These water resources have resulted in numerous lakes in the mountains, varying in size. Among them, Lake Tahoe is the largest, with an area of approximately 501 square kilometers, and is also the second deepest lake in the United States.
In a place with such a complex terrain and huge area, you can imagine how difficult it is to find a mineral vein hidden among green trees or among streams and lakes.
Han Peacock and his group walked slowly in the mountains, mainly because Han Peacock couldn't move any faster.
Han Peacock will always pay attention to the trend of the underground mineral vein, which makes Han Peacock always nervous. If he tracks the wrong underground mineral vein, then he has no other choice but to re-take the current route.
Only when you enter the Sierra Nevada Mountains do you realize how complex the terrain here is, so it is really difficult to expect to find anything from the ground.
Fortunately, there is abundant water here, and Han Peacock's greatest ability is to control water, so this is his home field, which is an advantage.
No matter what mineral vein it is, it cannot resist the erosion of water. Therefore, as long as there is water, it is the easiest place to find ore.
"Huh? Is that a building over there?" Just after climbing over a mountain, Chen Jiayi saw a building under the mountain.
"It's really a building." Mu Ling also said in surprise.
Han Peacock smiled when he saw it: "Fortunately we didn't pass there."
"Why, do you know where that place is?" Chen Jiayi asked.
Han Peacock said: "Can't you tell? That's a park there, Yosemite National Park, also called Yosemite Park. It's the first national park in the United States, right?"
Yosemite Park on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is one of the most beautiful national parks in the United States. It was established in 1890. In 1906, Yosemite Canyon and Butterfly Jungle were merged into the park, forming an area of nearly 310,000 hectares.
"We don't have to go through this park?" Chen Jiayi pointed to several rivers passing through the park.
Han Peacock shook his head. The underground mineral vein should be heading east, and that side is to the west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Now they are walking east, and the water on that side is converging to the west to form a river down the mountain.
"Is that a waterfall over there?" Mu Ling looked into the distance. His eyes were a little bright. Girls all like beautiful things, and Mu Ling was no exception.
Han Kongque said with a smile: "That's Yosemite Falls over there, and there should be Yosemite Valley not far away. Unfortunately, we can't pass there. There are too many people there, and we can easily attract others' attention.
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"Ah!" Mu Ling said a little disappointed.
Han Kongque said with a smile: "When I come out of the mountain, I can take a good stroll in this park. Not only are the waterfalls beautiful, but there are also many rocks and trees, all of which are of commemorative value."
Han Peacock has a very good memory. He remembers some famous places in the United States very clearly, so even if he has never been here, he still knows what it is like here.
In the Yosemite Valley, the Merced River, formed by the confluence of three tributaries, the Tenaya, the Elliot and the Yosemite, runs across the valley bottom, forming the area with the largest concentration of waterfalls in the world.
Yosemite Falls is the tallest waterfall in North America. It has a total length of 739 meters and is divided into an upper waterfall and a lower waterfall, pouring down from the north wall of the valley with a roaring sound.
The Bridal Veil Falls hanging upside down from the south wall has a drop of 189 meters. During the dry season, the entire waterfall is as thin as cicada wings. It hangs like a piece of gauze in the air.
Vernal Falls, nearly 97 meters long, flows straight down, splashing water, forming a thick fog and reflecting a rainbow, which is very beautiful and famous.
There are many unique giant rocks standing at the bottom of Yosemite Valley. The Half Dome Rock is 1,463 meters high; the vertically rising General Rock is 1,097 meters high; and the 853-meter-high Arrow Rock stands proudly, like a giant roc.
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The three famous California redwood forests in the park are also strange sights, among which the Butterfly Jungle 56 kilometers south of the valley is the most famous.
There is a giant gray pine in the forest, with a diameter of 11 meters. It is the fifth largest tree in the world. Many tourists take pictures here to commemorate it.
On the Sentinel Garden on the southern slope of the canyon, there stands a strong and lonely pine named "Jeffrey". This pine is ringed with curled branches, simple and graceful, and stretches its giant arms as if to welcome guests.
In addition, the park also has a large number of raccoons and wild deer, more than 1,300 kinds of plants, and more than 30 kinds of trees.
The Yosemite Museum contains exhibits on Indians and wildlife and plants in the area.
After arriving here, Han Kongque also understood the geological changes here, because the geological changes here are so famous, mainly Yosemite Valley. The formation of this canyon is actually the geological changes of the entire Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Over the past 500 million years, the geology of Yosemite has gradually evolved from the ocean floor to rolling mountains, forming the steep Sierra Nevada Mountains and deep river canyons.
Three million years ago, glaciers brought by the Quaternary Ice Age once covered valleys and canyons. This scraping and carving force caused the remaining granite to still show the direction of glacial movement.
About 10,000 years ago, when the last glaciers finally melted and debris choked the valley to create Lake Yosemite, tributary creeks plummeted down the cliffs, spawning the park's waterfalls.
Sediment continued to fill the lake through natural processes until it eventually formed the Yosemite Valley floor.
When a major earthquake tilted the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Maasai River, originating from the snow-capped mountaintops, quietly cut a V-shaped valley between the mountains, and Yosemite was born.
The Yosemite Valley is covered by glaciers, and the valley is U-shaped. Traces cut by glaciers can be seen everywhere on the cliffs on both sides. After the glaciers receded, the Yosemite Valley experienced multiple floodings, forming an alluvial plain at the bottom of the valley.
Yosemite's geological evolution continued, and Mirror Lake slowly filled with sediment like Yosemite Lake.
In 1996, the Happy Island rockfall was still transporting 80,000 tons of rock to the valley floor at 160 miles per hour.
Such drastic changes have naturally resulted in complex underground geological conditions in this area, especially the mineral vein that Han Peacock is currently tracking.
After crossing the mountains at the foot and away from the Yosemite Valley, there is a piece of exposed rocks. Most of these rocks are granite or near-granite.
Han Kongque analyzed it carefully and found that these rocks include metamorphic (changed by heat and pressure) sedimentary rock interlayers (all remnants of a once-large sedimentary basin) and some large-area extrusive rocks, especially Ta
In the area north of Lake Ho, at the northern end of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the above rocks merge with the volcanic rocks of the Cascade Mountains.
"Boss, do you think this is an emerald?" While Han Kongque was studying the rocks, the golden demon walked up to Han Kongque and gave him a few pieces of ore.
Seeing these messy ores being cut, Han Peacock broke into a cold sweat. This guy Jin Yao used his special powers to cut things randomly when he had nothing to do. These should be unexpected gains.
Han Peacock didn't care to confirm whether the golden demon was a pervert. He looked at several fist-sized pieces of ore. These ores were wrapped with some green crystals. With just a little observation, Han Peacock knew that they were emeralds.
After this period of training, Han Peacock has been able to accurately distinguish the crystals of emeralds. However, the quality of these three emeralds is not very good.
The formation of emeralds is related to the intrusion of granite pegmatites into metamorphosed ultrabasic rocks, so emeralds are produced in uneven phenocrysts. The surrounding rocks here are strongly migmatized biotite schists and flakes.
granite.
If so, the rocks here are all biotite schist and gneiss that can enclose emeralds. If there are emeralds in these rocks, then the area of this emerald deposit will be huge.
"Camp around, we should be at the right place." The geological environment here is complicated, but it happened to be a violent crustal change that exposed the biotite schist and gneiss that were originally buried deep underground.
If there were a lot of emeralds to be found there, if there was a place where it was easier to find emeralds, it would be here.
This time they set up camp, and Han Kongque and the others stayed there for more than half a month. After more than half a month, they almost traveled through the mountains with a radius of several hundred kilometers. It can be said that they worked tirelessly.
Fortunately, Han Peacock had a huge mobile warehouse, which prevented them from turning into savages.
There are abundant wild animals in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but few people come here, so there is no one to monitor the hunting of Korean peacocks.
We have caught a lot of black bears, black-tailed deer, coyotes, cougars, and Korean peacocks recently, and the most peculiar thing is the black bears here. Of course, the black bears here are not all black, there are also white, brown and gold.
Especially the golden bear, which was the first time they saw it, surprised Han Kongque and others.
Just because they encountered a golden bear, Chen Jiayi's plan to eat bear paws was shelved. What they ate the most was black-tailed deer. There were so many of these deer that Korean peacocks were willing to hunt them.
Besides eating, their biggest gain was the discovery of a huge emerald deposit.
The emerald deposit discovered by Han Kongque is a large-scale emerald mineral belt. Calculated based on the distance traveled now, it is 200km long from north to south and 30km wide.
It doesn't seem very big, but this is a mountain. How many hills are included in such a long distance?
Han Peacock really didn't calculate this carefully. However, although the deposit is very large, the quality of the emeralds exposed on the ground is not very good.
Judging from the recently collected emeralds, the emerald crystals here are up to 5-8 meters long, are light green, have many inclusions, many transverse cracks, and are mostly opaque or translucent. They are low-grade emeralds and can only be polished as plain gemstones.
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However, the emerald mines here are all in old metamorphic schist, and because of their large scale, they have great prospects.
After half a month of hard work, Han Kongque and the others have arrived at a canyon deep in the mountains. This place is surrounded by mountains, and the passage into the canyon is very narrow. If Han Kongque had not led the way, Chen Jiayi and the others would definitely not be able to find it.