GEOLOGY OF ANCIENT SACRED SITES, NORTHERN PANCAKE RANGE, CENTRAL NEVADA

Three ancient sacred sites lie along a 10 km NW trend in the northern Pancakes from Duckwater Valley to Moody Mountain, discovered during quadrangle mapping 1993-2005. The sites contain at least five spaced-stone petroforms that generally follow and emphasize natural features on sloping, bare-rock erosional benches developed on light grey, unwelded upper and lower horizons of the early Tertiary rhyodacitic Stone Cabin FM tuff (SCF). No sites were associated with other unwelded volcanic units such as the tuff of Pritchards Station or Needles Range tuff.

Significant natural features associated with the SCF benches associated with sacred sites include their daylight from surrounding soils, rock-walled ‘tenajas' that hold water for extended periods after precipitation, fracture intersections, complex fracture forms, and two features caused by differential erosion: positive and negative relief tuff blocks separated by prominent cooling joints.

Positive relief blocks are associated with steeper aprons capped by overlying dacite, where joints on block peripheries channel fast runoff and are lower than block centers. Wide, negative relief joint blocks form on less steep slopes with much lower erosion rates. Clay weathering or vapor phase alteration concentrated along the joints produces areas of lower permeability and also greater erosion “resistance” there than saucer-shaped block centers, sometimes producing prominent, “lipped joints”.

Spaced-stone petroforms within the sites include short alignments suggestive of entopic lines; a “circle” of small stones around a boulder; a poorly preserved petroform possibly representing a stellar constellation; and a snake-human conflation that is the longest and widest (104 m x 35 m) of the petroforms. “Western Pluvial Lake Tradition”-style unifacial scrapers and debitage of local dacite are common around the snake conflation petroform and at ‘background' abundances near the other petroforms. A broken, obsidian, Western Archaic stemmed point [?Elko] was found near the conflation. This and other site details suggest multiple and long term use of two of the sites by communal groups.

The abundance and co-location of culturally significant natural features found within the unwelded SCF sites make this unit a target for further discoveries and surprises.