The Park Range is a mountain range in northeast Nye County,

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

about 40 miles south of Eureka. The Antelope Range lies to the northwest and the Little Smoky Valley lies to the northeast. The Big Sand Springs Valley and the Pancake Range are to the east. The Hot Creek Range is to the southwest.''Nevada Atlas and Gazetteer,'' DeLorme, 8th ed. 2012, pp. 47 and 55 Peaks include an unnamed peak in the south end of the range at and Park Mountain in the north end of the range at . Andesite Ridge (peak elevation ) runs adjacent and parallel to the southeast side of the range, separated from the range by Prichards Canyon. Historic Summit Station, Prichards Station and Hicks Station were on the roads east, south and west of the range respectively.

Wilderness study area

The Park Range Wilderness Study Area encompasses almost all of the range. The range is rugged and ungrazed by livestock with natural meadows with good water sources existing in the volcanic bedrock. Forests of

pinyon pine The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, with the single-leaf pinyon pine just reaching into southern Idaho. The trees yield edible Pine nut, nuts, which are a sta ...

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

and mountain mahogany occur in the range.

Geology

The range is typical of the Basin and Range in Nevada. It is bounded by high angle faults on all sides. Most of the range consists of

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

rhyolitic Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals ( phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The miner ...

to latitic

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

flows and pyroclastic deposits along with some

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...

s. The volcanic rock layers are tilted to the west with a dip of about 20° to the east. At the north end of the range

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

sedimentary rocks Sedimentary rocks are types of rock formed by the cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or deposited at Earth's surface. Sedim ...

including

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

Goodwin Limestone and

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...

Devils Gate Limestone are found along with other sedimentary rocks as fault blocks within the volcanic rocks. The block of Paleozoic sediments have been prospected for epithermal (

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

associated)

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

as has the Andesite Ridge area which lies just to the southeast of the main range.''Mineral Resources of the Park Range Wilderness Study Area, Nye County, Nevada,'' Mineral Land Assessment 25-86 1986 Open File Report, US Bureau of Mines
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References

Mountain ranges of Nevada Mountain ranges of Nye County, Nevada Mountain ranges of the Great Basin {{NyeCountyNV-geo-stub