This site is not uncommon throughout the state. This is near Tucson, or in Tucson on the Southwest edge of the Tucson Mountains. The Tucson Mountains, which come right up to Tucson’s downtown’s west side, once were said to be on top of the Catalina Mountains, centered approx. 20 miles Northeast.
Blowing-up this image will reveal a building project I assume is on a bit of a hold due to the state of the economy. You will also see many more saguaro cactus in the distance. Tucson tends to be partly immune to economic turn-downs, due to retirement and relocation movement to the Southwest. While I worked in construction all over Tucson, home buyers were often from the Midwest and California. Californians could get much more for their money here and keep some left over from their home sales. Tucson is probably not quite the exchange bargain it once was.
They were the top of the ancient Volcanic peak. Last I recall, the Catalina Mountains are a rare form of granite or batholith formation that occurs only three places on earth, another being in Australia. They were much taller than their current approx 9,000 feet. Much of Tucson is the debris of their decomposition. The ground that is!
Tucson was the largest City getting all of its water from the once large aquifer under the City held by the sands of the decomposed granite. It is said that there is a great aquifer approx 50 miles Northeast of there around Mount Graham, about the size of Lake Erie but is not of good drinking quality.
Kitt Peak National Observatory is about an hour or less from this photo, on an Indian Reservation. Many of the highest mountains around Tucson are holding major telescopes. I believe some are from the large Mirror Lab under the University of Arizona athletic field. It cast very large single lens reflectors. These can have harrowing climbs up those nearby mountains, with the driver of the truck poised to jump out, if for some reason, the huge heavy mirror was to topple the truck.
This photo of the Santa Rita’s, approx 45 min from Tucson was taken today. This photo is blown up from a freeway shot. The telescope on the high peak to the right did not show that signature familiar cylinder. It is quite amazing to be able to see those telescopes on Kitt Peak approx 60 miles away, yet when up there be able to walk around them easily in a minute.
The San Xavier Mission is this side of the base of that mountain, the “White Dove of the Desert” 20-30 min from downtown Tucson. In the right of the photo is a not to visible “dust devil”. Today was a first day of the actual monsoon season, which brings needed rains, sometimes from sever thunderstorms, to the region during mostly July, August and some of September. The often blue sky of much of the year is a textbook of cloud formations and dramatic sunsets such as this;
