The Chocolate Mountains of California are located in Imperial County and Riverside County in the Colorado Desert in southern California. The mountains stretch approximately 60 miles in a northwest to southeast direction, and are located east of the Salton Sea and south and west of the Chuckwalla Mountains. The range reaches an elevation of 2,475 feet at Mount Barrow. State nickname: The Golden State Official languages English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Senators Dianne Feinstein (D) Barbara Boxer (D) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 3rd 410,000 km² 4. ... Imperial County is a county located in the far southeast of California, on the border with Arizona and Mexico, in the Imperial Valley. ... Riverside County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of California, stretching from Orange County to the Colorado River, which is the border with Arizona. ... The Colorado Desert (yellow) showing Joshua Tree National Park The Colorado Desert is a large arid depression in southeastern California and northeastern Baja California in Mexico. ... The Salton Sea (with local/regional cities) The Salton Sea and the Imperial Valley as seen from the Space shuttle. ... The Chuckwalla Mountains is a mountain range in the Colorado Desert of southern California. ...

The mountain range is home to the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range, an aerial and gunnery practice area used by the Navy and Marines. Since a large part of the Chocolate Mountains lie in the gunnery range, those areas are off-limit to the public. Indeed, even areas near the mountains can be dangerous—in one instance, pilots in two jets practicing dropping empty bomb shells overshot the gunnery range and bombed a public campground north of the mountains. One man was slightly injured. The Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range (CMAGR), is used for bombing practice and aerial gunnery practice. ...

The Chocolate Mountains contain the world's richest gold rift zone. "Geologists estimate that the gold contained in this zone is worth between $40 to $100 billion. These are surface gold deposits which are more profitable to mine than the one-mile deep gold deposits in South Africa." (1) When the gunnery range closes in the future, and the mountains are picked clean of dangerous materials from years of bombing practice, mining will most likely begin. The gold area was owned by the Catellus Development Corporation, now part of the industrial property giant ProLogis.

The mountains receive very little rainfall in a normal year, typcially 4-6 inches. The predominant natural plant is Creosote bush—white bursage variety, and the mean annual temperature is about 60° to 75° F. Binomial name Larrea tridentata (Sessé & Moc. ...

The mountain range is also home to the Little Picacho Wilderness, a 38,170 acre region under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. Lying at the southern end of the Chocolate Mountains at elevations from 200-1,500 feet, the wilderness is home to the Picacho wild horse, wild burros, as well as desert tortoises and spotted bats. A herd of desert bighorn sheep are also in the area. It is also called the "Little Picacho Peak Wilderness". The Little Picacho Wilderness is a a 38,170-acre (152. ... US BLM logo The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers Americas public lands, totaling approximately 261 million surface acres (1,056,229. ... Burro(aka Unknown/Sonic/Orange Burro)is a sexless creature known for his/her ability to find and infest messageboards all over the world with his stupidity. ... For the band, see Tortoise (band). ... For the flying mammal see bat. ... Binomial name Ovis canadensis Shaw, 1804 Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis) is a species of sheep in North America with two endangered subspecies: Desert Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) California Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis californiana). ...

Lithology and Stratigraphy

The mountains are mainly Mesozoic granitic, Tertiary volcanic, Eocene marine sedimentary, Oligocene and Miocene nonmarine sedimentary, Pre-Cretaceous metasedimentary, and Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks. There is a small area of Quaternary basalt at the southeast end of the Chocolate Mountains. The Mesozoic is one of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon. ... The Tertiary period was previously one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, from the end of the Cretaceous period about 65. ... This article is about volcanoes in geology. ... The Eocene epoch (56-34 MYA) is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era. ... The Oligocene epoch is a geologic period of time that extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present. ... The Miocene epoch is a period of time that extends from about 23 to 5. ... The Cretaceous period is one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, reaching from the end of the Jurassic period, about 146 million years ago (Ma), to the beginning of the Paleocene epoch of the Tertiary period (65. ... The Precambrian is an informal name for the eons of the geologic timescale that came before the current Phanerozoic eon. ... Igneous rocks are formed when molten rock (magma) cools and solidifies, with or without crystallization, either below the surface as intrusive (plutonic) rocks or on the surface as extrusive (volcanic) rocks. ... The term Metamorphic can be associated with a number of meanings:- Metamorphic rock The term for rocks that have been transformed by extreme heat and pressure. ... The Quaternary Period is the geologic time period from the end of the Pliocene Epoch roughly 1. ... Basalt Basalt is an extrusive igneous rock, sometimes porphyritic, and is often both fine-grained and dense. ...

References

The lithology and stratigraphy section incorporates text from the USDA Forest Service, which is in the public domain. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

• The Great Gold Heist [1]
• USDA Forest Service - [2]
• Wilderness.net - [3]