Big Maria Mountains
| Big Maria Mountains | |
|---|---|
A view of the Big Maria Mountains from the Parker Valley
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| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 1,031 m (3,383 ft) |
| Geography | |
 Location of Big Maria Mountains
in California |
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| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| District | Riverside County |
| Range coordinates | 33°51′0″N 114°42′3″W / 33.85000°N 114.70083°WCoordinates: 33°51′0″N 114°42′3″W / 33.85000°N 114.70083°W |
| Topo map | USGS Big Maria Mountains SW |
The Big Maria Mountains are located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of California, near the Colorado River and Arizona. The range lies between Blythe and Vidal, and west of U.S. Route 95 in California 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 to Yuma, Arizona runs through the range. A smaller range, the Little Maria Mountains, lie to the west of the Big Marias.
The Big Maria Mountains are one of several ranges that constitute the Maria Fold and Thrust Belt. The Maria Fold and Thrust Belt underwent generally thick-skinned (involving basement rocks) North-South trending crustal shortening in the Cretaceous. The structures of the MFTB are exposed by to later generally East-West trending large-scale crustal extension in the Miocene, 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 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 Maria Fold and Thrust Belt involved rocks of the North American Craton, most notably the Grand Canyon sequence of sedimentary rocks.
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Wikipedia