Little Cone

Little Cone is a prominent mountain in southwestern Colorado whose importance lies in how clearly it reveals the region’s geologic history. Rising west of Telluride in the San Miguel Mountains, it formed as a Miocene laccolith when magma pushed overlying rock upward, leaving a core chiefly of granogabbro. Around it are sedimentary layers ranging from the Permian through the Cretaceous, later shaped by Laramide folding, uplift, faulting, and extensive erosion. Younger conglomerate and volcanic rocks once covered the area but were stripped away. Pleistocene uplift and erosion added drift, valley fill, and landslide deposits, while nearby rocks also contain vanadium, low-grade uranium, and placer gold.

Colorado · United States