Ubehebe Crater

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Historical Significance UBEHEBE CRATER The crater was formed when magma migrated close to the surface and the heat of the magma caused groundwater to flash into steam, throwing large quantities of pulverized old rock and new magma across the stony alluvial fan draped across the valley floor. Ubehebe Crater is a large volcanic crater 600 feet deep and half a mile across. We often hear mistakenly that “Ubehebe” means “big basket”, but the Paiute name Ubehebe was first applied to the 5,678 ft. The magma rose through a fault that lies along the western base of Tin Mountain. Movement on this fault was responsible for uplift of the entire Cottonwood Mountains range. In 2012, new evidence suggested that the crater may be as young as 800 years old, although this estimation was a lower bound, and it’s still possible the crater is much older than that. Sergio Mares/ Landscape Architecture/ Spring 2019 Geographic Significance Cultural Significance Ubehebe Crater, located near the northern end of Death Valley, California, on a spur that extends north from Tin Mountain of the Panamint Range, and at a site slightly northwest from the elevation marked 3,925 feet on the Ballarat, California, quadrangle topographic sheet of the U.S. Geological Survey are two volcanic cones. The larger crater, nevertheless, is approximately 2,000 feet wide at the top and 500 feet deep. The smaller crater, Little Hebe is estimated to be 500 feet wide at the top and 150 feet deep. Due to the great porosity of the deposits, heavy rainfall goes into rather than over their surfaces - hence the clay accumulations at the bot- tom of the craters and it is only after chemical weathering of the fragments brings about some degree of consolidation that active dissection of the outer slopes of such cones takes place. Nevada The larger of the craters is well known locally, though it is not often visited by tourists. Very few people seem to be aware Death Valley of the existence of the smaller crater which is higher up on the mountain. As Death Valley becomes increasingly popular and accessible to tourists through the construction of roads and provision of hotels, ever greater numbers of persons will discov- er these craters. One gets the impression when walking over the deposits that something pristine is being destroyed. It will be regrettable if no measures are taken to prevent visitors to these perfect geological monuments from trampling the deposits out of all semblance of their original condition. UbehebeCraters.

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Upper Neogene Stratigraphy and Tectonics of Death Valley — a Review
Earth-Science Reviews 73 (2005) 245–270 www.elsevier.com/locate/earscirev Upper Neogene stratigraphy and tectonics of Death Valley — a review J.R. Knott a,*, A.M. Sarna-Wojcicki b, M.N. Machette c, R.E. Klinger d aDepartment of Geological Sciences, California State University Fullerton, Fullerton, CA 92834, United States bU. S. Geological Survey, MS 975, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States cU. S. Geological Survey, MS 966, Box 25046, Denver, CO 80225-0046, United States dTechnical Service Center, U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, P. O. Box 25007, D-8530, Denver, CO 80225-0007, United States Abstract New tephrochronologic, soil-stratigraphic and radiometric-dating studies over the last 10 years have generated a robust numerical stratigraphy for Upper Neogene sedimentary deposits throughout Death Valley. Critical to this improved stratigraphy are correlated or radiometrically-dated tephra beds and tuffs that range in age from N3.58 Ma to b1.1 ka. These tephra beds and tuffs establish relations among the Upper Pliocene to Middle Pleistocene sedimentary deposits at Furnace Creek basin, Nova basin, Ubehebe–Lake Rogers basin, Copper Canyon, Artists Drive, Kit Fox Hills, and Confidence Hills. New geologic formations have been described in the Confidence Hills and at Mormon Point. This new geochronology also establishes maximum and minimum ages for Quaternary alluvial fans and Lake Manly deposits. Facies associated with the tephra beds show that ~3.3 Ma the Furnace Creek basin was a northwest–southeast-trending lake flanked by alluvial fans. This paleolake extended from the Furnace Creek to Ubehebe. Based on the new stratigraphy, the Death Valley fault system can be divided into four main fault zones: the dextral, Quaternary-age Northern Death Valley fault zone; the dextral, pre-Quaternary Furnace Creek fault zone; the oblique–normal Black Mountains fault zone; and the dextral Southern Death Valley fault zone.
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