Description

Chino Valley North 7 ½' Quadrangle covers portions of Big Chino Valley and Chino Valley and the uppermost reach of the Verde River, and includes the towns of Chino Valley and southern Paulden. These valleys are flanked by bedrock of Sullivan Buttes to the west and southwest and the westernmost portion of Black Hills to the north and northeast. The Verde River is fed by significant tributaries Big Chino Wash, Williamson Valley Wash, Chino Wash, Granite Creek and Lonesome Valley Wash (Figure 1). Production of this new geologic map continues the Arizona Geological Survey mapping program of the Verde River valley. This mapping was done under the joint State-Federal STATEMAP program, as specified in the National Geologic Mapping Act of 1992, and was jointly funded by the Arizona Geological Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey under STATEMAP Program Contract award number 08HQAG0093. Mapping was compiled digitally using ESRI ArcGIS software. The Chino Valley North Quadrangle was mapped previously by Krieger (1965). This mapping depicts the bedrock geology of the northwestern most part of the Black Hills and a small part of the Sullivan Buttes. Much of the mapping effort was focused on the late Cenozoic geology of the region, especially Quaternary units within and along the Chino Valley basin, with special attention to differences between the major drainage networks (Big Chino Wash, Chino Valley Wash and Granite Creek. New mapping also revealed a newly discovered Quaternary fault that flanks the western boundary of the Black Hills.