The Rawson Mountains are a mountain range in Riverside County,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The Rawson Mountains are located south of the Diamond Valley Lake, southeast of Domenigoni Valley, east of French Valley, west of Goodhart Canyon and north of Bachelor Mountain, Auld Valley (above

Lake Skinner Skinner Reservoir, also known as Lake Skinner, is a reservoir in western Riverside County, California, located at the foot of Bachelor Mountain in the Auld Valley, approximately northeast of Temecula. It was created in 1973 by the construction o ...

) and Black Mountain.USGS Topographic Map Quadrants
Winchester, CA Hemet, CA Bachelor Mountain, CA
an
Sage, CA
/ref> The Rawson Mountains are composed primarily of metamorphic rock of the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

French Valley formation, formed as a

roof pendant In structural geology, a roof pendant, also known as a pendant, is a mass of country rock that projects downward into and is entirely surrounded by an igneous intrusion such as a batholith or other pluton. In lay terminology sometimes "rock h ...

of the Peninsular Range Batholith. The extreme western end of the range and various intrusions within it are

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

granitic rock. Cris Goetz, Ray Brainard, Jill Carlson, Kerry Cato, Norm Holst, Dan Johnson, Don Riley and Martin Siem, ''Geology of the Eastside Reservoir Project, Riverside County, California'', Water for Southern California: Water Resources Development at the Close of the Century, San Diego Geological Soc, San Diego, Dec 1, 1999, p.47
/ref> Crown Valley in the midst of the range is drained to the south by Rawson Canyon Creek into Tucalota Creek before it enters Lake Skinner. Its western and northern slopes drain into Warm Springs Creek watershed of the

Santa Margarita River The Santa Margarita River which with the addition of what is now Temecula Creek, was formerly known as the Temecula River, is a short intermittent river on the Pacific coast of southern California in the United States, approximately U.S. Geologic ...

, or the reservoir. To the northeast the drainage is into the eastern Diamond Valley and the San Jacinto River.

References

Mountain ranges of Southern California Mountain ranges of Riverside County, California Peninsular Ranges {{RiversideCountyCA-geo-stub