The Big Maria Mountains are located in the southeastern part of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, near the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

and

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. The range lies between

Blythe The name Blythe ( or ) derives from Old English ''bliþe'' ("joyous, kind, cheerful, pleasant"; modern ''blithe''), and further back from Proto-Germanic ''*blithiz'' ("gentle, kind"). People *Blythe (given name), including a list of people named ...

and Vidal, and west of

U.S. Route 95 in California U.S. Route 95 (US 95) is a United States Numbered Highway, stretching from the Mexican border in San Luis, Arizona to the Canadian border near Eastport, Idaho. The California portion of US 95 traverses through the far eastern edges o ...

and east of Midland. The mountains are home to the Eagle Nest Mine and reach an elevation of 1,030 meters, (3,379 ft). A power line that runs from

Parker Dam Parker Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam that crosses the Colorado River downstream of Hoover Dam. Built between 1934 and 1938 by the Bureau of Reclamation, it is high, of which are below the riverbed (the deep excavation was necessary in ...

Yuma, Arizona Yuma ( coc, Yuum) is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. The city's population was 93,064 at the 2010 census, up from the 2000 census population of 77,515. Yuma is the principal city of the Yuma, Arizona, M ...

runs through the range. A smaller range, the Little Maria Mountains, lie to the west of the Big Marias.

Geology

The Big Maria Mountains are one of several ranges that constitute the Maria fold and thrust belt (MFTB). The MFTB underwent generally thick-skinned (involving

basement rocks In geology, basement and crystalline basement are crystalline rocks lying above the mantle and beneath all other rocks and sediments. They are sometimes exposed at the surface, but often they are buried under miles of rock and sediment. The baseme ...

) north–south trending crustal shortening in the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

. The structures of the MFTB are exposed by to later generally east–west trending large-scale crustal extension in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

, through what is known to geologists as the Colorado River Extensional Corridor This north–south shortening is anomalous, as crustal shortening in the rest of the

North American Cordillera The North American Cordillera, sometimes also called the Western Cordillera of North America, the Western Cordillera or the Pacific Cordillera, is the North American portion of the American Cordillera, the mountain chain system (cordillera) alon ...

is oriented generally east–west because of the generally east–west compression that was due to the subduction of the Farallon plate under western North America. Also unlike the rest of the North American Cordillera, deformation in the MFTB involved rocks of the North American Craton, most notably the Grand Canyon sequence of sedimentary rocks.

Ecology

Foxtail cactus (''Escobaria vivipara'' subsp.) and California barrel cactus (''Ferocactus cylindraceus'') dot the landscape, and a Burro mule deer (''

Odocoileus hemionus The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related ...

'' var. ''eremicus'') herd relies on the

for survival.

Wilderness area

The Big Maria Mountains Wilderness Area is managed by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's ...

for recreation and

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological o ...

protection. The terrain of the Big Maria Mountains within the wilderness area varies from gently sloping

Alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to semiarid climates, but a ...

s ( bajadas) to numerous rough, craggy peaks disjointed by steep canyons. The northern boundary lies south of a major drainage known as Big Wash, and the eastern edge parallels

and the

. The west and south boundaries follow

power line An overhead power line is a structure used in electric power transmission and distribution to transmit electrical energy across large distances. It consists of one or more uninsulated electrical cables (commonly multiples of three for three-p ...

s and contours along the base of the mountains.

Rice Valley Wilderness

The

also manages the Rice Valley Wilderness in and near the Big Maria Mountains. The broad, flat plains of Rice Valley and the northwestern tip of the steep and rugged Big Maria Mountains lie within the borders of this wilderness. A system of small

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...

s rising 30 to 40 feet above the surface form a long, narrow band running through the middle of the valley floor. The valley is part of a massive

Erg The erg is a unit of energy equal to 10−7joules (100 nJ). It originated in the Centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). It has the symbol ''erg''. The erg is not an SI unit. Its name is derived from (), a Greek word meaning 'work' o ...

-sand sheet which extends from Cadiz Valley through

Ward Valley Ward Valley () is an ice-free valley that lies between Porter Hills and Xanadu Hills and east of the snout of Ward Glacier in the Denton Hills, Scott Coast, Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. ...

, representing a part of one of the largest dune systems in the Desert Region of California. The Big Maria Mountains rise above the valley to an elevation of 2,000 feet.http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/palmsprings/wilderness/rice_valley.html Rice Valley Wilderness . accessed 3/4/2016 . BLM

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

sourced

References

External links

*Officia
Big Maria Mountains Wilderness Area websiteBLM Big Maria Mountains Wilderness MapPeakbagger.com (height of highpoint, and mountain range map, with regional expansion
*Officia
BLM Rice Valley Wilderness Map
File:Poston,_Arizona._Street_scene_at_the_relocation_center_for_evacuees_of_Japanese_ancestry._This_is_._._._-_NARA_-_536146.jpg, View from

Parker Valley The Parker Valley is located along the Lower Colorado River within the Lower Colorado River Valley region, in southwestern Arizona and southeastern California. Its natural habitats are within the Sonoran Desert (Arizona) and Colorado Desert (C ...

west towards the Big Marias.
(expandable high resolution photo) {{authority control Mountain ranges of the Lower Colorado River Valley Wilderness areas within the Lower Colorado River Valley Protected areas of the Colorado Desert Mountain ranges of the Colorado Desert Mountain ranges of Riverside County, California Protected areas of Riverside County, California Bureau of Land Management areas in California