Ruby Mountain Cache

This cache is located on the east side of Ruby Mountain. This cache you have to hike or horseback too, however there is a old mining road that you can walk on to within 100 feet or so of the cache. From there it is a bit steeper but nothing to seriously hard and remember you are at elevation so take your time if you need too. Please hide the cache as you found it or better please!

Ruby Mountain is located NE of Nathrop and S of Buena Vista. There is a small parking area North of the trailhead where you can park, and from there the short hike begins. It's really not as bad as it looks, since as I stated above you can follow an old road that runs fairly near the cache. From there it does get a bit steeper but it is nothing to serious. The theme is anything geology so its packed with minerals and fossils from my collection. Please hide the cache as you found it or better and be sure to look for the rocks mentioned below.

The history of this as has been told is in the 1800's a miner was digging around and kept finding these "rubies". So thinking he had struck it rich he kept his find to himself, he prospected here a few years until he had a small bag full of these. After a couple years he took them to Denver to make his fortune, only to be told that they were only garnets. You can still hunt for these by breaking open the rocks or looking on the surfaces of them. Also found in abundance are "Apache Tear Drops" also known as Obsidian which is volcanic glass.

For the geology nerds such as myself here is a brief description of the geologic history of the mountain.

2011, Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, Geology.Abstract

The Nathrop Volcanics consist of rhyolite lava and pyroclastic deposits located on the eastern shoulder of the upper Arkansas Graben in south-central Colorado and are part of the extensive late Eocene-Oligocene Central Colorado Volcanic Field. Deposits of the Nathrop Volcanics at Ruby Mountain consist of a lower lithic-rich lapilli tuff (ca. 3 m thick) with multiple layers that are reversely graded with respect to pumice clasts and are overlain by an approximately 30 m thick lithic-poor tuff breccia containing pumice blocks up to 1 m in diameter. The upper portion of the tuff breccia transitions up into a 5 m thick, moderately to densely welded tuff (vitrophyre), which in turn is overlain by a 20 m thick flow-banded rhyolite. A similar stratigraphic sequence is found at Sugarloaf Mountain (<1 km to the NNE), and also portions of the sequence crop out as faulted and eroded blocks in the valley between the two mountains. These deposits have been interpreted as being formed by exogenic lava dome growth; pyroclastic facies (fall overlain by flow) followed by lava extrusion. This study considers three possible scenarios to explain the origin and geometry of these deposits. Pivotal to these scenarios is the explanation for the cause of welding and stratigraphic position of the vitrophyre. The three models are: 1) the flow-banded rhyolite was erupted as a lava immediately after the pyroclastic flow (tuff breccia) which caused the welding; 2) the tuff breccia and flow-banded rhyolite are not from the same eruptive episode and welding occurred in a thick pyroclastic flow that subsequently was eroded down to the level of the more resistant vitrophyre followed by eruption of the rhyolite as a lava flow; and 3) the whole sequence represents a single short-lived eruptive event in which the pyroclasts accumulated rapidly enough to weld and flow rheomorphically. This study evaluates all three models based on field relationships.

Kurt Panter, PhD (Advisor)
Charles Onasch, PhD (Committee Member)
Jeff Snyder, PhD (Committee Member)

Congrats Ibgpin for the FTF!