Taking a quick business trip to the Phoenix/Mesa area. Can anyone recommend points of interests to a geologist? Looks like I’ll have about 6 hours to kill on Monday and Tuesday afternoons. Is the Superstition Mountain & Museum worth checking out?

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You might enjoy a trip past Lost Dutchman State Park (now closed I believe) into the Tonto Nat. Forest. It's a dirt road but I thought it interesting.

Superior Arizona, 55 miles east of Phoenix is a working mining town. It is also home to Boyce Thompson Arboretum which is nice.

Lost Dutchmans is cool as is Apache Junction. Apache Trail is super cool, but stopping at Tortilla Flats Tortilla Flat Arizona - Apache Trail & Superstition Mountain is very nice.

Papago Park close in is nice, it is also home to The Desert Botanical Gardens.HIKING TRAILS PAPAGO PARK

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If you do go to Superior and have the time, take highway 177 from Superior toward Kelvin. You'll get to an overlook for the Ray Mine, a HUGE open pit copper mine. Pretty cool.

I don't know anything about the mentioned museum, but, the Arizona Mining and Minerals Museum, in the Capitol Complex, 1502 W. Washington, just west of downtown Phoenix may interest you (8-5, weekdays, $2/adults). Assuming you're mobile, but without 4WD, here are two alternative routes that will bring you back to Mesa in daylight, assuming noon departure, from Mesa:

US 60/Superstition Freeway east to Idaho Rd. exit, marked for "Canyon Lake" AZ 88, &tc., to AZ 88/"Apache Trail. (peneplain to south of xway, Goldfield block-faulted mountains to north) Follow signs toward "Canyon Lake/&tc.", to AZ 88, the famous Apache Trail. Spectacularly scenic (especially in afternoon or early light,) but interesting geologically, I think, only in geomorphological terms, because of H2O erosion. Otherwise, it's only tuff, but its our, lichen enhanced tuff...

Once you reach the terminus of the Apache Trail, turn left, toward Rye, AZ, or right toward Globe.

The route toward Rye will lead you through the Tonto Basin, its lowest levels submerged under the presently very full Roosevelt Lake impoundment, around which the highway meanders. The granite peaks to the west are the Mazatzal range, with amethyst and molybdenum mines and now defunct but once significant cinnabar mines (which contributed significantly to the WWII war effort, providing lots of mercury for primers and etc.), to the east, across the basin, the block faulted, stratified Sierra Anchas, with high grade asbestos, and a little uranium, and, maybe, someday, some economically viable iron. Follow 188 to intersection of AZ 87, the Beeline Highway, thence south, returning to POB, through an odd assembly of rocks and such beyond my ken --- basalt caprock on top of tuff and unconsolidated alluvium, (remnants of the biblical flood?), under layers of very old (lower), and fairly new (highest) granite, comprising the Four Peaks and other outcrops along the spine of the Mazatzal Range.

Alternately, at the Apache Trail terminus, turn south on AZ 188, proceeding through the Superstitions' bajada, to the intersection of US60, at Claypool (Globe), AZ, the epicenter of local underground and open pit copper mining, which alters the landscape on a mind-altering scale.
Take US 60 west toward Phoenix, noting along the way dramatic synclines and anticlines, Devils Canyon (erosion, illustrated), and Oak Flat, the site of a proposed new CU mine, embroiled, as ever, in environmental, and "Native American" archeological issues.

Hope this helps. And, if I've got any of this wrong, please advise...

Take a drive on the Apache Trail, East of Phoenix. It runs from Apache Junction to Globe and is a spectacular drive through the Superstition Mountains. Visit the Tonto National Monument along the way

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Thanks for all of your recommendations, I’m greatly appreciative. I only wish I had more time to spend in the area. Looks like the drive thru Superstition Mts taking the 88/188/60 route is spetacular.

jck – thanks for your in depth description. I could almost picture the scenery in my head as I read your post. I’m going to print it out and pin it to the car’s visor as I make that road trip.

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make sure you travel with plenty of water.... just in case

Dan

Roger that. I've traveled many miles in Nevada & southern Utah with the family & always made sure we had plenty of water.

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Inconsistently consistent