Alluvial rocks from the base of Frenchman's Mountain

Alluvial rocks from the base of Frenchman's Mountain (4,052 ft)—sometimes erroneously called Sunrise Mountain, North Las Vegas (eastern side of North Las Vegas—facing west). 

Some rocks look like the sparkly blueschist embedded with garnets we used to find in Sonoma County. Granite/volcanic, sedimentary mudstone, metamorphic rock—a new one for me: Vishnu schist. I like the black schists and pink granites of the Vishnu Group—from the ancient core of the continent. 

Geologist Garry Hayes says: "Most of the rocks are mica and garnet-bearing schist and gneiss, and they are 1.7 billion years old, some of the oldest rocks in the American West." 

Gary says the pink one is orthoclase feldspar. It was different than quartz in that it fractured with smooth planes. It's related to the moonstones we find at Point Reyes. I once found strange pink dradel-like gobs embedded in granite in the Trinity Mountains that reminded me of it. 

Frenchman Mountain was named after Paul Watelet, a European immigrant who claimed  a mine after a 1912 gold strike. Watelet was a Belgian, probably a French-speaking Walloon, the locals thought he was from France.

The Great Unconformity, 1.7 billion year old Precambrian granite and schist. I am trying to contemplate how tectonic plates moved the mountain 50 miles.

Some folklore I found online: 

"I've lived in the Vegas valley since 1978, i met some local teens who were born in the valley I hung out with them at the base of Frenchman mountain at the end of Bonanza Rd. there was a porch and a cave at the foot of the mountain where teens gathered to drink and smoke pot. I remember stories of an old woman living in the mountain inside a cave, the story was she had owned the mountain or had inherited it from her family and chose to live there some time during the late 1930s to the mid or late 1960s when she was found frozen to death. Has anyone else heard about this story?" 

 I wonder if that was Paul Watelet's mine? His daughter?

Chris Callaghan, our host said: "I've lived here since 1960. The cave and parties are true, kids from my high school did this. The old woman was still there in the mid-60's. Don't think she really owned it, just lived there, an early squatter. It was very far away from town in those days. I remember when she died."

Pretty cool finding Vishnu schist studded with garnets in her back yard! And mica schist/gneiss. Sandstone, limestone and shale sediments metamorphosed and recombined with metamorphosed lava flows to form Vishnu schist. Even older Zoroaster granite metamorphosed into gneiss. 

Geologic remnants of the Grand Canyon and the Great Unconformity right in her  back yard. Who knew. She was right about that other rock—it is resin. It burns. Smells like pine. Unless, of course she has a strain of amber in her yard as well!

Why doesn’t anyone call Sunrise Mountain by its real name?