Drum Mountains

The Drum Mountains are in Utah. They lie in the greater Basin and Range Province, which is a series of generally north-south trending mountain ranges and valleys (or basins) extending from central Utah to eastern California, and from southern Idaho into Sonora, Mexico.^[1]

Geology

During the Cambrian period this area was underwater, which produced the marine sediments (limestones and shales) seen today in outcrop. The formations from this time are generally deeper water deposits (ramp-to-basin and outer-shelf).^[1] The Drum Mountains are complete (meaning there are no missing gaps in time) and are generally undisturbed. This is the reason why the beginning of the Drumian stage of the geologic time scale was defined here.^[2]

History

The Drum Mountains reportedly got their name because of the sound of "drums" coming from the mountains. Early settlers and visitors mentioned that, from time to time, they could hear a very strange sound emanating from the part of the range that was near the old mining settlement of Joy, and that it was a drum type sound. To quote from an article: " Legend has it that the name of the range comes from a low, rumbling sound, like drums, that comes from deep within the ground around the ghost town of Joy."

Mining in the area was reported at Joy by John Van Cott: "Joy (Juab) was a small mining settlement in the Drum Mountains near Mount Laird, southeast of the Fish Spring Range. Today it is a ghost town site thirty miles northwest of Delta, UT. Harry Joy was a mining engineer from Detroit, Michigan. In 1872 he and his partner, Charles Howard, organized the Detroit Mining District with the new town of Joy as its center. Isolation and the cost of transporting ores and supplies and also the lack of water forced the mine to shut down.^[3]

References