Frenchman Mountain is located east of Las Vegas in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is not part of any mountain range. Made up of rocks similar to those found on the bottom of the Grand Canyon, Frenchman Mountain formed when faulting elevated it, giving it its sharp triangulated slope. It is the site of the Great Unconformity. It is underlain by Vishnu Schist rock, which is some of the oldest rock on the North American continent, having been created about two billion years ago.
State Route 147 crosses its northern slope. A geologically rich area called Rainbow Gardens is located to its southeast, as is an igneous laccolith, Lava Butte. The Frenchman Mountain Fault is a potential earthquake danger to the region.
It is commonly, and mistakenly, referred to as Sunrise Mountain, the name of a smaller peak to the north of Frenchman Mountain. The area from Cheyenne Avenue and Boulder Highway and Lamb Boulevard is commonly known as Sunrise Manor Township CDP.
Famous quotes containing the words frenchman and/or mountain:
“Hard if, though cast away for life with Yankees,
A Frenchman couldn’t get his human rating!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The broken ridge of the hills
was the line of a lover’s shoulder,
his arm-turn, the path to the hills,
the sudden leap and swift thunder
of mountain boulders, his laugh.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)