Crystal Mountain

While hiking in the White Desert, we visited Chrystal Mountain, yet another beautiful spot in the desert of geologic interest.  Here are some photos from Chrystal Mountain.

The rock pictured below is probably barite and calcite.  I've read a description calling it a subvolcanic vault that was probably created in the Oligocene age (which is between 23 and 34 million years ago), with some cracks of coal and hydrothermal layers of iron oxide that are reddish/brown. 

We hiked for about 20 minutes to get to the top of Crystal Mountain.  Here are some of the views.  The first photo if Jeff and Cameron hiking in the distance.

While hiking, Jeff found a shard of ancient pottery and I found another shard.  The piece I found still had remnants of some kind of paint on it.  It's pretty amazing that as combed over as this site must be, we still found two little pieces of pottery in the hour we spent here.  I sure would have liked to keep these thousands of years old souvenirs, but the rule is:  Take nothing from the desert but photos; Leave nothing behind but footprints.  So, here's the photo of the little pieces of ancient times we found there, and left behind on a rock for someone else to find.