The phenomenon on Karnak Ridge

© 2009 Clarence D. Basso

It has been compared to the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland and Sampson’s Ribs in Edinburgh. It is columnar basaltic lava and no where is it more spectacular than on Karnak Ridge near the old mining camp of Jessup, about 30 miles west of Lovelock, Nevada, off Interstate 80.

The magnificence of Karnak Ridge was first documented in 1867 by geologist Arnold Hague and American landscape photographer Timothy O’Sullivan, members of a corps of scientists and support personnel charged by Congress with conducting an inventory of the mineral wealth and other natural resources along the fortieth parallel of latitude between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the high plateau of Colorado. In word and image, the phenomenon of columnar basalt on Karnak Ridge was shared with world in 1877 with the publication of Descriptive Geology, one of seven massive volumes recording the discoveries of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, the official name of the survey that was headed by famous geologist Clarence King. The term “King Survey” has evolved into the common name of the expedition.

Hague’s enthusiasm for what he saw on that ridge was profuse. He remarked in his official report, “…it is doubtful if there is any place in the world where they are developed on a grander scale than in the Montezuma Range [now known as the Trinity Range], certainly not in Nevada, where rhyolitic modes of occurrence are so richly displayed.”

Read more of Hague’s description and see rare 1867 photographs from the National Archives in Karnak Ridge – a geologic marvel.

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