At times on quiet
waters one does not speak aloud but only in whispers, for then all noise is
sacrilege. Sigurd Olson
This time of year,
as the temperature begins to cool a few degrees here in the woods of Wisconsin
(for example it was 68 degrees as I was reading in my front porch rocking chair
at 4:00 pm, August 9) my mind wanders off to far northern Minnesota and
Wisconsin, the home of the Canadian Shield, giant muskies, and calls of my
favorite bird, Common Loons (Gavia immer). It must be my genetics
of hatching from a long line of Danes and Swedes, although I also can trace one
other direct English lineage going back to arrival on the Mayflower. So, I fit
right in here in the small Village of Holmen, although many/most of the local Scandinavians
are of Norwegian ancestry, but they have accepted me as we both eat pickled
herring washed down with a shot of akvavit followed by a couple of krumkake.
This time of year, I
also break out my ancient copy of The Singing Wilderness (signed), written
by a boy from Ely, Minnesota, named Sigurd Olson, probably best known for his
work on protecting the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Wisconsin also
has their favorite naturalist, Aldo Leopold, author of The Sand Country
Almanac. Together these two books form the backbone of the conservation and
ecology movement, especially in the Midwest but also elsewhere—Olson helped
create Point Reyes National Seashore in California while Leopold created the
Gila Wilderness in New Mexico.
May after May my
pines follow their candles skyward, each headed straight for the zenith, and
each meaning to get there if only there be years enough before the last trumpet
blows. Aldo Leopold
At any rate, I
discovered The Singing Wilderness in 1967 and have reread it at least a
couple of dozen times. As I age it seems like I haul it out on a yearly basis
and begin to dream about the far North Woods, especially canoeing and fishing
and pounding on Precambrian rocks. Today my poor ole replaced knees do not
allow me to kneel in a canoe, but I am perfectly at home in a fishing boat and try
to head north every year. In mid-September I am hauling a friend from Hays,
Kansas, to Leech Lake, Minnesota, with a cabin and boat waiting for our arrival.
This upcoming trip occupies many of my daydreams.
Life in the fast
lane in the far north woods (actually Canada).
Wow, 1967 was 59
years ago, and there are “things” that really stick out in my mind. That was
the year I learned one of my favorite sayings: what we have here is a
failure to communicate as spoken by Boss Paul to Luke (Paul Newman) in the
movie Cool Hand Luke. I guess you must be of a certain age to remember weird things like
that!
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Photo courtesy of quotesgram.com.
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On a more personal
note, the year 1967 was monumental for me---no I did not participate in the
Summer of Love; however, in a space of two weeks I graduated with my M.A. from
the University of South Dakota, drove to Kansas and married (spouse still with
me), and then drove to Salt Lake City (And I'm bound to keep on riding, and
I've got one more silver dollar---Allman Bros Band) where I started
doctoral work at the University of Utah. As I tell my children (and
anyone else who will listen), it was an interesting time in our nation, and the
world. Nearly a half million people were serving our country in Southeast
Asia, and several were my friends, some of whom did not return alive. Many
college campuses were in turmoil.
The Middle East was
in flames again as Israel tangled with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the Six-Day
War. Things haven’t changed much today except the weapons have become more
deadly and powerful and certainly more expensive. Oh well, with a 38 trillion-dollar
national debt what is a billion here or a billion there!
On the social scene
discotheques appeared, even a few popped up in Salt Lake City, where young
ladies danced in suspended cages. Say it ain’t true dad. Yep, I
hate to say it son, but your mother and I actually observed this sort of
behavior while rocking to Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane belting out Somebody
to Love and White Rabbit. But don’t worry kid, we stayed away
from the magic weed—as if you could easily find it in 1967 Utah! And very
seldom did we visit an actual establishment that served alcoholic beverages and
provided a live band since our personal income was rather low! That fact
was not lost on my fellow grad students, and we were all in the same
boat. So, it was three quarts of beer for a buck to accompany our
spaghetti dinners.
On the academic side, it was field trips and field work that excited all
students. I mean, that is why we became geologists. At times the
trips were led by professors, at times by advanced grad students, and at times
by someone saying “we are heading to----somewhere---and leaving at six tomorrow
morning. Grab your spouse, tents and supplies and meet us at the corner
of ------.” We were GEOLOGISTS!! YEA.
He was born in
the summer of his 24th year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door.
John Denver
On one of our trips,
heading to the San Rafael Swell, we stopped near Soldier Summit (US 6 from
Spanish Fork to Price, Utah) at the former site of Colton. Yes, Colton is
still listed on the map, and a “general store” is present (sometimes open,
often not) but that is “new Colton.” The "old Colton" was a
little to the west and had the original name of Pleasant Valley Junction. It
was first constructed in the early1880’s as a stopping point for the newly
built Rio Grande Railroad. Pleasant Valley Junction provided coal and
water to refuel the engines that hauled coal cars from Price over the pass to
Spanish Fork/Provo. The area around Price has almost unlimited (it seems)
supplies of Cretaceous-age coal. In addition to the Price area coal, the hills
around Pleasant Valley Junction also produced coal, transported by a spur line,
for shipment to the west and for use as fuel for the train. By around
1897/1898 Pleasant Valley Junction had morphed into a sort of booming town and
was renamed Colton (as best that I can tell from the history books the name
honors a person associated with the railroad). Evidently the town started
shipping local agricultural products, ice (in the winter), and a strange, new
and rare hydrocarbon from some local mines, ozokerite.
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Google Earth ©
image of the Colton area. Soldier Summit is just to the north of the
upper border along US 6 leading to Spanish Fork/Provo. Price is to the
south on US 6.
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Ozokerite, a waxy
hydrocarbon, had been known from the Soldier Summit/Colton area since the
mid-1880s but serious mining did not take place until after the turn of the
century. The depth of the mine shafts was reported by Taft and Smith
(1905) to be in excess of 200 feet with several lateral drifts following veins
ranging from a few inches to three feet in thickness. Small powered
hoists (steam I presume) were used to transport the wax to the surface.
In addition, some shafts started at the surface and simply followed the veins
into the host rock fractures.
Taft and Smith
(1905) further noted that the distilling location consisted of a steam boiler
and engine, a crusher, and steam-heated vats with narrow bottoms. The
host rock and the ozokerite were crushed and ran into the long vats containing
water at boiling temperatures. Ozokerite begins to melt at ~ 136 degrees
F while the crushed host rock waste was driven out of the narrow-bottom vats by
a revolving screw. The floating ozokerite was skimmed off, placed in
pans, cooled, and then remelted to remove all moisture.
Engine and tender on a turntable at Pleasant Vally Junction cs. 1885.
Photo courtesy of Matthew M. who posted it on Narrow Gage Discussion Forum (https://ngdiscussion.net/) August 2025.
Ozokerite (AKA wax,
wax stone, earth wax, crack wax, ear wax, blister wax, paraffin wax, paraffin,
pietricikite, and others) is one of those strange and interesting solid
bitumens found in Utah, and in other places in the world. However, Utah
seems to have the greatest variety in the United States: kerogen in oil shales;
ozokerite (ozocerite), albertite, ingramite, glance pitch, gilsonite, tabbyite,
asphaltic (tar) sandstones, argulite, asphaltic limestones, wurtzilite,
liverite, elaterite (Hunt, 1963) and Chinese Wax (Ritzma, 1975); most bitumens
are associated with the Tertiary Green River Formation in the Uinta Basin.
Generally, the bitumens are solids with low melting points; however, some are
essentially heavy liquids as they “ooze” out of rocks---often depending on ambient
temperatures. The bitumens generally are distinguished from one another
by their fusing points (point at which they melt), solubility in carbon
disulfide, physical characters, specific gravity, sulfur content, Infrared
Absorption Spectra, refractive indices, and the hydrogen/carbon ratio. Hunt
(1963) arranged the Utah bitumens into four groups according to their
increasing fusing points: waxes (ozokerite), asphalts (tabbyite, liverite,
liquid gilsonite, argulite), asphaltites (gilsonite, grahamite, glance pitch,
asphalitic sandstones, asphalitic limestones), and pyrobitumens (wurtzilite,
ingramite, albertite). However, none of these bitumens meet the criteria that
would qualify them as true minerals.
Ozokerite in the
Colton/Soldier Summit area is generally black to brown-black in color often
with inclusions of yellow-green resinous material (pure ozokerite from several
European localities is colorless). It does not bend but seems malleable;
at times the material has a petroliferous odor. It is soft and can be
scratched with a finger-nail, cut with a knife, and has a “greasy feel.”
The hydrogen/carbon ration is about 85/15 and ozokerite has a very low specific
gravity of around 0.8-0 .9 (water is 1.0). The melting point of ozokerite
is low as it begins to melt at ~136 F degrees. This low melting point
allowed the early miners to boil the mine-run ozokerite in water and skim it
off the surface to help eliminate the impurities.
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Ozokerite
collected near Colton, Utah. Note the shiny surface that creates a
"slick" feel. Length is ~7.0 cm.
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Hunt (1963) grouped
the major bitumens of Utah (essentially the Uinta Basin) as oil shales, vein
deposits, and bituminous sandstones and each group occurs in a particular
sedimentary facies associated with the Tertiary Green River Formation.
The Green River rocks are mostly lacustrine (lake) deposits associated with
intermontane basins in Utah (Uinta), Colorado (Piceance), and Wyoming (Greater
Green River). The widespread oil shales are found in the lake rocks while
the bituminous vein deposits (including ozokerite) are associated with fracture
systems in the shore facies. Rocks of the subaerial facies seem devoid of
bitumens. Hunt (1963) further believed these solid bitumens started as
heavy oils and migrated along fault zones, or migrated updip, from the
lacustrine facies into the shoreline facies. He pointed out that some
wells in the Basin produce oil from fractured bituminous shale in the Green
River Formation and the “heavy fraction” is similar in composition to
ozokerite. Of course, the liquid fractions evaporated and oxidized leaving
behind the wax as the oil morphed into ozokerite (and other vein bitumens).
A similar vein
bitumen situation occurs near the summit of Daniels Canyon, the major mountain
pass on US 40 trending from Heber City to Vernal, Utah. Ritzma (1975)
reported the Chinese Wax Mine produced a hydrocarbon that ranges from very
viscous heavy oil to a very soft wax (depending on ambient temperature) that
fills the pore spaces of the badly fractured host rock. Composition of
the hydrocarbon is similar to ozokerite. Several decades ago, before my
claustrophobia blossomed, I somewhat explored parts of the mine and noticed a
black substance oozing from the rock. Later I found that the mine was
first claimed in 1909 and actually produced, by retorting or distilling, a
high-grade oil that was used in automobiles, lamps and the candle wax industry.
The commercialization of the mine seemed to be short.
The really
interesting aspect of the Chinese Wax Mine is the geological setting--it is
located on the far west margin of the Uinta Basin where the
Pennsylvanian-Permian Oquirrh Formation crops out and overlies the much
younger, early Tertiary Wasatch and Green River formations (the source rocks).
The Oquirrh is present here due to a large thrust fault (the Charleston)
“transporting” the rocks from several tens of miles to the west. In other
words, the marine rocks of the Oquirrh were originally deposited in a
Pennsylvanian-Permian Basin west of Salt Lake City and “thrusted’ along a low
angle fault many miles to the east. The oil evidently migrated along a fracture
zone from the lacustrine facies of the Green River Formation several miles
toward the center of the Uinta Basin (Ritzma, 1975).
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Diagram of a
thrust fault with compression from the left pushing older rocks over younger
rocks. Note the blue layer is older than the green layer.
However, in the area of the white circle note the older layer (blue) is
sitting on the younger layer (green). Public Domain sketch courtesy of
Mikenorton.
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Thrust faults are
one of the wonders of geology. In describing these magnificent features
Hintz (2005) stated: lifting a brick house off its foundation and putting it
on wheels to move it somewhere else is something we’ve seen and can
understand. But taking a stack of rock strata 2 or 3 miles thick and
several tens or even hundreds of miles long and wide and moving it 50 or 60
miles on its own bedding planes or fracture zones and having it arrive at its
destination in some coherent shape is something we find almost
unbelievable! Yet evidence this commonly happens during an orogeny is
undeniable… In Utah, these thrust faults were caused by crustal
shortening due to plate collision and compression to the west.
Ozokerite originally
was used in candle making (a higher melting point), mixed with rubber (not
synthetic) to construct electrical insulators, boot polish, a skin balm, and
distilled into light oil. Today all ozokerite is obtained by distilling
petroleum products and is mainly used in various beauty products as a binder,
emulsion stabilizer or a thickener. It is used to add strength to
lipstick and compact eye shadow. It is also found in some brands of skin care
lotions, suntan lotions, and fragrance. Perhaps one should check the
label on makeup; however, it may be listed as ceresin, a “purified”
ozokerite. I did a quick check at the local pharm and noted that several
brands of lip balm contained ozokerite. Ain’t geology fun?
REFERENCES CITED
Hintze, L.F., 2005,
Utah’s Spectacular geology: Department of Geology, Brigham Young University,
Provo, Utah.
Hunt, J.M., 1963,
Composition and origin of the Uinta Basin bitumens in Oil and gas
possibilities of Utah, re-evaluated, A.L. Crawford (Ed.), Utah Geological and
Mineralogical Survey, Bulletin 54, Paper 24.
Ritzma, H.R., 1975,
The Chinese Wax Mine; A unique oil-impregnated rock deposit: Utah Geology; vol.
2, no. 1.
Taft, J.A., and C.D.
Smith, 1905, Ozokerite deposits in Utah: Contributions to Economic Geology.
Life
is good to those who know how to live. I do not ever hope to accumulate great
funds of worldly wealth, but I shall accumulate something far more valuable, a
store of wonderful memories. When I reach the twilight of life I shall look
back and say I'm glad I lived as I did, life has been good to me. Sigurd
F. Olson
* This posting is a rewrite of one appearing several years ago.
