Chuska Mountains

Major peaks of the Chuskas include:[1] Much of the range is Navajo Nation Forest; ponderosa pine, spruce, and fir are among the important tree varieties.

Trees there were cut and transported more than 75 km (about 50 miles) to the east to construct pueblos in Chaco Culture National Historical Park in the San Juan Basin as early as 974 A.D.

Runoff from snowmelt and seasonal thunderstorms along the crest of the Chuskas generates more than half the surface water of the Navajo Nation.

Trading posts at Crystal and at Two Grey Hills (about 10 km east of Toadlena), are associated with distinctive patterns used in Navajo rugs.

Relative uplift, basin subsidence, and monocline formation began in the early stages of the Laramide orogeny about 75 to 80 million years ago.

Biotite in layers of altered volcanic ash within the Chuska Sandstone has yielded radiometric ages of 35 and 33 million years by argon-argon dating.

The erg hypothesis is consistent with major exhumation of the central Colorado Plateau in the late Oligocene and early Miocene (e.g., from about 26 to 16 million years ago).

Very little oil has been produced in Arizona, and much of that production has come from a minette sill, the reservoir rock of the Dineh-bi-Keyah field in the northwestern Chuska Mountains near Roof Butte.