Geology Through the Radio - Honky Cat

 

While many songs have the possibility to be examined in a geological sense, there are few as blatant with their geological references as Elton John's "Honky Cat"

Honky Cat

When I look back, boy, I must have been green

Bopping in the country, fishing in a stream

Looking for an answer, trying to find a sign

Until I saw your city lights, honey, I was blind

They said, get back, honky cat

Better get back to the woods

Well, I quit those days and my redneck ways

And, mmhm-hm-hm, oh, change is gonna do me good

You better get back, honky cat

Living in the city ain't where it's at

It's like trying to find gold in a silver mine

It's like trying to drink whiskey, oh, from a bottle of wine

Well, I read some books, and I read some magazines

About those high-class ladies down in New Orleans

And all the folks back home, well, said I was a fool

They said, oh, believe in the Lord is the golden rule

They said, get back, honky cat

Better get back to the woods

But I quit those days and my redneck ways

And, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, oh, change is gonna do me good

They said, get back, honky cat

Better get back to the woods

Well, I quit those days and my redneck ways

And, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, change is gonna do me good

They said, stay at home, boy, you gotta tend the farm

Living in the city, boy, is, is going to break your heart

But how can you stay when your heart says no?

How can you stop when your feet say go?

You better get back, honky cat

Better get back to the woods

Well, I quit those days and my redneck ways

And, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, oh, the change is gonna do me good

You better get back, honky cat

Living in the city ain't where it's at

It's like trying to find gold in a silver mine

It's like trying to drink whiskey, oh, from a bottle of wine

Oh, yeah

Get back, honky cat

Get back, honky cat

Get back, woo

Get back, honky cat

Get back, honky cat

Get back, woo

Oh, get back, honky cat

Get back, get back, honky cat, woo

(Oh yeah, redneck ways and, woo)

Geology

While not pervasively throughout the song, there is one line that pops up a couple of times: "It's like trying to find gold in a silver mine". While this might seem like a simple phrase because who would go looking for gold in a silver mine, the formation of gold and silver deposits are linked and they are actually found together quite frequently. In many silver mines, gold typically accounts for 0.5-5% of production because gold and silver veins (along with many other precious metals) are produced from the cycling of hydrothermal waters surrounding a volcano.

Mineral vein creation from hydrothermal fluids. Image courtesy of web-japan.org. 

Magma's have all sorts of dissolved elements and minerals in them. As the magmas heat up the surrounding countryside near a volcanic source (or potential volcano) also heats up. This includes the groundwater, producing hydrothermal fluids that becomes enriched in the minerals from the magma as well as minerals from the surrounding rock. As these fluid travel through cracks and fissures of the much cooler rocks further away from the magma, the fluids cool down and mineral deposits are precipitated. 

View of the Bingham Canyon Mine facing west

The presence of these precious metals also indicates something else about the environment. Even if there is no volcanic activity at the moment in these areas, it means that there was once volcanic activity there. Utah's Bingham Copper Mine is a perfect example, where there is clearly no volcanic activity anywhere currently near the mine, however, at one point in the past there must have been, because of the deposition of not only a large abundance of copper, but also silver and gold within the mine. 

Diagram of the Farallon Plate subduction zone along the western United States. Image courtesy of the NPS.

I go into more detail on the Bingham Copper mine HERE, however a short version of it is that at one time there was a subduction zone along the western coast of North America that produced volcanoes across the western US. Around 30 to 40 million years ago, that line of volcanoes was located within Utah. Magma was slowly injected into the Oquirrh Mountains, predominantly into the 300 to 350 million years old rock formation known as the Oquirrh Group. These rocks, laid down in the Carboniferous (i.e. the Pennsylvanian and the Mississippian), are composed mostly of quartzites and limestone beds. This magma body slowly cooled to form what is known as the Bingham Stock, an igneous body identified as a monzonite porphyry. In addition to the magma body itself, is that the hot magma produces a lot of hydrothermal fluids within proximity of the magma body. These hydrothermal fluids move the heavy metals (such as gold, copper, silver, etc.) from within the magma and redeposit them within the surrounding landscape. 

So the Utah version of this is "It's like trying to find gold in a copper mine"

You can see the rest of the Geology Through the Radio postings on my website.