January 2, 2018
New publication release from AZGS – Release of maps displaying the Proterozoic geology of the Bradshaw Mtns. and environs by Phil Anderson.
Phil Anderson (Ph.D., University of Arizona) had a genius for mapping and interpreting the Proterozoic geology, tectonics, and mineral deposits of the Southwest. Unfortunately, his mapping was never made public, until now: ‘Precambrian Geologic Maps of the Bradshaw Mountains, Central Arizona’.
In Sept. 2017, Donna Smart, Phil’s widow, donated Phil’s geologic map products and files - his life’s work - to the Arizona Geological Survey. Steve Reynolds (ASU Earth and Space Science Exploration) organized and led a team of geoscientists in salvaging, reviewing, and selecting Anderson's geologic maps to release for the Bradshaw Mountains. Steve and his team also published a short note contextualizing Phil’s work, ‘The Philip Anderson Arizona Proterozoic Archive'.
From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, Phil Andersonscoured Arizona’s Transition Zone visiting and studying nearly every exposure of Proterozoic rocks. He described this work in his 1986 dissertation, ‘The Proterozoic tectonic evolution of Arizona’, and two subsequent papers from the Arizona Geological Society’s Digest 17, but he did not disclose his geologic maps. He issued, instead, small-scale, state-wide overviews of the distribution of Proterozoic rocks.