2008 Trough to Trough
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Trough to trough The Colorado River and the Salton Sea Robert E. Reynolds, editor The Salton Sea, 1906 Trough to trough—the field trip guide Robert E. Reynolds, George T. Jefferson, and David K. Lynch Proceedings of the 2008 Desert Symposium Robert E. Reynolds, compiler California State University, Desert Studies Consortium and LSA Associates, Inc. April 2008 Front cover: Cibola Wash. R.E. Reynolds photograph. Back cover: the Bouse Guys on the hunt for ancient lakes. From left: Keith Howard, USGS emeritus; Robert Reynolds, LSA Associates; Phil Pearthree, Arizona Geological Survey; and Daniel Malmon, USGS. Photo courtesy Keith Howard. 2 2008 Desert Symposium Table of Contents Trough to trough: the 2009 Desert Symposium Field Trip ....................................................................................5 Robert E. Reynolds The vegetation of the Mojave and Colorado deserts .....................................................................................................................31 Leah Gardner Southern California vanadate occurrences and vanadium minerals .....................................................................................39 Paul M. Adams The Iron Hat (Ironclad) ore deposits, Marble Mountains, San Bernardino County, California ..................................44 Bruce W. Bridenbecker Possible Bouse Formation in the Bristol Lake basin, California ................................................................................................48 Robert E. Reynolds, David M. Miller, and Jordon Bright Review of freshwater mollusks from the Bouse Formation, Lake Havasu area, California..........................................54 Robert E. Reynolds The age and character of the northern Bouse Formation, Mohave and Cottonwood Valleys, Arizona, California and Nevada .............................................................................................................................................................................58 Philip A. Pearthree and P. Kyle House Preliminary review of invertebrate fossil localities in the Bouse Formation, Blythe basin, California ..................62 Robert E. Reynolds and David R. Berry Extent and age of the Bouse Formation as indicated by strontium isotopes and tephrochronology in Blythe basin .............................................................................................................................................................................................69 Jon E. Spencer, Philip A. Pearthree, Jennifer A. Roskowski and P. Jonathan Patchett Early geological excursions and observations of the Colorado Desert region by William Phipps Blake, 1853 and 1906 .............................................................................................................................................................................................72 Stephen M. Testa The Great Steamboat Race from Yuma to the Grand Canyon .....................................................................................................84 Paul F. Smith Introduction to the Salton Trough Rift .................................................................................................................................................91 Michael A. McKibben Geothermal structures southeast of the Salton Sea* .....................................................................................................................96 David K. Lynch and Kenneth W. Hudnut The Salton Sea geothermal brines .......................................................................................................................................................102 Michael A. McKibben The Lake Cahuilla high shoreline and a stable overflow path elevation, southeastern California and northeastern Baja California .....................................................................................................................................................107 George T. Jefferson and Lowell Lindsay Proceedings of the 2008 Desert Symposium: abstracts and short papers Are physiological responses in desert holly (Atriplex hymenelytra) gender specific? ...................................................................110 Christina S. Asai Marine vertebrates from the Yuha member of the Deguynos Formation, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park® ....................110 Jessie Atterholt, George Jefferson, Emma Schachner, and Jerry Hughes Sources of groundwater recharge to Mojave Chub Spring ..........................................................................................................................111 Peggy Barthel Dispersal agents of desert fan palm (Washingtonia filifera) seeds ...........................................................................................................111 James W. Cornett 2008 Desert Symposium 3 The fish of the Mojave Valley: current research and recent findings ................................................................................................... 112 Sujan M. Henkanaththegedara Boulders deposited by Pliocene and Pleistocene floods on the lower Colorado River ............................................................... 112 Keith A. Howard and Daniel V. Malmon Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp’s Trona Experience ..................................................................................................................................................... 112 Russell L. Kaldenberg Effects of fire on rodents in a sagebrush–juniper community of the Mojave Desert ................................................................... 114 Christopher Moore and Paul Stapp The geology and history of southeastern San Diego County, California ........................................................................................... 114 Carole L. Ziegler Plotting the Bradshaw Road ................................................................................................................................................................................... 115 David Brunzell Recovering the endangered Mohave tui chub (Siphatales bicolor mohavensis) ............................................................................. 117 D. Hughson, N. Darby, J. Dungan, M. Glenn, S. Henkanaththegedara, B. Hilburn, J. Hohman, and S. Parmenter An archaeological and geological view of cupule production in an area of western Riverside County, California ...... 119 Frederick W. Lange, Robert E. Reynolds and Antonina Delu A brief introduction to the intaglios of the Mojave Desert ....................................................................................................................... 122 Amy Leska Charcoal sketches at El Pakiva, Mitchell Caverns State Recreation Area, Providence Mountains, California .................. 125 Amy Leska Distribution of native turtles in the arid southwestern United States with comments on Kinosternon sonoriense: a species presumed to be lost from California’s herpetofauna ............................................................................................................... 127 Jeff Lovich and Kent R. Beaman New pterosaur tracksites from the Upper Jurassic of central Utah: a regional Pteraichnus facies in marginal marine and non-marine shoreline environments .......................................................................................................................................................... 135 Debra L. Mickelson and Jacqueline E. Huntoon Late Pleistocene wetland deposits at Valley Wells, eastern Mojave Desert, California: initial results ................................ 138 Jeffrey S. Pigati and David M. Miller New Pleistocene records of the Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) in Riverside County, California ...................... 143 Robert E. Reynolds 4 2008 Desert Symposium Trough to trough The 2008 Desert Symposium field trip R. E. Reynolds, LSA Associates, Inc., 1500 Iowa Avenue, Riverside CA 92507, [email protected] George T. Jefferson, Colorado Desert District Stout Research Center, 200 Palm Canyon Drive, Borrego Springs, CA 92004, [email protected] David K. Lynch, Thule Scientific, P. O. Box 953, Topanga CA 90290 Day 1 and dunes that may be covered by flowers in the spring (Gardner, this volume). Climbing dunes bury the flanks of What we will see: Our 180 mile route will contrast floras Little Cowhole Mountain at 3:00. The road crosses recent of the eastern Mojave Desert, with those in lower elevations fan deposits that have transported well-varnished basaltic of the Colorado Desert. At Granite Pass, we enter Bristol– boulders twelve miles from the Cima volcanic field. Danby trough which drains to the Colorado River near 5.0 (3.4) The outcrop ahead is Teutonia Quartz Monzonite Vidal. At Amboy, outcrops of Bouse sediments containing (TQM). Beyond at 10:30 and at 2:00 are granitic domes the early Pliocene Lawlor Tuff (4.83 Ma) indicating that (Reynolds et al, 1996) below elevated late Miocene through the Bristol–Danby trough was filled to approximately 950 Pleistocene basalt flows. To the right are young basalt flows feet elevation, allowing it to connect with the Blythe Basin coincident with the modern topography; erosion of the to the southeast. Southeast in the Bristol–Danby trough, surrounding surface has left the flows slightly elevated. sediments containing Pleistocene vertebrate fossils sug- gest a complex biotic community. Special thanks to Keith 6.6 (1.6) The road bends to the right and ascends the Howard, Phil Pearthree, Jon Spencer, and Paul Stone