Arizona Highways, January 1970

              HIGHI.UAVS
JANUARY 1970
SIXTY CENTS
THIS ISSUE:
The VIOLENT Mountains of Arizona
VOL. XLVI No. r JANUARY 1970
RAYMOND CARLSON, Editor
GEORGE M . A VEY, Art Editor
JOSEPH ST ACEY, Editorial Assistant
JAMES E. STEVENS, Busi ne ss Manager
THIS ISSUE:
WE TAKE YOU TO EARLIER TIMES
WHEN FIRE FORMED OUR LAND
JACK WILLIAMS
Gov ernor of Arizona
ARIZONA HIGHWAY C O MMISSION
Bus Mead, Chairman
Ed C . Locklear, Vice-Chairman
Peter B. Wilharm, Member .
Le w Davis, Member .
Rudy E. Campbell, Member
Ju stin Herman, State Highway Director
William N. Price, State Highway Engineer
Winslow
Prescott
Benson
Tucson
Tempe
Phoenix
Phoenix
ARIZONA HIGHWAYS is published monthly by the Arizona Highway
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FRONT COVER
"IN THE HEART OF THE SAN FRANCISCO VOLCANIC
FIELD." BY DAVID MUENCH . Today all is placid and calm in
an area where fire once exploded in the earth. In th e background are
the San Francisco Peaks formed by volcanic action in the Mezoic age
r 35,000,000 years ago. Sunset Crater , in the middle di sta nce , was so
named by Major John Wesley Powell in r 8 9 2 because of the grada,
tion s of su nset colors drooping down the sides of the crater.
OPPOSITE PAGE
" DESERT GARDEN - KOFA MOUNTAINS." BY DAVID
MUENCH . The Kofa Mountain s in Yuma County, named after the
" King of Arizona" mine , an early,day bonanza gold producer, are
stark reminders of volcanic action in Southern Arizona. The palm
canyon of the Kofas are a delight to nature lo ve rs.
STOP THE EARTH!
IT'S BURNING UP!
Of the r 96,950,284 sq u are miles of Earth's surface the
r r 3,8 r o squar e miles e nclose d with the boundaries of Arizona
are, without using purple prose or high -powered adjecti ves,
interesting and in some respects unique. The strange landscape
of ours, so appealing and in some re spects appalling to v isitors,
was the result of volca nic action.
To this subjec t do we devote these pages this month so
that yo u , our dear and gentle readers, may have a deeper under ,
standing of our b elo ve d land. Our two fa vorite Davids, Toll
and Muench, ha ve combined their tale nt s to tell us thi s story
in word and photograph. As far as we know it has never been
done so well before.
Now we take yo u back to the good yea r of our Lord
r 066 A.D. We can 't pinpoint th e day, week or month when
Sunset Crater e rupted because tree rings in logs of pithouses
in the area are not so precise in th e dating. That time in our
human li ves was long ago but in Earth's hi stor y it would be
ju st a flicker of a gnat's eye la sh.
Mr. Pitty, our pithous e dw ell er, looking out what ever aper,
ture he had and see ing smoke, fire , and ashes, spewing from
the Earth and the Earth trembling about him , must have been
a trifl e upset to say th e least.
We can hear him now, shoutin g to th e family and loved
ones, in terror and fright: "Ugga! Wagga! Glug! Aba! Gabba!
Uglug! Go! Go! " which loo sely tr anslated by modern scholars
would mean : " Stop th e Earth! It's burning up! Let's scram!"
... R . C .
COLOR CLASSICS FROM ARIZONA HIGHWAYS
THIS Is suE
3 5mm. slides in 2" mounts, I to I 5 slides, 40¢ each; I 6 to 49 slides,
3 5¢ each; 50 or more, 3 for $ I .oo. Catalog of previous slides issued
available on request. Address: ARIZONA HIGHWAYS , 2039 West
Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 8 5009.
SF,4 I In the Heart of the San Francisco Volcanic Field, cov. I;
DS-226 Desert G ar d e n , cov. 2; WM,15 Spring Beauty, cov . 3;
SF,42 Will Winter Snow Cool, cov. 4 ; AR,2 I 8 Diorama- Museum
of Northern Arizona, P . 6'7; AR,2 r 9 Diorama- Museum of Northern
Arizona, p. 6'7; DS,22 7 Kofa Mountains, p. I 3; SF,43 Volcanic
Patterns, p. r 4; SF,44 Stark Lava Pile, p. r 5; SF,45 Cinder Flow,
p. I 5; MV, 5 9 Sunrise over Agathlan Peak, p. r 6, I 7; UM,2 r Lava
Flow, p. r8; NM,65 Winter - Bonita Lava Flow, p. 19; NM,66
First Snow of Winter, p. I 9; SF,46 Snows Decorate Sea of Cinders,
p. 20-2 r; SF,47 Autumn in the San Francisco Mountain Volcanic
Field, p. 22; DS ,228 Desert Teddy Be ar, p. 23; OP,40 In th e
Volcanic Ajo Mountains, p. 23; V,184 Volcanic Eye, p. 24,25 ;
NM,6 7 Vulcan's Throne , p. 26; SF,48 Volcanic Chiaroscuro, p. 26;
NM,68 Ancient Silhouette , p. 27; NM,69 Tall House, p. 27;
NM?o Sunset Glow over Sunset Crater, P . 28; V,185 Mt. Wright,
son, p. 34; M-92 Spring in the De sert, p. 35; M,93 McDougal
Crater , p. 35.
NEXT MONTH - A TOUR OF TBE HISTORIC SAN PEDRO VALLEY
BY DAVID W. TOLL
The
Story
Of The
Times When
Fire Consumed The
Earth
And The
Shapes Of Our Land
Were Formed
THE
VIOLENT
MOUNTAINS
OF
ARIZONA
Th e San Francisco Peaks are th e center of on e or
th e contin ent's m ost signi fi cant v olcanic fi elds.
Thor's Hammer, b elow, is an erosion shape d formati on of
lav a. C hiricahua N at'l M onu m ent, Arizona .
J n many distinguished families ,
like those of some of Europe' s
royal houses and certain baro­nial
families of Japan, there is
an unmistakable resemblance
that reappears over the course of
generations. Not e v ery member
of the famil y sh ares it, yet de­spite
the long passage of y ears
the ancestral nose or chin or
brow continues to recur.
And so it is with the blue planet earth . Most of the features
on its wrinkled face require the laborious efforts of experienced
geologists to trace their lineage back through generations of
faulting , upthrust and erosion. And even . at that the inquiries
end, as often as not, in speculation and theory. But one of the
earth' s features harks directly back to its remote st ancestry and
mo st Arizonans are familiar with it, for there are few places in
th e state from which to surve y th e horizon without seeing some
evidence of it.
This feature is the v olcano. It is the singular ev idence that
proclaims the earth an off spring of the sun. Within the borders
of the state · hav e b e en found traces of volcanic eruption dating
back more than tw o and a half billion y ears . Fresh la va, laid
down within the memory of man, lies acro ss hillsides like a scab
from a wound in the earth ' s heart. Many of the state's highest
mountain s w ere made of molten rock cast up from subterranean
depths. And it is because of volcanoes that Arizona is rich in
mineral wealth beyond accounting.
Much of Arizona's v olcanic history is cle arl y written out to
the north and west of Flagstaff where more than four hundred
cinder cones in v arying stages of decay pimple a plain more
than three thousand square miles in extent . A half dozen major
mountain p e aks, th e highest in the state among them, tower
with impo sing se renit y above the pitted flats. These hills and
mountains were onc e alive with rumbling, explosiv e force,
though the y are slumbering peacefully now. Today geologists
and curious tourists pick at th e speechless evidence of cataclysm
where only a few hundred years ago men fled from the horrid
violence that laid it down .
Consider the formation of this San Francisco volcanic field:
Hundreds of million s of y ears ago , long before the last
dinosaur fell to her knees, bleating with cold and hunger and
de spair, gre at fault lines cracked acros s the surface of the earth.
Along thes e enormous seams , whole mountain ranges were
thrust slowly up thousands of feet, massive tilted blocks rising
sharply up from fault line to summit and then sloping gradually
down the far side.
Even before these great ranges had stopped nudging up­ward,
rivulets h a d begun nibbling them away and winds
rubbing their contours smooth. When time could be measured
in hundreds of thousands of y ears from their formation, the
stately ranges had been reduced to outwashed mudslumps mak,
ing a broad rolling plain thousands of square miles in extent
2 A RIZONA HIG HWAYS J AN U ARY I 9 7 0
overlying their fault ed birth scars. Again th e leve l of th e land
lay not much abo ve that of the dist ant sea.
And when that had b ee n done, and b efore the plain could
b e much de ssicated b y strea m s, th e trembling began ag ain.
A patch of ground, probably le ss than an acre in extent,
bulged suddenly upward a few fe et and tore acro ss. Wildlife
fled in panic. From betw een the torn lips of the fis sure dust
and sulfurous smoke curled lazily up. Slowly the volume of
smoke and gas increased until the y were hissing jets. Particles
of rock were wrenched away from d e ep within the throat of
the vent and blown out into the ai r . Brush around th e fissure
took fire and burned as a circular h eap of debris began to ri se .
Trees b e gan to burn as we ll, and smoke, dust a nd biliou s gas
made murk of the air .
Within hours glowing boulders and incandes c ent lava
gobbets w e re being hurle d thousands of feet into th e air b y
a succession of h eavy explo sions. Lightning fla shed through th e
gloom y smoke-gauze abov e the em erging volcano. After six,
te en hours the rubble cone had grown thirty feet high around
the vent. Cinders rained down from the sky as far awa y as te n
mile s downwind. After twe nty hours the debris had pil ed up
se venty feet high.
When the cinder cone had built it se lf to a h eight of about
two hundred feet abo ve the plain , activity at th e thro at sudde nly
ceased. From the base of th e cone a scummy black p as te g outed
out to shove stiffl y acro ss the ash -cak ed plain. Despite its steam ­ing
and bubbling, the surface of the flow thick en ed quickly into
a rough-cobbled moving pavement. The ooze continu ed from
the base of the cone for several weeks. When it stoppe d the
explosive bombardment of solids began again from the crat er .
Lava flows from the base alternat ed for several years w ith
p eriods of activity at th e throat of th e cone, and wh e n the i as t
eruptions ce ased the cone stood more than fi ve hundred fee t
abov e the surrounding countrys ide. Aprons of smoking, crazy,
pave d lav a were spread out ove r several squ ar e mil es a round it .
Brush and sin ewy tre es took root again on the ravage d l and­scap
e w hereve r th e as h ca rp et p ermitted . Birds and an imal s
slo wly ve ntured b ack again. B y th e time a thousa nd years had
passe d the evi denc e of cat acl ys m was slo w ly b ein g e rase d . It
was the n th at th e earth broke op en agai n , a few miles away .
After a thousa nd centuries had p asse d , or more, the plai n
was dapple d with mor e than a hundred cones ri sing up as mu ch
as a thou sand fee t high. The ir la v a flo ws h ad cover ed th e plateau
to depths of from fift ee n to seve r al hundre d fee t a nd more th an
thirty cubic miles of mate ri al h ad b ee n spat and dro oled from
b eneath the su rfac e of the e arth.
When the plateau had be en faulted a nd squeeze d sl ightl y
upw ard again , a nd str ea m e ro sion h ad b eg un to ca rve it into
lava-ca ppe d mes as and butte s, th e st age was se t for a se cond,
more sp ectacular p eriod of eruption s .
JOSE F M U ENCH
It b ega n a s before w ith ea rthquak es . Th ey were ge ntle at
fir st, tin y ji ggle s that could sc arc e l y b e fe lt , but they grew
stronger and more fr e quent very rapidly . In a m atter of d ays th e
tranquil, li ghtly forest e d plain h ad b ee n tr a n sform ed into an
ope n h ell , choked with smoke and cough ing up tracer s of grow­ing
lava lumps and molten rock. A cauliflo wer cloud, sagging
under its weight of dust and ash , bloss ome d mil es above th e
ea rth . Hot d e bris cam e cartwheelin g out of the air to c ras h to
earth and b egin the building of a cinder cone.
To this point th e eruption follo we d the sam e schem e as the
ea rli er ones of th e region ; it may even ha ve come to life in one
of the dead craters. But now it changed its character. A boilin g
scum ro se suddenly up in its thro at, spilled o ver th e r im of the
crater, and r aged sluggishly downslop e. The stiff , smokin g l ava
poure d do w n the sides of th e cone for weeks . The sun was
obscure d overh ea d ; onl y on th e windiest d ays did it glar e
malevole ntly do w n through the gloom . Fores t fir es blaz ed up
at the p eri m e t er of th e l ava flow. The curtain of fa lling ash to
w indward suffo ca t ed th e v eg eta tion left unburned .
J AN U ARY I 9 70 A RIZ O N A H IGHWAYS 3
I t was at about the same time that eruptions broke out else,
where on the plateau. Twenty-eight miles to the south, short,
retching bursts of taffy-thick lava built an elongated prominence
of about two cubic miles in volume to an elevation of I 500
feet above the plain. Five and a half miles to the southwest, a
new cinder cone bulked up five hundred feet and burped lava
out across the plain to the south, creating over the course of
hundreds of years a tilted table five miles long and two to three
miles wide elevated above the surrounding countryside by I 50
to 300 feet.
Activity at the main volcano continued unremitting as these
formations constructed themselves from the hot heart's blood of
the earth. For countless decades surging flows of lava from the
crater alternated with pyrotechnic bombardments of rock and
solid shards of lava.
Eleven miles to the north still another fissure opened. Stiff,
crackling lava welled up from it faster than it could flow away.
Four successive eruptions pushed more than six cubic miles of
lava up to form a symmetrical cone, its summit nearly a mile
above the original surface. Thirty-three miles to the southwest
the earth burst open again. A small but violent series of erup,
tions heaved up three cubic miles of subterranean materials to
form a mountain 3,200 feet high on a base twenty,five square
miles in extent. The mountain destroyed its symmetry in its
late stages by the very violence of its activity, tearing open new
vents high up near the summit.
Nine miles to the northeast quiet upwellings of viscous
lava issued from two cracks in the earth to heap up two cubic
miles of molten material 3,500 feet on a fifteen square mile base.
As the activity at these lesser mountains lapsed into quies,
cence, the main volcano flared up into more active life. But at
length it too subsided into a period of subdued rumbling and
wheezing breaths of stinking smoke. The pulsing column of
liquid lava in its throat cooled and solidified. For centuries the
volcano smouldered, twenty-one cubic miles of lava, rock frag,
ments and ash forming a magnificent symmetrical cone rising up
7,400 feet above a region of catastrophe: of fire and smoke and
choking dust, of scorched, abandoned earth.
After three centuries, or seven, or ten, the young mountain
coughed the plug from its thr~ with a concussion heard him,
dreds of miles away and shrugged its shoulders into dust. From
the resulting vent, a fissure half a mile long and a quarter mile
wide, surge after surge of lava overflowed the rim through a
number of gaps. When these notches had been clogged the
lava souped over the entire circumference. Eleven cubic miles
of lava coursed down the steep sides of the volcano and the
elevation of the summit was raised eight hundred feet.
Again the central core cooled and clogged, but the volcano
did not lapse at once into calm. A fierce jet of gas and smoke
burst out from the southeast side of the mountain, dislodging,
at length, an avalanche which freed a creeping river of lava to
flow slowly after it. Five times the lower slopes of the moun,
tain ruptured to release veins of hot, viscous lava. When the
last of them had stopped, the mountain, now thirty,four cubic
miles in volume, resumed its ragged, huffy breathing.
Centuries passed. At the southeast base of the cone the
ground domed slowly up into an umbrella shape. Cracks
opened in it, and entire strata blocks of sedimentary rock half
a mile thick were poked up and peeled apart by a column of
intruding lava from beneath. As the strata separated, the lava
spread outward into the subterranean chambers created. The
slow upward pressure continued, and at last the surface split
JOSE F MUENCH
4 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY I 970
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
JANUARY I 970
MARKOW PHOTO
The latest activity in the San Francisco
volcanic field - and the most recent geologic
event in northern Arizona - was the
eruption of Sunset Crater in r 064 A.D.
Archaeologists were able to pinpoint the
time of the eruption by tree ring data
from the charred timbers uncovered in the
buried pithouses. Shown above is part of
the display at Museum Of Northern Arizona
depicting the area before and after the
eruption. Right and left photos reveal details
of "squeeze-up" or anosma - molten lava
forced up through cracks before hardening.
Below, scene from the rim shows todays
landscape of Sunset Crater Nat'l Monument.
Photo on page 4 shows one of many
"Fumaroles" or Spatter cones, each once a
miniature volcano.
JOSEF MUENCH
ARIZONA HIGHWAYS
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
5
"Dioramic Interpretatio_n at Museum of_Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, of San Francisco Peaks During Glacial Age" - BOB MARKOW PHOTOGRAPHS
"Dioramic Interpretation at Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, of Volcanic Action Which Formed tbe San Francisco Peaks"
8
Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona.
A locale of extinct ash-fiow volcanoes
where erosion has shaped a most unusual
gallery of imagination stirring forms.
Duch on a rock, right.
Nature's own Mass Demonstration, with
Cochise's Head in background, below.
Page 9 top, Album of Rocks
Punch and Judy, page 9 lower .
JOSEF M UENCH
HOMER L. CHAF FEE
A RIZONA :t{IGHWAYS JANUARY I 970
completely apart, curling up and away from the tacky lava
burbling up. When this lava cooled, a new prominence stood
at an elevation of some 2,500 feet above the surrounding coun­tryside
and covered an area of ten square miles. Not long after,
five smaller domes like it heaved up to the northwest.
For centuries the summit of the towering volcano drowsed.
Then, with unutterable suddenness, a shivering thunderblast
rippled the earth. The top of the mountain lifted off and fell
back in a cascade of sharp-sided rock. A thin sheet of liquid lava
spattered and flooded over the raw edge of the new rim. In a
few days the flow dwindled, and in a few weeks it ended. A
dingy pillar of smoke reached up from the summit to smudge
the sky.
Centuries later it blew again. Great areas of the cone were
demolished, but only slight amounts of lava drooled over the
rim. The mountain now stood comprise d of thirty- five cubic
miles of rock and cooled lava. Nineteen miles to the west a
system of three related cones began explosive formation. Three
cubic miles of lava was heaved out ·of a thousand foot crater to
form a principal cone 3,500 feet above the plateau and several
subsidiary cones at from 1,000 to 1,500 feet.
After another long period of dormancy the solidified lava
plug in the main volcano was shattered and punched upward
in one final spasmic eruption. Three cubic miles of lava was
pumped up and over the rim . When it had done the v olcano
calmed itself forever .
The summit of San Francisco Mountain stood at a height
of a mile and two-thirds above the surface of the surrounding
plateau and an elevation of nearly three miles above the level
of the sea . At its feet were scattered a dozen more major moun­tains
thrust up, like itself, from deep within the earth. Kendrick
Peak, Bill Williams Mountain, O ' Leary and Sitgreaves Peaks,
Mormon , Elden and Slate Mountains, Observatory Mesa,
Marble Hill, Sugarloaf Hill and the Dry Lake Hills - all
prominent la ndmarks, but reduced in importance by their near­ne
ss to San Francisco Mountain looming above them as high
as the highest summit of the Alps. It ranked with the highe st
mountains in what would one da y be the fort y-e ighth United
State s. And less than fift y miles to the northwest this colossal
cone had for its neighbor the Grand Canyon. The impact of
the view from the North Rim, staggering even now, can only
be imagined.
But at the very moment that the process of building up San
Francisco Mountain was complete, the process of destruction
began. R a ins, snow and frost combined over the course of tens
of thousa nds of yea rs, and tens of tens of thousands, to soften
the contours of the cone, score its sides with gullies, and wash
it slowly away. During the Ice Age the snowpack at the summit
congealed to form a glacier, which eventually broke loose. It
bit away a great chunk of the summit and gouged a deep
U -s haped valley on the northeast slope as it grated and
shuddered slowly downhill. By a combination of glacial
action, collapse of the cone and erosion, eight percent of the
mountain's original v olume has b ee n remove d, reducing it
three thousand feet in altitude and giving it two peaks where
it had but one before.
The process of erosion had not been long underwa y when
still a third cycle of volcanic eruptions began. Like the first
generation of volcanoes in the region, these upheavals created
the relatively small cinder cones rather than high mountains.
Few of them attained a height of more than seven hundred
feet, and their lavas spread outward from the base rather than
JOSEF M UENC H
RAY MA N LEY
J ANUARY I 970 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 9
welling up in the throat of the cone. One after another they
exploded up from the dimpled plateau, dimmed the sun with
smoke, piled up a circular heap of fuming debris around the
vent, bled off their store of boiling black lava, and subsided.
One of the most recent of these vents is Merriam Crater,
a cinder cone sixteen miles east of the San Francisco Peaks that
erupted 5,600 years ago. Lava pouring from the north flank
of the cone flowed northeast for eight miles along a shallow
wash and then spilled into the canyon of the Little Colorado.
The hot, crusty lava dammed the river and brought it to a boil.
Scalding steam rose within the confining canyon walls to be
whipped away by the breeze. The dam cracked open on the
downstream side to release a crawling flow down channel.
Twelve miles along, the head of the long, black lava snake
stopped and began to swell. When it had bloated to block the
channel, it broke over the obstruction and continued on in a
thin trickle another five or six miles.
Meanwhile the boiling river was forced to rise behind the
tongue of lava, and finally to flow around it onto the canyon
rim and plunge back into the channel beyond it. Downstream
the river encountered the broad pool of lava, coursed over it
and cascaded down the far side. The 26-mile lava flow which
thus created Grand Falls and the smaller Black Falls is the
longest in the San Francisco volcanic field that can be traced
HERB & DOROTHY MC LAUGHLIN
to its source. A longer flow which ends near Cameron has been
followed for thirty-three miles but its source has not yet been
identified.
The Merriam flow occurred long before the 6.rst men entered
the region. When they did come, these men, hundreds of years
before the birth of Christ, they settled on the outwashed alluvial
fans of the great volcanic mountains and farmed the low places
between the cinder cones. By the year I 064 they had been
peacefully settled in the area for generations. It was in that year
that the most recent of the 442 cinder cones within the San
Francisco volcanic region exploded with terrible ferocity in
their midst.
They were farmers, these people, and potters, with no writ­ten
language but a relatively sophisticated social system. They
lived in pithouses excavated in the flanks of old craters and from
them overlooked their small patches of beans, squash and shaggy
corn. They were as unprepared for volcanic disaster as you or
I would be.
The first earth shock was probably more unnerving than
the ones which followed, for it was accompanied by no sound
whatever. It was as if the solid ground beneath them had unac­countably
come to life and squirmed, and they were terrified.
The quake was over in less than a minute, too soon for the
people to react much, but long enough for their startled panic
J ERRY MC LAIN
10 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY I 970
to show clearly. They were sheepish and embarrassed at their
fright once its cause had been removed, but they were tense,
too. They talked about it for days, speculating, faking, and at
length the subject was dropped.
But the earth quivered beneath them again. This time it
was accompanied by a muffied crump! that they could feel in
their bones, and by a dreadful stillness of the air that raised the
hair on the backs of their necks. This time they tumbled up
out of their houses and sprinted up from their fields. Several of
the men went .to nearby settlements, returning with the news
that the shock had been felt everywhere in the region, and that
their neighbors were as uneasy as they.
Discussions degenerated into squabbles. Some of the fam­ilies
moved away. Others were unwilling to abandon their
homes and fields. Still others slipped into apathy, unable either
to face beginning a new life or maintaining the old one. The
third earthquake occurred quite soon, followed in quick suc­cession
by a fourth and a fifth. Tensions dissolved into flight.
Despite the increasing frequency of the earthquakes, the
people discovered that even a very few miles away their effect
was much less, and most of them stopped as near to their old
homes as they felt it safe to do. They dug new pit-houses and
some even dared to return to the old place to retrieve the struc­tural
timbers left behind. They returned to report that the earth
HOMER L. CHAFFEE
Most of the mountain ranges of southern Arizona were
built in the aftermath of ash-fiow eruptions. Opposite
page top, Superstition Mountain; lower, Camelback
Mountain. Baboquivari Peak tops the range shown above.
Top right, Agathla Peak, Monument Valley
is a volcanic plug.
ANSEL ADAMS
there was trembling almost continuously with many small
shocks filling the intervals between large ones. They heard
rumbling, but could not place its source.
They heard the explosion that began the surface eruptions,
but they could not see anything because of the intervening ciw
der cones. They felt the ground lurch beneath their feet again,
but this time the fear was reduced because they could hear it
happening far from them. A four-mile crack had opened in the
earth, extending from their former corn fields to an extinct
double cone. Smoke rose at half a dozen places along its length.
Within two hours the explosive force of released gases was
heaving large stones up from the vent centered in the field, and
after eight or nine, glowing material was arching up two thou­sand
feet into the air. A heavy pall of smoke overhung the
region, and lightning began to flash through it. Rain fell.
J ANUARY I 970 ARIZONA H IGHWAYS 11
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS IN FoLLOWING CoLoR PoRTFOLIO BY DAVID MuENCH
Natural forms and volcanic textures make interesting compositions
for photographic designs. Sunset Crater Nat'l Monument.
DAVID MUENCH
"In the Kofa Mts. - Volcanic Creation r35 Million Years Ago"[;
Ash fell, too, spraying down as far away as thirty miles
downwind. First came the bean-sized pellets, still hot to the
touch, then gritty black sand, and farthest away, fine black dust.
The people had climbed one of the dead cones to watch
the destruction of their old homes. They could not see the fields
themselves because of intervening craters, but they saw the
accumulation of smoke and dust over the valley, the trajectory
of incandescent projectiles fired up into it, and the red glow
it gave off at night.
It was at night that the wind shifted to carry the fallout
toward them. Their first inkling of what had happened was
when their view of the disaster was blotted out, swallowed up.
Then the warm debris rained down on them, stinging them,
and they ran into their houses. The wind died later during the
night, and the smoke hung over the region so thick that the
night lasted until late afternoon. Think how they must have
felt, those farmers, with their children bawling, their crops
dusted ever thicker with black ash, the air barely breathable,
and their ears deafened by the resounding concussions of the
earth destroying itself only two or three valleys away.
When the wind came up it sliced the top off the cauliflower
cloud through which the sun stared blindly down like an orange
disc. Those who ventured out of their houses into the long dusk
of day fell into an uneasy silence at the sight of it and returned
home again. The following morning the wind had swept the
dust from above the new village, and from their vantage point,
the men could see the top of the building cinder cone peeping
over the intervening hills. From the dimpled depression at its
crest, steam, ash and smoke continued chuffing into the air.
Explosive blasts threw chunks of rapidly cooling lava into the
air, smouldering bombs that fell back into the swelling cinder
cone in a furious cascade. Most of these bombs burst and shat­tered
upon impact, but some rolled and bounced like half
inflated footballs hundreds of feet from the base of the cone.
At length the activity at the crater died away and a surge
of pasty black lava surged out from beneath the southeast base
of the cone to flow northeast at the rate of four or five inches a
minute. The flow continued for more than two weeks, the lava
slowing as it pushed farther and farther from the cone. When
it stopped altogether, after covering seven miles, ash eruptions
began again from the crater to bruise the sky with smoke and
dust and build the cone to an average of more than a thousand
feet high by the end of a year. When it reached this height,
activity suddenly ceased.
Even the most phlegmatic of the people had long since
moved away from the gritty rains of dust, but now a few of
them came hesitantly back to explore the ruined landscape.
Black sand covered much of the plateau where they had lived
to depths of from several inches to several feet. To the east of
their first stopping place after their flight from home the land
had become an empty black desert. Most of the tough junipers
that had stood there before the eruptions had been choked to
death by the fine black dust and the poisonous fumes. No other
life existed there, and as the men trudged across the liquid­smooth
slopes, the dust raised by their footsteps was swept up
by the breeze which had already begun busily arranging dunes.
Using the steaming summit of the new cone as a landmark
the men swung wide around it and approached from the north­east,
along the line of the lava flow. Fumes still rose from the
continued on page 29
12 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY 1970
f.\r...
"Stark Lav~ Pil; ·i;·sa~ Francisdo Mt. Volcanic Field"
"Volcanic Patterns With Spring Flowers - Near San Francisco Peaks" "Cinder Flow at Base of Merriam Crater - San Francisco Mt. Volcanic Field"
FOLLOWING PANEL "Sunrise Over Agathlan Peak, Volcanic Plug, Near Monument Valley"
.,.
"Winter - Bonita Lava Flow - Sunset Crater"
.. , ....
' .. /;~-~;-/;·.-:~!-~" .-.'.· .
· . .: .-'·~ \~;\.:. , •"' , .
~..!· · · .
"Lava Flow - Pine Valle; Range Near St. George, Utah"
"Autumn in the San Francisco Mt. Volcanic Field" "In the Volcanic Aja Mts. - Organ Pipe Cactus Nat'l. Monument"
FOLLOWING PANEL "Volcanic Eye in Crater near St. Johns on Arizona-New Mexico Border" I)
"Vulcan,s Throne - Toroweap Overlook - Grand Canyon Nat'l. Monument» "Ancient Silhouette - Wupatki Nat'l. Monument»
"Volcanic Chiaroscuro - San Francisco Mt. Volcanic Field» "Tall House - Wupatki Nat'l. Monument - Built After Sunset Crater Eruption»
Q "Sunset Glow Over Sunset Crater"
cracks checking it, and it radiated heat which could be felt a
few feet away. As they approached the cone they saw that the
ash sea they walked upon was pebbled with larger pieces of rock.
Even though it loomed up quietly, a naked heap of sharp,
angled fragments, the men hadn't the heart to climb it. Instead
they followed it around to where it encroached upon the ancient
lava terrace on which their homes had been built. Fresh lava had
welled up beneath this terrace, splitting it apart and then squeez,
ing up between the cracks to cool in the oddly comic shapes of
drooping pillars and splayed dikes. The poor remains of their
old pit, houses were buried under a deep layer of ash.
Bound homeward again, they passed through the depres,
sion where they had first halted their flight, and there they dis,
covered bright green grass pushing up through the black sand
in some abundance. They bent down to examine it and dis,
covered that beneath the shallow layer of ash the soil was damp.
They knew from experience that if the ash did not somehow
poison the seedlings, that this circumstance was extremely favor,
able for the planting of crops.
Later, when their main planting had been done, they experi,
mented with several small vegetable patches under the black
ash layer, and the crops thrived. The following year the bulk
of their planting was done there. They discovered that even to
the east, where they had been able to grow nothing before, the
yield was even better than it had been from their old fields.
News of their good fortune traveled to the surrounding
settlements and people were drawn to the region from every
direction. Before thirty years had passed the black desert sup,
ported a population of more than four thousand farming £am,
ilies, a region that had barely supported several hundred before
the eruptions.
Generations succeeded one another, and perhaps they hardly
noticed when the mountain that was the source of their good
fortune - we call it Sunset Crater - eventually stopped steam•
ing altogether. Early conflict over property rights between these
peoples of different cultures subsided, and the cultures melted
together. Some of the people were skilled masons, and within
thirty more years, the pit-houses had been abandoned in favor
of stone buildings.
But the people never fathomed the cause of their prosperity,
and it was this failure that ultimately destroyed their agriculture,
despite their industrious ways. Their constant digging in the
black sand, the sand that trapped moisture from rain and snow,
melt and preserved it in the soil beneath, this digging brought
the finest particles to the surface. These the wind carried off,
little by little, so that the cover was stripped bare in one place
and piled too deep in another. As the soil dried up, or became
inaccessible, many families were forced to move away. Those
who stayed bunched closer together for convenience in working
the remaining plots of ash-mulched soil, and they constructed
apartment buildings to house themselves.
But this crowding res,ulted in disease, which, combined
with the dwindling crop yield, continued to reduce the popu,
lation. By r 2 7 5, little more than 200 years after the eruption,
only 600 persons remained in the three inhabited apartments.
The twenty-four year drought which began that year ended the
desirability of even the richest remaining soil, and by r 300
the entire population had been dispersed. They took with them
their recollections of the eruption and the meaning they ascribed
to it; no one knows what these people made of the catastrophe
that led so quickly to good fortune.
• • -
Volcanic refiections in placid water of Salt Lake in the
Arizona -New Mexico border area , east of St. Johns, Arizona.
DAVID MUENCH
. "'·: ·-·- _~:· .....
... .. , ..
JANUARY 1970 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 29
Earthquakes are volcanic or tectonic in
nature. (Tectonic - folding and faulting).
Earthquakes are vital to the continued
development of our planet.
Although major earthquakes cause damage
and loss of life, scientists point out that
the occasional shaking-up and upward
lifting of the earth's crust are essential to
the geological order of life. Mountains are
forever eroding. If new peaks and elevations
were not thrust above the land and under the
seas the world would become a "flatlands"
of stagnant seas and swampy continents.
More than 1200 seismograph stations
around the globe report approximately
500,000 tremblors a year of varied
intensities. Only some 1000 cause damage.
On the positive side is the new
knowledge being applied to the prediction
of earthquakes in time to avert loss of lives.
Several hundred miles to the south the Pinacate volcanic
field lies just across the Mexican border, adjacent to Arizona's
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and the Cabeza
Prieta Game Range. The memory of the eruptions which
formed this maimed and ghastly landscape is still very real to
the Papago Indians of southern Arizona and northern Sonora.
Eruptions began here a million years ago; the most recent
was reported in 193 5. Rotting lava lies upon the ground in
every conceivable form, preserved by the arid climate so that
it appears to have been squeezed out from the center of the
earth just the day before yesterday. It exhibits cones and craters,
tubes and vents and spills and lies on the playas as bombs. To
the south and west of the center of this silent display of ferocity
is the Sierra del Pinacate, "a sort of rubbish heap of tezontle
stone," according to a visiting Spaniard's description in 1 706.
So forbidding and inhospitable is this ravaged landscape that
Juan Maria Salvatierra, S.J., another early Spanish visitor,
shrank from it as being like "the condition of the world at the
general conflagration." A trontier lawman at the turn of the
century put it more succinctly: "Hell boiled over at Pinacate,"
he said.
But to the Papagos the region is more divine than dia,
bolical. According to the story which has been handed down
through generations, the Pinacate peaks were once very high,
so high that they shut out the sun for much of the day. The
people living there were very unhappy that their days were so
short. Iitoi - a Papago deity whose name translates as "Big
Brother" - saw their unhappiness. To help them he rubbed
sticks together and set two fires in the high summits, causing
the mountains to burn. As they blazed up and were consumed,
a wind from the west swirled sparks and ash all over the world.
MARKOW PHOTO
When the fires had burned away most of the mountains, and
gone out, the country was as it is today. There was plenty of
sunlight and the people were content.
Because the inhabitants of the Pinacate region did not
scatter after the volcanic holocaust, their tradition has been
preserved. But not without change: some modern Papagos
credit the eruptions to " Senor Jesus." But on-e of the most
dramatic of the lava formations in the region, a tube-like tunnel
extending hundreds of feet, is still considered sacred as one of
the homes of the benefactor, Iitoi.
It is easy to smile at the naivete of the Papagos, perhaps,
but the truth is that there isn't much real difference between
their explanation for the underlying cause of the eruptions and
that of experienced geologists. Each is guesswork based on a
different set of "facts." Where the Papagos began with their
benign big brother Iitoi, the geologists begin with complicated
- and often conflicting - theories about the creation of the
Universe and of our solar system. And for all that can be
definitely proved, the Papagos' explanation is almost as good
as that of the geologists.
For all that the geologists can say with certainty about the
creation of the Universe is that it happened about four and a
half billion years ago. As for what happened, how it happened
and why, they can only shrug, for every fragmentary hint about
the nature of this inconceivably remote event raises more ques,
tions than it answers.
Something did happen, of course, an immense event deep
in antiquity that resulted in ten billion fireballs wheeling
through space like a disc-shaped whirlwind of glittering dust
notes.
30 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY I 970
SEOIMfNTARY
THE EARTH'S INTERIOR
The Earth is thought t o be composed
of a solid core of nickel-Iron surrounded
by concentric layers of less dense rock.
Restlno on and penetrating Into these
layers are lighter continental materials.
This conception stems from study of
earthquake shock-waves, which are
bent and reflected in distinctive
patterns by the character of the rock
that they encounter.
SOLID
From Museum Of Northern Arizona display.
One of these bright specks is the two million million million
ton holocaust of flaming gas we call the sun, a gleam of light
more than halfway out from the spinning center of the expand,
ing Universe.
Scientists wonder if perhaps another, larger star, unaccount,
ably freed from its relentless itinerary through the black void,
did not rush in mad escape toward the outer edge of the
Universe. And if perhaps, as it hurtled through the empty
parsecs, it approached the yellow star that was to become our
sun. And if, as it passed, rushing toward God knows what, the
sun, compelled by an attraction too great to resist, unfurled
two long flaming arms from its surface as if to enfold the
approaching adventurer in a warm embrace. And if this monster
fireball raced past, unheeding, the force of its nearness wrenched
those seething outstretched arms away from the sun altogether.
Some scientists think so.
They think those flame-feathered arms reached forlornly
after the fast-escaping intruder, flickered and grew dark as their
fires went out. They think that the matter thus cast adrift in
space then formed an undulating belt around the sun, and that
as eons passed this milky sunmist contracted and condensed into
glaring hot globules of molten mudbroth.
In liquid form now, the separate components of these boil,
ing beads moved toward equilibrium. The lighter substances
crept out toward the surface and the denser ones sank deeper
toward the center. After millenia a skin formed on the cooled
liquid at the surface. The skin stiffened into slag, enveloping
and insulating the hot sun's flesh trapped inside. By this cosmic
accident were the earth and the other planets created. Or so
some scientists say, at least.
Supporting this theory in part is the fact that the densest and
hottest part of the earth, its ardent heart, is a sphere of nickel
and iron 21 oo miles across, at its center. Temperatures of three
thousand degrees centigrade keep the earth's core liquid, and
25,090 tons per square inch of pressure hold it solid. Which is
it then? It is both and it is neither, for the distinctions between
solid and liquid states on the surface of the earth break down
altogether under the circumstances at the core.
Surrounding the core of the earth and separated from it by
a zone of demarcation called the Wiechert-Gutenberg
Discontinuity, is an 1 800-mile thick shell of vitreous rock called
the mantle. It is solid, yet it flows. It flows just as water in a
kettle flows, heated by the core within it, yet because it is solid
rock, it flows at a rate so slow as to be measured - if it could
in fact be measured - at a few inches a year.
It is this barely perceptible flow of mantle rock, far beneath
the surface of the earth, that seems to cause the incredibly violent
surface eruption of volcanoes. Convection currents proceed out,
ward through the mantle because of the heat of the core. But
they cannot continue to the surface of the earth because of the
heat-impervious outer crust, so they crest just beneath it and
curl back, cooled, toward the core again. This movement is
presumed to have profound effect on the crust, and may influ,
ence the formation of mountain ranges and island chains and
perhaps even cause the drift of continents.
The stiffening of the crust itself produced another kind of
flow within the mantle, this one the result of pressure rather
than heat. The rigidity of the crust prevents it from easily com,
pensating for large-scale local changes. As certain regions on
the crust become heavily weighted by the formation of ice caps,
mountain ranges, sedimentary deposits and the like ( or become
JANUARY 1970 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 31
On February 20, 1943, the volcano, Paricutin ,
in the state of Michoacan, Mexico , was born.
As was the case when Sunset Crater erupted whole
villages had to be evacuated. Clouds of ash rose
more than 15,060 feet and molten lava in fiery
streams covered the surrounding slopes and plains.
A group of Tarascan Indians watch from a safe distance.
TAD NICHOLS PHOTO
32
freed of weight by their disappearance ), the mantle beneath
begins to flow. It flows toward regions of diminished weight,
and away from those of increased weight. So slow is this move,
ment, however, that great areas of Europe and North America
are still being lifted upward in the aftermath of the retreat of
glaciers from the most recent Ice Age 20,000 years ago. It is
the returning of the mantle that provides the powerful upthrust
pressure.
The brittle crystalline rock of the crust is separated from the
chemically similar but non-crystalline mantle beneath it by
another than transition zone called the Mohorovicic Discon­tinuity.
Most disruptions in the crust do not extend as deep as
this line, and equilibrium is restored eventually by compensating
flows in the mantle. But when breakages in the crust are vast in
scale, when the stiff mantle cannot react in time, it may break
apart as if it were as solid as the crust. But when it ruptures,
the sudden release of pressure permits an immediate and whole­hearted
return to the liquid sta te. The steam and gases held in
suspension expand, forcing the liquid magma to rise up through
the fractures in the crust exactly the way champagne rises in
the bottle when the cork is popped. The magma may be released
directly to the surface as lava, or it may be trapped in and held
in vast subterranean reservoirs where there is no immediate
access to the surface . The tremendous flood eruptions of Ice,
land and the Columbia Plateau of North America are con­sidered
to be examples of direct magma extrusion, but they are
quite different from the localized, violent volcanic events which
have so profoundly shaped the face of Arizona. Here, as seems
to be the case with the great majority of the 500 presently
active volcanoes on the surface of the earth, the ancient erup­tions
drew upon magma reservoirs deep within the crust of the
earth as faults and fractures opened channels to them.
There were actually three different kinds of volcanoes in
Arizona' s past. Cinder cones, like the Sunset Crater eruption of
1064, have been by far the most numerous; there are nearly
four hundred and fifty of them in the San Francisco volcanic
field alone. This volcanic form often seems to cluster along
cracks in the earth like beads on a string. Paricutin, which
erupted in the state of Michoacan, Mexico, in 1943, is prob­ably
the best known contemporary example.
San Francisco Mountain and the satellite volcanoes which
erupted with it are called composite volcanoes because they are
formed both by solid particles and by lava flows, usually in
alternation . Japan's marvelously beautiful Mt. Fuji is an excel­lent
example of this form. Arizona's White Mountains, which
dome up at the east end of the Mogollon Rim to encompass
thousands of square miles, are extinct composite volcanoes. So
much older are they than the San Francisco Peaks, however,
that they have suffered more from erosion.
If you imagine a line following the route of U.S. 93 south­west
from Hoover Dam to Phoenix and then continuing east
along the route of U.S. 70 to the New Mexico line, you will
have the approximate boundary line marking the western and
southern extent of these volcano types. Beyond this line they
are not discovered again until Hawaii to the west and Mexico
City to the south. Beyond this line a third and infinitely more
violent class of volcanoes held sway.
Called ash-flow volcanoes, they differed considerably from
their northern counterparts. Like them, they seem to have
appeared in association with faulting of the crust, but unlike
them they did not build gradually up over the course of years
of eruption. So stiff and rigid was the magma upon which these
ash-flow volcanoes drew, that when pressure was suddenly
ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY 1970
Geologists are
convinced that if
there are diamonds
in Arizona they
will be found
in the ground
on the Hopi
Reservation.
(Second para,
graph, page 36)
HOPI BUTIES
PHOTO BY ANSEL ADAMS
released, and the suspended gases began their instantaneous
expansion to two hundred times their original volume, the lava
was too viscous to well up to the surface .
It simply exploded.
It is barely possible to conceive how many times larger these
southern Arizona explosions were than the atomic blasts that
leveled Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but consider: one modest
eruption of this type blew over one hundred cubic miles of ash
into the air and created a crater ten miles across. And what's
more, the entire volume of ash was heaved into the air with
one big - and long - bang. And that's a modest ash-flow
eruption. The 90-mile diameter Mogollon plateau in New
Mexico is an ash-flow caldera, too.
As powerful as the eruptive explosion is, the real violence
from an ash-flow volcano comes afterward. Imagine one hun­dred
cubic miles of fine dust in one mass in the air. It plummets
down hard - but it do·es not crash down on the earth. As it falls,
faster than the air can rush away beneath it, it accumulates an
air cushion. As the falling mass nears the earth, this air cushion
is forced to spread out beneath it, and as it does, the ash flows
along with it. Rushing outward from the caldera at speeds of
one hundred miles an hour or better on its air foil, the ash mass
is capable of snapping off whole forests as it goes. And when
it finally subsides and settles to the ground, it forms strata
hundreds, even thousands of feet thick.
Not all of it settles at once. Much of the feather-light dust
may remain aloft for years, obscuring the sun completely .
Eventually the edges of the dust pall feather out around the
earth, heightening the brilliance of sunsets everywhere for as
long as a hundred years.
After the tremendous violence of the initial eruption, the
shattered remnants of the caldera characteristically collapse, and
small amounts of lava may percolate up through the rubble on
the caldera floor .
The Apache Trail traverses the remains of an ash-flow
caldera as it proceeds from Apache Junction to Canyon Lake.
The Goldfield Mountains were formed as an ash-plateau in the
wake of the Willow Springs Caldera eruption about twenty mil­lion
years ago, at the peak of ash -flow volcano activity in south­ern
and western Arizona. A larger caldera to the east, the
Black Mesa Caldera, left the bulking mass of the Superstition
Mouhtains as its ash-plateau. The pumice dust from these explo­sions
swept out across the surface of the earth to the south, east
and west, depositing a layer of volcanic ash nearly half a mile
thick which extends from Globe to Gila Bend, a distance of
about 1 50 miles.
Like the Superstitions and the Goldfield Range ( and like
Camelback Mountain, for that matter ), most of the mountain
ranges of southern Arizona were built after the period of ash
flow eruptions . The Chiricahuas, the Tucson Mountains, the
Ajo Range, the Kcifas; the Growler Mountains, the Baboqui­vari
Range, the Black, Cerbat and Hualapai Mountains, the
Vulture Mountains and many others - all of them mark the
locations of extinct ash -flow volcanoes .
And many of them are the sites of major gold , silver and
copper ore deposits. The enormously explosive ash-flow vol,
canoes in the south have proved infinitely more beneficial to
Arizona's human population than the Sunset Crater eruption.
The earth's crust in the region of an explosion of the size
of the ash-flow eruptions is smashed and shattered . Ground
water, as well as water liberated from the remaining magma in
the reservoir, percolates up through the chambers torn in the
crust, and as it rises it cools. As it cools, it precipitates the
minerals it has carried in solution. And because these elements
precipitate out of solution at different temperatures, each is left
at a different " horizon," the gold, the silver and the copper
among them. Some of these mineral bodies are small, others .of
little commercial value . But some represent pockets of fantastic
wealth. The copper deposits under Cleopatra Hill were mined
JANUARY 1970 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 33
"Mt. Wrightson in Santa Cruz County" AllTHUR TWOMEY ''McDougal Crater - Pinacates, Northern Sonora, Mexico" ARTHUR TWOMEY
Kofa Mountains, Yuma County, Arizona,a volcanic formation.
Note cinder cones in background, below.
Palms in Kofa Canyon
ceaselessly for seventy years and supported the city of Jerome
and its 15,000 residents . The copper mines at Globe,Miami,
Superior have been rich producers for decades. The gold mines
at Oatman, Gold Road and Wickenburg, the silver lodes of
Tombstone, all these and dozens of others are a part of Arizona's
volcanic legacy. Their combined value amounts to billions of
dollars.
Q ne gift the volcanoes did not leave. In Arkansas, and to
a far greater extent in South Africa, there are regions of dia,
tremes, deep volcanic chimneys through which hot gases rise
without expelling lava. There are similar features on the Hopi
Reservation in Arizona. But in Arkansas, and to a far greater
extent in South Africa, diamonds are found in these regions.
In Arizona they are not. Uranium prospectors have explored
the country carefully, and even though they weren't looking for
diamonds, it is unlikely they' d have missed them if they were
there. Still, if there are diamonds in Arizona, that is where they
will be found, geologists are convinced.
But copper, gold and silver are not all that the state's vol,
canic history has left for us. Just which volcano caused it isn't
known, but scientists agree that the petrified forest is a remnant
of volcanic catastrophe. A dense fall of ash blanketed the forest
over the course of weeks or months one hundred thousand years
ago, burying the trees so deeply that they were suffocated and
imprisoned intact.
With the exception of the hair -raising scare that the farmers
in the region of Sunset Crater received nearly a thousand years
ago, Arizona has received only wealth and beauty as its vol,
canic heritage .
Other peoples have not been so lucky .
The residents of Pompeii, for instance.
Earthquakes and tremors had begun sixteen years before
the first recorded eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, on the very night
that the Emperor N ero made his singing debut on a Naples
stage. But few people recognized the mountain as a volcano,
and the warning was disregarded. Intermittent earthquakes over
the following yea rs culminated in a number of extremely violent
shocks on the afternoon of August 24th in the yea r 79. These
jolts were followed at once b y an explosive eruption of molten
rock and the formation of a dense smoke cloud which Pliny
the Younger described as having the shape of a pine tree "which
spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches . .. it appeared
sometimes bright and sometimes dark and spotted, according
as it was either more or less impregnated with earth and cinders."
So thickly did the cloud rain down glowing pumice and ash
that man y of the residents of Pompeii were asphyxiated in their
sleep. Others perished in the act of flight. The city of 20,000
was buried under fifteen to twenty- five feet of fine debris.
Half of the city has been excavated b y archeological teams
since work began in the 19th century. Some two thousand
bodies have been recovered. Many of them were found near
the sea edge of the city, as if they had made their way that far
before being overcome. Others were near the top layer of ash,
indicating that they had survived the longest part of the death,
dealing rain.
At nearby Herculaneum the citizens had warning enough
to grab up their valuables and flee. Disaster struck soon after
the city had been evacuated, in the form of a mass of thick mud,
the product of heavy rains falling on the freshly deposited ash
36 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY I 970
Tombstone
on the upper slopes of the volcano. The oozing avalanche
poured down the west side of the mountain and buried the
town to a depth of sixty feet. Herculaneum lay undisturbed, its
location completely lost and forgotten, until it was discovered
by chance beneath the modern town of Resina.
Only a few years after excavation work was begun at
Pompeii and Herculaneum , there occurred on an island in the
Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra what may have been
the most powerful volcanic explosion in recorded history. In
May, 1883, earthquakes centered on the small island of Kra,
katoa began to be felt as far away as Batavia, a hundred miles
distant. Within a week fine volcanic ash had been deposited
on the island to such an extent that the vegetation was dying.
By August steam and fumes were rising from three vents, but
the activity was mild until one o'clock on the afternoon of the
26th when an extremely powerful explosion occurred. Others
followed in close succession. A black cloud rose to a height of
seve nteen miles above the volcano as the bombardment con ,
tinued. At five o' clock a part of the island was blasted loose
into the sea, causing a mild tidal wave.
The residents of western Java were kept awake all night
by the furious and incessant bombardment, and the houses at
Pelambang, Sumatra, 228 miles away, trembled and shook
without letup. At five -thirty in the morning and again at a few
minutes before seven, huge explosions deafened the citizens
of Batavia. Small tidal waves again rippled out from Krakatoa,
doing little damage.
At Io: 02 occurred what was probably the biggest bang
in history . Krakatoa blew itself apart, and two-thirds of th e
island fell into the sea. Two thousand nine hundred and sixty ,
eight miles away at Rodriquez I sland, the explosion was heard
and mistaken for "the distant roar of heavy guns." It was heard
in Thailand, in the Phillipines, in New Guinea, in India and
Ceylon, and in central Australia. The ash cloud over Krakatoa
rose to a height of fifty miles.
By the time the last major explosion shivered the region
at eight minutes before eleven, ash had started to fall from the
sky, plunging the region into darkness for as far as 275 miles
from the center of the explosion. One hundred thirt y miles from
Krakatoa the darkness lasted twenty,two hours; fifty miles away
it lasted fifty -seven hours . The darkness was deep, dense and
foul. And it was terrifyi ng.
In the darkness came the tidal wave caused by Krakatoa's
capsizing. A wall of water fifty feet high on the open sea, it
reached a height of 1 20 feet as it squeezed into some of the
enclosed bays of Java and Sumatra. There it carried a naval
vesse l two miles inland and beached it, completely or partially
destroyed 295 towns, and drowned nearl y 37,000 people
before night. Few of them, blinded as they were by the thick
fall of ash, had any inkling of their doom.
Three days after the eruption the ash was falling on the
decks of ships 1600 miles away. During the first week in
September ash fell in London. The ash dispersed in the air
encircled the earth and caused brilliantly glowing skies before
and after sunset. This phenomenon was first observed in the
United States at Yuma on the night of October 19. Eleven da ys
later it appeared on the east coast so brilliantl y that fire engines
were called out at Poughkeepsie, New York, and New Haven,
Connecticut. During the year that followed, only 87 % of the
Arizona's mining history is rich from volcanic heritage.
Onc e thriving Oatman area, below.
JANUARY I 970 ARIZONA HIQHWAYS 37
JOSEF MUENCH
normal amount of sunlight filtered down through the suspended
ash to reach the earth.
The most powerful explosion of the twentieth century
occurred far from any center of population on the peninsula
of Kamchatka, at the intersection of two lines of Pacific Ocean
volcanic activity. As with Vesuvius and Krakatoa, there was
warning. An earthquake on September 29, 19 5 5, was the first
in a long series of tremors which accelerated so rapidly in num,
her that by October 12, Russian scientists recorded more than
one hundred shocks a day. Their point of origin was located
thirty miles beneath Mt. Bezymianny, a Io, 1 20,foot volcanic
mountain long considered extinct.
Early on the morning of the twenty-second Bezymianny
began to smudge the air with ash. On the seventh of November
the ash-producing explosions became more violent, and by the
fifteenth a cloud towered five miles above the mountain. The
nearby countryside was cast into perpetual dusk; lights in the
small village of Kliuchy, twenty-eight miles away, burn~d night
and day. No work could be done.
And then the volcano calmed. The ash cloud dissipated
somewhat and cleanup work began in the villages.
In February observers watched as the ancient plug of lava
in the crater began to inch upward in slow, shuddering bursts
of movement. Small trickles of lava squirted out from around
it as it jerked higher.
And on March 30, 1956, the summit of Mt. Bezymianny
blew itself to smithereens. An immense fan-shaped cloud formed
above the crater as ash was blasted upward at speeds estimated
at from 1,600 to 2,000 feet per second. The top of the cloud
reached an altitude of thirty miles.
At dawn of the following day the summit could be clearly
seen. The top six hundred feet of the mountain had been pul,
verized and its eastern face cracked open. The eruption had not
been vertical, but tilted at an angle of about thirty degrees with
the horizon, so that the vast columns of dust blown out had
stripped the trunks of trees as far as nineteen miles from the
crater bare of bark. As far away as fifteen miles the force of the
explosion had felled trees a foot in diameter, and trees twenty
miles away burst into Bame. Hot ash fell over an area of two
hundred square miles, melting the snow cover to form an
immense mudBow avalanche sixty-five feet deep that Bowed
fifty miles to empty into the valley of the Kamchatka River.
RAY MANLEY
Beauty for all seasons in the lands of the once violent mountains.
II f I
I I
j
38 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY 1970
At the summit of Bezymianny viscous lava shoved up to
build a glowing plug more than seven hundred feet across to
close the throat of the volcano. Activity subsided gradually at
the summit, though steam and gas vents continued to hiss around
the base of the mountain until the following year.
The eruption of March 30 was bracketed by about 33,000
seismic shocks, or an average of one every twelve minutes
around the clock from the first of them until the last. The single
burst of energy in the big explosion was the equivalent of 890
million horsepower. It launched into the air, as dust, a quarter
cubic mile of solid rock weighing only a little less than four
and a half billion tons.
Last summer I traveled to Bishop, California, where Pro,
fessor Michael Sheridan, a geologist at Arizona State University
who specializes in the study of volcanoes, had established field
headquarters. He was engaged in the study of Long Valley, a
comparatively recent caldera on the east Bank of the Sierra
Nevada Range.
The mineral deposits in Arizona are indication enough
that volcanic eruptions may exert a lasting influence on the
geology of a particular region," Professor Sheridan told me.
"What isn't so easily recognized is that they may have subtler
effects as well, influencing life on every level.
"It is now thought, for example, that the collapse of such
volcanic calderas as Fernandia in the Galapagos Islands, where
a great mass of rock dropped three thousand feet, might be
largely responsible for the rapid differentiation of species. What
seems to have happened was that the breeding populations were
simply isolated physically from one another by these volcanic
events. The entire ecology of the Galapagos may have been
strongly affected, too, by eruptions thousands of miles across the
empty sea. Large scale ash eruptions in the Andes of South
America lobbed vast amounts of pumice into the sea. Because
pumice is simply lava solidified around a large volume of steam
and gas bubbles, it Boats very much like a rock sponge. Floating
islands of this volcanic pumice appear to have drifted from South
America to the Galapagos at some time in the past, ferrying a
large colony of insect life with them. The arrival of these new
populations at the isolated islands were a revolutionary event."
He smiled: "Perhaps evolutionary is a better word."
It is not only remote outposts like the Galapagos Islands,
nor unsophisticated folk like the ancient Papagos that have been
profoundly influenced by volcanic events. Scientists are just
now gathering clues together to suggest the profound influence
a single volcanic eruption in the Aegean Sea has had on Western
civilization in the nearly thirty-five hundred years since.
In about the year 1 500 B.C. the small island of Stronghyli,
a knob in the sea seventy miles north of Crete, exploded with
a force estimated as the equivalent of several hundred hydrogen
bombs. Shock waves from the blast toppled buildings on Crete
and caused heavy loss of life among the Minoan people there.
When the summit of Stronghyli's volcanic mountain crashed
into the sea, sinking to a depth of two hundred fathoms, a mile,
high tidal wave rushed outward to complete the destruction of
the rich Minoan civilization, and to inundate port cities around
the Mediterranean as far as U garit, Syria, 640 miles distant.
The ash fall covered eighty thousand square miles.
The few Minoan survivors Bed to the mainland of Greece
where they introduced the alphabet, metallurgy, archery and
their sophisticated architecture to the primitive folk who lived
there. Thus, if the scientists are correct, the tremendously de,
structive eruption of Stronghyli acted as a catalyst for the crea,
tion of the Greek civilization upon which so much of modern
western life and thought is based.
But there is more.
It is considered possible that Moses, in the Bight from Egypt
had reached the Reed Sea and not the Red Sea ( the words are
spelled identically in the original language) when the pursuing
armies of the Pharoah overtook him. A secondary tidal wave in
the aftermath of the Stronghyli eruption would have been quite
capable of drawing back the waters of this sea long enough for
Moses to lead his people across, and then releasing them to Bood
back in and drown the Pharoah's troops. The interval would
have been about twenty minutes, and a more miraculous salva,
tion is difficult to imagine.
The ten plagues visited upon the Egyptians can be ade,
quately explained in terms of a huge volcanic eruption. Water
turning red, fish dying, frogs abandoning the water and the
sun disappearing - all these are events which have been
observed elsewhere as results of large volumes of ash. Sickness,
disease and hunger caused by the massive disruption of normal
life may have caused so many deaths among the Egyptians as
to have included virtually every first-born son.
Evidence is not yet complete, but the eruption of the vol,
cano of Stronghyli is emerging from the mist of antiquity as a
seminal event in the formation of our modern Western culture
and religion.
Every second day or so, one or another of the five hundred
active volcanoes on the surface of the earth bursts into eruption.
Sheridan believes that the time is not far distant when one of
these eruptions will take place in Arizona.
"It seems certain that the huge ash,Bow eruptions of south,
ern Arizona are over," he told me. "The evidence indicates that
the last of them occurred about twenty million years ago, and
the lack of activity since then is a pretty good indication that
equilibrium has been restored.
"But it is a different situation in the north. It seems clear
that the most recent eruptions in the San Francisco volcanic
field followed one another at intervals of roughly a thousand
years. If this is the case, and if the same subterranean forces
are still at work as they have been consistently for tens of thou,
sands of years, then Arizona may have its next eruption at any
time now. Remember that the Sunset Crater eruption occurred
more than nine hundred years ago."
This next eruption, if there is one, Professor Sheridan says,
will almost certainly take place within the present boundaries
of the San Francisco volcanic field, perhaps within sight of
Flagstaff.
"If it follows the pattern of its most recent predecessors
there," he adds, "the eruption will construct a cinder cone of
from five hundred to one thousand feet high, and will expel
lava from its base as many as a dozen times over the course of
an active life that may last ten years.
"And even though there is a great deal we do not yet clearly
understand about volcanoes, we have learned to recognize the
signs of imminent eruption. Wherever the new vent should
burst open, there is little chance of lives being lost."
Unlike the citizens of Pompeii and the farmers of Sunset
Crater, we now know what to expect when the earth begins
to quiver in the shadow of "extinct" volcanic mountains. Vol,
canoes are only tiny pinpricks on the surface of the earth, but
far rnore than icebergs they conceal the great part of them,
selves. In the case of these violent mountains that hidden part
is the burning heart of the earth itself.
JANUARY I 970 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 39
PETRIFIED FOREST
Stony remains of osseous trees
stand stiffly in a silent frieze
of old unwritten histories :
a lush green forest suddenly
swallowed by lost forgotten seas
then spewed up, after centuries -
upheavals too long gone to trace,
to pinpoint, accurately place
except with margin for the errors
attendant on a lap se of eras
where time is reckoned, time appears
give or take a million years -
- E. B . D eVito
RAINDROPS
Raindrops come softly
On little bare feet
To dance in the pools
They've made in our street.
- Lenore McLau ghlin Link
GHOST TOWN
The tumbleweeds of your life sit
like dusters under a bed of sky .
Your memories like autumn birds
have migrated to a fairer vall ey
leaving the mad eyes of your windows
staring unknowing into nowhere.
I have come to visit and I hear
the hollow rooms of your heart
play ing murmuring music on vacuous
air . I shall sing to you.
- Elean or O'Hearon
THE RAIN
Deserted streets
stretched for miles
showcasing
the fury
of the pouring rain;
here and there
a dark figure
was silhouetted
against the angry sky.
- Tina Craig
INTRIGUE
Patches of orange gilia
Cling to the banks of a rill,
Leaning over its sloping edge
Farther, still farther ... until
They mirror themselves in the rivulet,
And there, through the sun,filled day.
Primp and pose and titivate,
For honeybees cruising their way.
- Helena Ridgway Stone
SOMERSAULTING TUMBLEWEEDS
The wind is in fine fettle today -
Wild-spirited and high!
Like stallions turned loose to run, eager clouds
Are racing across the sky,
While out on the plains gay tumbleweeds
Go somersaulting by.
Lost in the rising voice of the wind
Is the restless coyote's cry,
And lost to all but the listening hours
Is my enraptured sigh.
- Emily Carey Alleman
40
YOURS SINCERELY
... That " picture taking fellow named Joe" has
done one of the mo st outstanding jobs in your
November issue, in pointing out and so clearly
describing some of the more interesting locations
in your beautiful state and in some of the areas
of bordering states. That coupled with the mag,
nificent pictures from his camera certainly makes
this November issue stand in a class by itself .
Mrs. Hussey and I have spent parts of two
recent winters in Arizona ( in the wickenberg
area and at Tubae ) . So we very much welcome
Mr. Muench' s fine suggestions of added places
to visit - where possible.
We are so grateful to you Joe!
North Berwick, Maine
Philip W . Hussey, Sr.
P.S.-Don't bother to acknowledge-just keep
up the good work!
• We and many of our readers are grateful to
Joe M uench for a w onderful November issue .
. . . I have thought many times of wntmg to
compliment you on a particularly beautiful issue
of ARIZON A HIGHWAYS but this year's Christ,
mas issue finally turned the thought into action.
The gorgeous, vibrant colors of the cactus
flowers were a joy to see and really lifted the
spirits in a way you' d never believe possible with
a printed image. It was like a breath of spring .
I immediately went out and bought a picture
frame and, having cut out several of the pictures,
can now enjoy an ever-changing display of these
lo v ely flowers on my office desk.
May I also mention the delightful little pie,
tures of Ted DeGrazia - I still look at the issue
which featured many of his paintings of the
Navajos.
Audrey M. Earl
San Francisco, Calif.
• Our December is sue was parti cularly well
receiv ed . Our warmest thanks for the many,
many comments we have received on it.
. . . Of course we are pleased and every month
" pleasured" b y our issue of ARIZONA HIGH­WAYS
. However, we are not so fortunate to Jive
in your beautiful state and to know all the geo,
graphic al features. With this in mind, I think
it would be quite apropos in such an issue when
September, I 969, come s out with a beautiful
d es cription of the Salt River; al so, that you
would include a map of Arizona and a somewhat
deta iled map of the v arious loc ations ,that you
show. M ay be even on the map show identifica,
ti o n of the location s from which points the pie,
tures and photographs were taken.
Thanks again for y our charming magazine.
I ha ve it in my reception room to bring addi,
tional jo y and amazement to my patients.
Warren F. Wilhelm, M.D.
Kansa s City, Missouri
• A gai n we plead guilty to our lack of "map,
pi n g" our feature s .
OPPOSITE PAGE
"SPRING BEAUTY IN VOLCANIC MTS.-SOUTHERN ARIZONA." BY DAVID
MUENCH. This photograph was taken along Arizona 8 5 showing volcanic mountains in
Southern Arizona south of Ajo. This volcanic action took place in the tertiary period of some
40 million years ago. Spring of last year added a touch of color to the scene with cholla
cactus and encelia in bloom.
BACK COVER
"WILL WINTER SNOWS COOL THE FIERY EARTH?" BY DON VALEN,
TINE. This is winter in what was once a smouldering pit of volcanic fire-the San Francisco
Mt. volcanic field near Flagstaff, Arizona. Late afternoon light sheds a glow over mountains
and snow, a warming glow that lends warmth to a chilly landscape.
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP
Statement of ow ne rsh ip, management and ci rculation, fi l ed September 19, 1968 , tide of Publi ca ti on, ARIZONA
HIGHWAYS; loca tion o f publicati on offic e, 2039 Wesr Le wis, Phoenix, Ariz ona , 85 009 ; H eadquarter s of
O wner -Publisher, Ari zona Hi g hw ay Department, 206 South 17th Avenue, Pho enix , Arizona , 85007; Editor,
Raym ond Ca rl so n ; Art Edi ro r , G eo rg e M . Avey ; Bu siness Manage r, James E . Stevens.
Average N o . Copies
each issue during
Preceding 12 m onths
A . T o tal N o. Copies Printed (Net PreIJ R un ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456.4 0 3
B. Paid Cir culation
1. Sales thro ugh Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendo rs
and Counter Sales ... . .. . ........ . ..... . . . . ...... , . .. , . . .
2. Mail Subsc riptions ..... . .. . . ... .. ... . . . .. . .... ... .... .. .
C. T otal Pai d Ci rcul ation . . .. .. . .. ... .. ... . ..... .. . .. ... .. . .. .. .
D. Free Di st ri but io n (inclttding samples) by Mail , Carr ier or Other Means . .
E. T ota l Distribution (Sttm o f C an d D J . . . .. .. .. .. . . .....•.. . .. •..
F . O ffice Use, Left-O ver, Unacco unted , Spoi led after Printin g ....... . . .. .
G. T otal (S1<m of E and F - sho1<ld equal net p r eIJ rnn shown in A ) .. . .• . .
121 ,180
3 06,240
427,420
2 1,015
448, 4 35
7 .968
4 5 6,403
Single Is sue
Nearest to
filin g date
426,694
86,768
312,601
399.369
20,251
419,620
7,074
426,694
I cert ify th at th e sta tements made by me are correct and complete
James E. Stevens, Business Manager
ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY I 970