DOCSLIB.ORG

T)Eath %Jaluy NATIONAL MONUMENT

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
T)Eath %Jaluy NATIONAL MONUMENT T)eath %JalUy NATIONAL MONUMENT CALIFORNIA NEVADA UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Oscar L. Chapman, Secretary DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE • Conrad L. Wirth, Director NATIONAL MONUMENT Contents Open all year • Regular season, October IS to May IS CLOUD FLAMES (Photo by FLOYD B. EVANS, A.P.S.A.) Cover BEFORE THE WHITE MAN CAME 3 The National Park System, of which Death Valley National Monument THE HISTORICAL DRAMA 4 is a unit, is dedicated to the conservation of America's scenic, scientific, TALES WRITTEN IN ROCK AND LANDSCAPE 5 and historic heritage for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. DESERT WILDLIFE . 10 DESERT PLANT LIFE 11 INTERPRETIVE SERVICES 12 DEATH VALLEY National Monument, other mountain in the 48 States. WHAT TO SEE AND DO WHILE IN THE MONUMENT 12 embracing nearly 2 million acres of primi­ The maximum air temperature of 134° F. HOW TO REACH DEATH VALLEY 13 tive unspoiled desert country, was estab­ in the shade recorded in Death Valley was lished by Presidential proclamation on a world record until 1922 when 136.4° F. MONUMENT SEASON 14 February 11, 1933. Famed as a scene of was reported from Azizia, Tripoli. Tempera­ WHAT TO WEAR 14 suffering in the gold-rush drama of 1849, tures near Badwater have probably been Death Valley has long been known to ACCOMMODATIONS 14 even hotter. These extreme temperatures scientist and layman alike as a region rich are known only during the summer ADMINISTRATION 15 in scientific and human interest. Its dis­ months. PLEASE HELP PROTECT THIS MONUMENT 15 tinctive types of scenery, its geological Through the winter season, from late phenomena, flora, fauna, and climate are October until May, the climate is usually unique. ideal. The days are generally warm and Historic Invents The monument is situated in the rugged sunny and nights are cool and invigorating. 1844 Fremont party, following old Spanish 1871 Further explorations for Government by desert region lying east of the Sierra Nevada The Valley is famous for its consistently Trail, camped within sight of south end of Wheeler and Lyle. in eastern California and southwestern fair weather, minimum rainfall, and ex­ Death Valley. 1872 Panamint mines discovered. Panamint Nevada. The Valley itself is about 140 tremely low relative humidity. The average booms in 1874. 1849 Jayhawkers, Georgians, Bennett-Arcane miles long with the forbidding Panamint number of clear days in a calendar year is party, and others entered Valley through 1873 First borax discovered in Valley. Furnace Creek on Christmas Day. Range forming the western wall and the 283, although in one year 351 clear days 1875 Further exploration by Lt. Rogers Birnie. precipitous slopes of the Amargosa Range 1856 First General Land Office survey of Death were recorded. The average annual precipi­ Valley. 1880 Aaron Winters sold borax claims for $20,- bounding it on the east. Running in a gen­ 000. Borax industry in Valley started. tation at headquarters during the past 15 eral northwesterly direction, the Valley is 1860 Darwin French and S. G. George prospect­ 1891 Biological expedition by Merriam, Palmer, years is 2.03 inches. ing parties explored Panamints and parts Coville, and others. narrow in comparison to its length ranging of Valley, giving many place names still in width from 4 to 16 miles. Nearly 550 in use. 1904 Goldfield mining boom, resulting in mining Before the White Man Came to camps of Rhyolite, Skidoo, Greenwater, square miles of the Valley floor are below 1861 Lieutenant Ives explored region for Cali­ 1908 etc. fornia Boundary Commission, using camels sea level. The area in the vicinity of For centuries, the Death Valley region has as pack animals. Prospecting parties 1926 Stove Pipe Wells Hotel and Furnace Creek Badwater is 282 feet below sea level, the active. to Inn established. Eichbaum toll road been inhabited by the Panamint Indians, a 1927 built from Darwin. Beginning of tourist lowest land in the Western Hemisphere. small offshoot of the Shoshone Nation. 1864 Jacob Breyfogle lost the famed Breyfogle traffic to Valley. Telescope Peak, towering 11,328 feet above mine. Driven from their homes in the North 1933 Death Valley National Monument estab­ the Valley floor, probably stands higher lished. many generations ago, these Indians mi­ 1870 Bellerin Tex Bennett started Furnace Creek above its immediate surroundings than any Ranch. 1937 Boundaries of monument extended. grated to Death Valley where they were 2 3 least subject to molestation by their more starved. William Lewis Manly and John water Railroad was built to the edge of the portion of its exhibits cataloged. Although warlike brothers. Capable of great endur­ Rogers were sent on ahead in a desperate Valley to carry out colemanite borate, but studies have been made, it will probably be ance, ingenious in the utilization of every attempt to find a way to civilization and to was abandoned when a richer deposit of many years before more than a superficial edible or otherwise useful plant, eating any bring aid if possible. After a trip of terrific borax (kernite) was discovered on the understanding of its complex geology can animal they could catch, following the hardship, they finally returned and led their Mojave Desert. Death Valley was also be obtained. Enough is known, however, seasons in incessant migration from Valley group to safety. Pausing on the crest of the brought to the attention of the public to show that a remarkable story of its floor to mountain crest, they managed to Panamint Range, the weary emigrants through the exploits of Walter Scott, ex- origin can eventually be told. persist. They called Death Valley "Tome- looked back across the Valley—the tre­ cowboy of Buffalo Bill fame, who became A tremendous span of geological time is sha," which means "ground afire." Since mendous barrier that had caused so much known as Death Valley Scotty. In time, indicated in the exposed rocks in the the coming of the white man their numbers privation and suffering—and cried, "Good- adventurous visitors drove their cars into monument. All of the great divisions of have greatly diminished and their old cus­ by, Death Valley." While many lives were the Valley, cursed its then abominable geological time, called eras, and nearly all toms and arts have been largely lost. A few lost along the trail, a "Captain" Culverwell roads, but came again. With better roads, of their subdivisions, or periods, are rep­ of these Indians still live in a small village was the only emigrant of 1849 to die within and all America on wheels, it was inevita­ resented. If the layers of rocks were pieced on a reservation in the Furnace Creek Death Valley. ble that Death Valley would come into its together and restored to their proper neighborhood. Their baskets are sold at the In the next few years some of the "Forty- own as a national playground. sequence, their total thickness would Inn and Ranch. niners," undaunted, returned as guides or probably exceed 12 miles. However, the on their own to prospect and search for the strata have been so greatly distorted, Lost Gunsight silver lode. Gradually the Tales Written in Rock and The Historical Drama Landscape broken and jumbled, that the story is far country became better known. Panamint from being complete and is difficult to City and later Skidoo, Greenwater, Rhyo- There is no record that the early Spaniards, Death Valley has often been described as a read. Much of the mixed record has been lite, and Chloride City lived their short or John Charles Fremont, who probably vast geological museum, with only a small buried beneath lava flows, and under rain- saw the southern end of Death Valley in lives and died, leaving only tumbled shacks, 1844, entered and explored the region. The weathered timbers, and broken bottles to first scene in the recorded drama of the mark their sites. Valley was written in 1849. Occasionally, the prospectors struck it 20-Mule Team. Frasher's Photos, Pomona, Calif. It remained for a band of half-starved rich in the rugged peaks and baren canyons emigrants, pushing westward on a sup­ which isolated the Valley from the sur­ posed short cut to the newly discovered rounding, less-forbidding desert. Itinerant gold fields, actually to enter Death Valley prospectors prodded their burros from one in the winter of that year. They were lost water hole to the next, following Indian in the wilderness, hungry and tired, and trails or beating out new tracks, and crossed the wide salt floor of the Valley, with the and recrossed the ranges from one end of towering Panamints beyond, was the last the Valley to the other. Some of them were blow to their morale. Losing all semblance careless or unacquainted with the country— of order, the train separated into seven they missed springs, lost their burros, or groups, each seeking its own escape. One lingered too long on the floor of the Valley group, known as the Jayhawker party, in summer. Their remains, dried and picked abandoned almost all of its equipment, clean by kit fox and raven, were eventually made its exit through a canyon later named found and buried beside the trail. Jayhawker Canyon, and crossed Panamint Borax was finally responsible for the Valley and the Mojave Desert. After suffer­ partial taming of the Valley. In the 1880's, ing tremendous hardships, they finally "cottonball" borax (ulexite) was refined at reached Sutter's Fort. the Harmony Borax Works and freighted Another group, the Bennett-Arcane over agonizing miles of desert in huge party, crossed the salt flats. They camped high-wheeled wagons drawn by 20-mule for 26 days at Tule Spring and nearly teams.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Syn-Eruptive, Soft-Sediment Deformation of Deposits
    Solid Earth, 6, 553–572, 2015 www.solid-earth.net/6/553/2015/ doi:10.5194/se-6-553-2015 © Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Syn-eruptive, soft-sediment deformation of deposits from dilute pyroclastic density current: triggers from granular shear, dynamic pore pressure, ballistic impacts and shock waves G. A. Douillet1, B. Taisne2, È. Tsang-Hin-Sun3, S. K. Müller4, U. Kueppers1, and D. B. Dingwell1 1Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany 2Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 3Université of Brest and CNRS, Laboratoire Domaines Océaniques, Plouzaré, France 4Meteorological Institute, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany Correspondence to: G. A. Douillet ([email protected]) Received: 17 November 2014 – Published in Solid Earth Discuss.: 16 December 2014 Revised: 16 April 2015 – Accepted: 20 April 2015 – Published: 21 May 2015 Abstract. Soft-sediment deformation structures can provide to be the signature of shear instabilities occurring at the valuable information about the conditions of parent flows, boundary of two granular media. They may represent the sediment state and the surrounding environment. Here, the frozen record of granular, pseudo Kelvin–Helmholtz examples of soft-sediment deformation in deposits of dilute instabilities. Their recognition can be a diagnostic for pyroclastic density currents are documented and possible flows with a granular basal boundary layer. Vertical syn-eruptive triggers suggested. Outcrops from six different inter-penetration and those folds-and-faults features related volcanoes have been compiled in order to provide a to slumps are driven by their excess weight and occur | downloaded: 11.10.2021 broad perspective on the variety of structures: Soufrière after deposition but penecontemporaneous to the eruption.
    [Show full text]
  • Death Valley National Park
    COMPLIMENTARY $3.95 2019/2020 YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE PARKS DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK ACTIVITIES • SIGHTSEEING • DINING • LODGING TRAILS • HISTORY • MAPS • MORE OFFICIAL PARTNERS T:5.375” S:4.75” PLAN YOUR VISIT WELCOME S:7.375” In T:8.375” 1994, Death Valley National SO TASTY EVERYONE WILL WANT A BITE. Monument was expanded by 1.3 million FUN FACTS acres and redesignated a national park by the California Desert Protection Act. Established: Death Valley became a The largest national park below Alaska, national monument in 1933 and is famed this designation helped focus protection for being the hottest, lowest and driest on one the most iconic landscapes in the location in the country. The parched world. In 2018 nearly 1.7 million people landscape rises into snow-capped mountains and is home to the Timbisha visited the park, a new visitation record. Shoshone people. Death Valley is renowned for its colorful Land Area: The park’s 3.4 million acres and complex geology. Its extremes of stretch across two states, California and elevation support a great diversity of life Nevada. and provide a natural geologic museum. Highest Elevation: The top of This region is the ancestral homeland Telescope Peak is 11,049 feet high. The of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe. The lowest is -282 feet at Badwater Basin. Timbisha established a life in concert Plants and Animals: Death Valley with nature. is home to 51 mammal species, 307 Ninety-three percent of the park is bird species, 36 reptile species, two designated wilderness, providing unique amphibian species and five fish species.
    [Show full text]
  • Beryllium-10 Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclide Surface Exposure Dating of Quaternary Landforms in Death Valley
    Geomorphology 125 (2011) 541–557 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Geomorphology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geomorph Beryllium-10 terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide surface exposure dating of Quaternary landforms in Death Valley Lewis A. Owen a,⁎, Kurt L. Frankel b, Jeffrey R. Knott c, Scott Reynhout a, Robert C. Finkel d,e, James F. Dolan f, Jeffrey Lee g a Department of Geology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA b School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA c Department of Geological Sciences, California State University, Fullerton, California, USA d Department of Earth and Planetary Science Department, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-4767, USA e CEREGE, BP 80 Europole Méditerranéen de l'Arbois, 13545 Aix en Provence Cedex 4, France f Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA g Department of Geological Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, USA article info abstract Article history: Quaternary alluvial fans, and shorelines, spits and beach bars were dated using 10Be terrestrial cosmogenic Received 10 March 2010 nuclide (TCN) surface exposure methods in Death Valley. The 10Be TCN ages show considerable variance on Received in revised form 3 October 2010 individual surfaces. Samples collected in the active channels date from ~6 ka to ~93 ka, showing that there is Accepted 18 October 2010 significant 10Be TCN inheritance within cobbles and boulders. This
    [Show full text]
  • DOCKETED 1516 Ninth Street 09-RENEW EO-1 Sacramento, CA 95814-5512 TN 75171 [email protected] FEB 23 2015
    PO Box 63 Shoshone, CA 92384 760.852.4339 www.amargosaconservancy.org February 23, 2015 California Energy Commission California Energy Commission Dockets Office, MS-4 Docket No. 09-RENEW EO-01 DOCKETED 1516 Ninth Street 09-RENEW EO-1 Sacramento, CA 95814-5512 TN 75171 [email protected] FEB 23 2015 Re: The DRECP and the Amargosa Watershed On behalf of the members and Board of Directors of the Amargosa Conservancy, please accept our comments herein on the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. Please refer to our second comment letter, dated February 23, 2015, for our comments on National Conservation Lands and Special Recreation Management Areas. Please also refer to the letter from Kevin Emmerich and Laura Cunningham, dated January 30, 2015, which the Amargosa Conservancy is signatory to. This letter details the need for a new program alternative in the DRECP which properly evaluates rooftop solar. To sum the key points of this letter: No groundwater pumping should be permissible in the Amargosa Watershed, including Charleston View, Silurian Valley, and Stewart Valley. Such activities would cause direct mortality of endangered species such as the Amargosa vole. USFWS take permits should be required for any groundwater pumping, and such permits should not be issued given the precarious conservation status of the vole. No mitigation can adequately compensate the ecosystem for the damage done by groundwater withdrawal. Retirement of water rights is not sufficient, and monitoring and triggering schemes are completely inadequate to protect the resources of the Amargosa Wild and Scenic River. Due to numerous biological, cultural, and social resource conflicts, Charleston View is not an appropriate place for utility-scale solar, should not be designated as a Development Focus Area (DFA).
    [Show full text]
  • California State University, Northridge
    CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE THE CHANGING FACE OF TOURISM IN DEATH VALLEY A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts in Geography By Tina White December 2013 The thesis of Tina White is approved: ____________________________________ _____________________ Ronald Davidson, Ph.D. Date ____________________________________ _____________________ Edward Jackiewicz, Ph.D. Date ____________________________________ _____________________ Julie E. Laity, Ph.D., Chair Date California State University, Northridge ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I acknowledge, and most heartily thank, the CSUN faculty members who have continuously supported and encouraged me through the (too) many years I have spent working towards this degree. First and foremost, I am grateful for and to my thesis advisor, Professor Julie Laity, who has taught me about physical geography and academic success in the classroom, in the field, and during our talks in her office. And, of course, there is she from whom I have learned so much geomorphology and with whom I have had so much fun in the field: Professor Amalie Orme. To my thesis committee members Ron Davidson and Ed Jackiewicz, thank you so much for your time and assistance; I appreciate your expertise and input. Further, I have been fortunate to have taken classes with and/or had the opportunity to learn informally from the entire CSUN Geography Department faculty teaching from 1997 through the present at one time or another, as well as from some great folks in the CSUN Geology Department. I have learned something from each and every one of you, and will be eternally grateful. I also want to thank multiple employees at Death Valley National Park, in particular Terry Baldino and Alex Cabana and their numerous staff members, who took the time to speak with me about this topic; their input was invaluable and their insights intriguing.
    [Show full text]
  • Ubehebe Crater
    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 cra- ter 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Death Valley National Monument
    DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL MONUMENT D/ETT H VALLEY NATIONAL 2 OPEN ALL YEAR o ^^uJv^/nsurty 2! c! Contents 2 w Scenic Attractions 2 2! Suggested Trips in Death Valley 4 H History 7 Indians 8 Wildlife 9 Plants 12 Geology 18 How To Reach Death Valley 23 By Automobile 23 By Airplane, Bus, or Railroad 24 Administration 25 Naturalist Service 25 Free Public Campground 25 Accommodations 25 References 27 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR- Harold L. Ickes, Secretary NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Arno B. Cammerer, Director UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON EATH VALLEY National Monument was created by Presidential proclamation on 2February 11), 1933, and enlarged to its present dimensions on March 26, 1937. Embracing 2,981 square miles, or nearly 2 million acres of primitive, unspoiled desert country, it is the second largest area administered by the National Park Service in the United States proper. Famed as the scene of a tragic episode in the gold-rush drama of '49, Death Valley has long been known to scientist and layman alike as a region rich in scientific and human interest. Its distinctive types of scenery, its geological phenomena, its flora, and climate are not duplicated by any other area open to general travel. In all ways it is different and unique. The monument is situated in the rugged desert region lying east of the High Sierra in eastern California and southwestern Nevada. The valley itself is about 140 miles in length, with the forbidding Panamint Range forming the western wall, and the precipitous slopes of the Funeral Range bounding it on the east.
    [Show full text]
  • Estimated Potentiometric Surface of the Death Valley Regional Groundwater Flow System, Nevada and California by Michael T
    U.S. Department of the Interior Prepared in cooperation with the Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5150 U.S. Geological Survey Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration Sheet 1 (Interagency Agreement DE–AI52–01NV13944), and Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (Interagency Agreement DE–AI28–02RW12167), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Nye County, Nevada 650000 115° 117° 550000 116° 600000 118° 450000 500000 San Antonio Mts Monte Cristo Range Monitor Range Big Smokey Stone Valley Cabin Grant Range Valley Railroad 1600 Tonopah Valley Quinn Canyon Range Reveille Range 38° 38° Lincoln County Reveille Valley 4200000 4200000 Esmeralda County 1700 1500 1800 1500 Cactus Penoyer Valley Goldfield 00 00 16 Flat 16 (Sand Spring Worthington Range Hill Valley) Nye County 1600 Cactus Range Clayton Valley Stonewall Montezuma Range Flat Kawich Range Timpahute Range Hiko Range Kawich Fish Lake Valley 1700 1500 Gold Valley North Pahranagat Range 1600 Flat Palmetto Mts 1400 Stonewall 1400 4150000 4150000 1500 Mtn 1600 1500 East Pahranagat Range Pahranagat Range 1300 Magruder Mtn Tikaboo Valley Belted Range EmigrantValley Groom Range Last Chance Range 1500 Slate Ridge 1200 1300 Eureka Valley 1200 Pahute 1100 Black Mesa 1100 Mtn 1000 Gold Rainier Eleana 1500 Range Mtn Stonewall Mesa 1000 White Mts Pass Desert Range 900 Halfpint Range Shoshone Yucca 800 Grapevine Mts Flat 1300 Timber Mtn 1500 Sarcobatus Mtn 700 4100000 4100000 1700 Flat 37° 37° 1400 Desert 1600 Valley
    [Show full text]
  • Some Desert Watering Places
    DEPAETMENT OF THE INTEEIOE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY GEORGE OTIS SMITH, DiRECTOK WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 224 SOME DESERT WATERING PLACES IN SOUTHEASTEEN CALIFORNIA AND SOUTHWESTERN NEVADA BY WALTER C. MENDENHALL WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1909 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY GEORGE OTIS SMITH, DIRECTOR WATER-SUPPLY PAPEK 224 SOME DESERT WATERING PLACES IN SOUTHEASTEEN CALIFOKNIA AND SOUTHWESTEKN NEVADA BY WALTER C. MENDENHALL WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1909 CONTENTS. Page. Introduction______________________________________ 5 Area considered_________________________________ 5 Mineral resources and industrial developments______________ . 6 Sources of data__________________________________ 7 Physical features__________________________________ 8 General character of the region______________________ 8 Death Valley basin__________________________________ 9 Soda Lake_____________________________________ 30 Salton Sink______________________________________ 10 A great trough_______________________________ 30 Fault lines__________________.____ ______________ 11 Climate______________________. ____ ______________ 11 Water supply_________ _________________________ 13 Origin_________________________________________ 13 Rivers______________________________________ 13 Springs__________________________________________ 15 Finding water_______________________________ 16 Camping places_______________________________ 16 Mountain springs and tanks______________________ 17 Dry lakes____________________________________
    [Show full text]
  • EICHBAUM TOLL ROAD HISTORIC CONTEXT REPORT Towne Pass Curve Correction Project Inyo County, California 09-INY 190, PM 69.2/69.8 EA 09-35320 Contract No
    EICHBAUM TOLL ROAD HISTORIC CONTEXT REPORT Towne Pass Curve Correction Project Inyo County, California 09-INY 190, PM 69.2/69.8 EA 09-35320 Contract No. 06A2138 Project ID: 09-1200-0007 Prepared for: Prepared by: Trevor Pratt Steven J. “Mel” Melvin, Architectural Historian Caltrans District 9 Bryan Larson, Partner / Architectural Historian 500 South Main Street JRP Historical Consulting, LLC Bishop, CA 93514 2850 Spafford Street Davis, CA 95618 June 2018 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 1 2. RESEARCH METHODS ....................................................................................................... 1 3. DESCRIPTION OF RESOURCE........................................................................................... 1 4. HISTORIC CONTEXT .......................................................................................................... 2 4.1 Tourism and Recreation ................................................................................................ 2 4.2 Transportation ............................................................................................................... 6 4.2.1 Toll Roads ................................................................................................................. 6 4.2.2 Development of Roads in the Death Valley Region ................................................. 7 4.3 History of the Eichbaum Toll Road ...........................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Sedimentary Structures in Base-Surge Deposits with Special Reference to Cross-Bedding, Ubehebe Craters, Death Valley, California
    BRUCE M. CROWE \ Department of Geological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, RICHARD V. FISHER j Santa Barbara, California 93106 Sedimentary Structures in Base-Surge Deposits with Special Reference to Cross-Bedding, Ubehebe Craters, Death Valley, California Note: This paper is dedicated to Aaron and Elizabeth more km2. The volcanic field is named from Waters on the occasion of Dr. Waters' retirement. the largest crater, Ubehebe. Following the recognition of base-surge depositions in the rim beds of Ubehebe Crater ABSTRACT (Fisher and Waters, 1969, 1970), the present Ubehebe craters, Death Valley, California, study was undertaken to evaluate in greater include over a dozen maar volcanoes formed detail the physical characteristics of base-surge primarily by phreatic eruptions of trachybasalt deposits in order to gain possible insights into through a thick and permeable fanglomeratic flow mechanisms of base surges. Particular sequence on the north slope of Tin Mountain. attention is given here to the bed forms de- Tuff derived from Ubehebe Crater, the scribed as antidunes at Ubehebe by Fisher and largest crater in the area, is characteristically Waters (1970). thinly bedded or laminated and was deposited The Ubehebe craters originated on the by airfall and base-surge processes. Thick- gullied northern slope of Tin Mountain in late bedded deposits showing evidence of mass flow Pleistocene or Holocene time following the dis- occur where base surges were concentrated appearance of ancient Pleistocene (?) lake within, and followed gullies which had been waters. About 4 km north of the craters, tuff carved into the fanglomerate prior to eruption. from Ubehebe rests on lake deposits exposed Cross-bedded sequences were deposited by in the valley floor.
    [Show full text]