The Arizona Geological Survey has just e-published field guides to Arizona geology. The 422-page series of illustrated guides is available for free download at http://repository.azgs.az.gov/uri_gin/azgs/dlio/1646
These guides were originally published as the proceedings of the 100th annual meeting of The Geological Society of America (GSA) was held in Phoenix, Arizona in October 1987. The newly available online guides are organized into separately downloadable sections.
One guide that may be of interest to laymen is “The Archaeological Geology of Paleo-Indian Sites in Southeastern Arizona” which begins on page 212 of the Southern Arizona section. This paper discusses the late Quaternary geologic history preserved in the sediments in the San Pedro Valley and the Sulphur Springs Valley in southeastern Arizona . “These sediments are host to some of the oldest archaeological remains in North America.” Along the San Pedro River near Tombstone, “The Murray Springs Clovis site is unique in that it contains three distinct activity areas where a band of Clovis hunters killed a mammoth and several bison and occupied a small campsite during two or three brief visits 11,000 years ago. The buried occupation surface is clearly displayed in the arroyo walls as an erosional contact at the base of a distinctive black organic mat that preserved artifacts and extinct animal bones in their original position, and mammoth tracks, just as they were left 11,000 years ago.”
Here are the papers and guides:
Field-Trip Guide for Marble Canyon and Eastern Grand Canyon
Field Guide to the Lower Grand Canyon, from Peach Springs to Pierce Ferry
Geology of the Lower Grand Canyon and Upper Lake Mead by Boat–An Overview
Geology of the Grand Canyon – A Hike Through Time
Upper Holocene Alluvium of the Southern Colorado Plateau
Late Pleistocene Alluvium and Megafauna Dung Deposits of the Central Colorado Plateau
Late Cenozoic Volcanism in the San Francisco and Mormon Volcanic Fields
A Field Guide to the Jemez Mountains Volcanic Field, New Mexico
Stratigraphy, Correlation, and Tectonic Setting of Late Cretaceous Rocks in the Kaiparowits and Black Mesa Basins
Field Guide to Sedimentary Structures in the Navajo and Entrada Sandstones in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona
Late Paleozoic Depositional Systems, Sedona-Jerome Area, Central Arizona
Tectonic and Magmatic Contrasts Across a Two-Province Proterozoic Boundary in Central Arizona
Geomorphology and structure of the Colorado Plateau/Basin and Range Transition Zone
Land Subsidence and Earth-Fissure Formation in Eastern Phoenix Metropolitan Area, Arizona
Selected Hydrogeologic Problems in Central Arizona
The Archaeological Geology of Paleo-Indian Sites in Southeastern Arizona
Terraces of the Lower Salt River Valley in Relation to the Late Cenozoic History of the Phoenix Basin, Arizona
Late Cenozoic Deposits, Vertebrate Faunas, and Magnetostratigraphy of Southeastern Arizona
Caldera Structures Along the Apache Trail in the Superstition Mountains, Arizona
Field Guide to Lower- and Upper-Plate Rocks of the South Mountains Detachment Zone, Arizona
Structural Geology of the Rincon and Pinaleno Metamorphic Core Complexes, Southeast Arizona
Pinto Valley Copper Deposit
Tectonic Setting and Sedimentological Features of Upper Mesozoic Strata in Southeastern Arizona
Lower Cretaceous Coral-Algal-Rudist Patch Reefs in Southeastern Arizona
Paleoecology and Taphonomy of Recent to Pleistocene Intertidal Deposits, Gulf of California
Volcanic Structures and Alkaline Rocks in the Pinacate volcanic field of Sonora, Mexico
The Mesquite and Picacho Gold Mines: Epithermal Mineralization localized within Tertiary Extensional Deformation
Mesozoic Tectonics of Southeastern California
Field-Trip Guide to Parts of the Harquahala, Granite Wash, Whipple, and Buckskin Mountains,
West-Central Arizona and Southeastern California
Metamorphic Core Complexes, Mesozoic ductile Thrusts, and Cenozoic Detachments: Old Woman Mountains-Chemehuevi Mountains Transect, California and Arizona
Miocene Extension, Volcanism, and Sedimentation in the Eastern Basin and Range Province, Southern Nevada
Crustal Transect: Colorado Plateau-Detachment Terrane-Salton Trough