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Chronic, John