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Death Valley National Park

 

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Death Valley National Park



 
 
Death Valley National Park is a mostly arid
Arid

A region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the Individual growth and Morphogenesis of plant and animal life....
 United States National Park located east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in southern Inyo County
Inyo County, California

Inyo County is located in east-central California in the southwestern United States, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada and south of Yosemite National Park....
 and northern San Bernardino County
San Bernardino County, California

San Bernardino County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2000 census, the population was 1,709,434. As of 2007, the population was estimated by the California Department of Finance to have grown to 2,028,013....
 in California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, with a small extension into southwestern Nye County
Nye County, Nevada

Nye County is a county located in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the United States Census 2000, the population was 32,485. As of 2007, the population was estimated to be 46,308....
 and extreme southern Esmeralda County
Esmeralda County, Nevada

Esmeralda County is a county in the west of U.S. state of Nevada. Its county seat is Goldfield, Nevada. Its 2000 census population was officially 971, making its population density 0.1045 inhabitants/km? , the second-lowest of any county-equivalent outside of Alaska....
 in Nevada
Nevada

Nevada is a U.S. state located in the Western United States of the United States of America. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas, Nevada....
. In addition, there is an exclave
Exclave

An exclave is strip of land that belongs to a political entity but that is not connected to it by land . The strip of land is surrounded by other political entities....
 (Devil's Hole
Devil's Hole

Devils Hole is a Geothermal , aquifer-fed pool within a limestone cavern in the Amargosa Desert of Nevada east of Death Valley. This spring is officially part of Death Valley National Park and located in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada, United States....
) in southern Nye County. The park covers , encompassing Saline Valley
Saline Valley, California

Saline Valley is a large, deep, and arid valley in the northern Mojave Desert of Southern California. Most of it became a part of Death Valley National Park when the park expanded in 1994....
, a large part of Panamint Valley
Panamint Valley

Panamint Valley is a long basin located east of the Argus Range and Slate Range, and west of the Panamint Range in eastern California, in the western United States....
, almost all of Death Valley
Death Valley

Death Valley is a desert located in the southwestern United States. It is the lowest, driest, and hottest location in North America. Badwater, a depression located within Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 85.5 meter below sea level....
, and parts of several mountain range
Mountain range

A mountain range is a chain of mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by mountain pass or valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geology, though they often do; they may be a mix of different orogeny, for example volcanoes, uplifted mountains or Fold mountains...
s. Death Valley National Monument was proclaimed in 1933, placing the area under federal protection.






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Death Valley National Park is a mostly arid
Arid

A region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the Individual growth and Morphogenesis of plant and animal life....
 United States National Park located east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in southern Inyo County
Inyo County, California

Inyo County is located in east-central California in the southwestern United States, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada and south of Yosemite National Park....
 and northern San Bernardino County
San Bernardino County, California

San Bernardino County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2000 census, the population was 1,709,434. As of 2007, the population was estimated by the California Department of Finance to have grown to 2,028,013....
 in California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, with a small extension into southwestern Nye County
Nye County, Nevada

Nye County is a county located in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the United States Census 2000, the population was 32,485. As of 2007, the population was estimated to be 46,308....
 and extreme southern Esmeralda County
Esmeralda County, Nevada

Esmeralda County is a county in the west of U.S. state of Nevada. Its county seat is Goldfield, Nevada. Its 2000 census population was officially 971, making its population density 0.1045 inhabitants/km? , the second-lowest of any county-equivalent outside of Alaska....
 in Nevada
Nevada

Nevada is a U.S. state located in the Western United States of the United States of America. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas, Nevada....
. In addition, there is an exclave
Exclave

An exclave is strip of land that belongs to a political entity but that is not connected to it by land . The strip of land is surrounded by other political entities....
 (Devil's Hole
Devil's Hole

Devils Hole is a Geothermal , aquifer-fed pool within a limestone cavern in the Amargosa Desert of Nevada east of Death Valley. This spring is officially part of Death Valley National Park and located in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada, United States....
) in southern Nye County. The park covers , encompassing Saline Valley
Saline Valley, California

Saline Valley is a large, deep, and arid valley in the northern Mojave Desert of Southern California. Most of it became a part of Death Valley National Park when the park expanded in 1994....
, a large part of Panamint Valley
Panamint Valley

Panamint Valley is a long basin located east of the Argus Range and Slate Range, and west of the Panamint Range in eastern California, in the western United States....
, almost all of Death Valley
Death Valley

Death Valley is a desert located in the southwestern United States. It is the lowest, driest, and hottest location in North America. Badwater, a depression located within Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 85.5 meter below sea level....
, and parts of several mountain range
Mountain range

A mountain range is a chain of mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by mountain pass or valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geology, though they often do; they may be a mix of different orogeny, for example volcanoes, uplifted mountains or Fold mountains...
s. Death Valley National Monument was proclaimed in 1933, placing the area under federal protection. In 1994, the monument
U.S. National Monument

A National Monument in the United States is a protected area that is similar to a United States Park Service except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a National Monument without the approval of United States Congress....
 was redesignated a national park, as well as being substantially expanded to include Saline
Saline Valley, California

Saline Valley is a large, deep, and arid valley in the northern Mojave Desert of Southern California. Most of it became a part of Death Valley National Park when the park expanded in 1994....
 and Eureka
Eureka Valley, Inyo County

Eureka Valley is located in Inyo County, California, in eastern California in the southwestern United States. It is approximately 28 miles long and up to 10 miles wide, with elevations varying from 2870 feet up to 8456 feet ....
 Valleys.

It is the hottest and driest of the national parks in the United States. It also features the second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere
Western Hemisphere

The Western Hemisphere, also Western hemisphere or western hemisphere, is a geography term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian , the other half being the Eastern Hemisphere....
 and the lowest point in North America at Badwater
Badwater

Badwater is a depression in California's Death Valley, noted as the lowest point in North America, with an elevation of below sea level.The site itself consists of a small spring -fed pool of water next to the road; however, the accumulated salts of the surrounding basin make it undrinkable, thus the name "Badwater"....
, which is below sea level
Sea level

Mean sea level is the average height of the sea, with reference to a suitable reference surface. Defining the reference level , however, involves complex measurement, and accurately determining MSL can prove difficult....
. It is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert
Désert

?D?sert? is ?milie Simon's debut single, released in October 2002. The song was a huge success both critically and commercially in her homeland....
 environment. Some examples include Creosote Bush
Creosote bush

Larrea tridentata, known as creosote bush , is a flowering plant in the family Zygophyllaceae. It is a prominent species in the Mojave Desert, Sonoran Desert, and Chihuahuan Desert Deserts of western North America, including portions of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and western Texas in the United States, and norther...
, Bighorn Sheep
Bighorn Sheep

Bighorn sheep is a species of sheep in North America and Siberia with large horns which can weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates that there are three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered: Ovis canadensis sierrae....
, Coyote
Coyote

The coyote , also known as the prairie wolf, is a species of canid found throughout North America and Central America, ranging from Panama in the south, north through Mexico, the United States, and Canada....
, and the Death Valley Pupfish
Death Valley pupfish

The Death Valley pupfish, Cyprinodon salinus salinus, is a species of fish that is the last known survivor of what is thought to have been a large ecosystem of fish species that lived in Lake Manly, which dried up at the end of the last ice age leaving the present day Death Valley in California....
, a survivor of much wetter times. Approximately 95% of the park is designated as wilderness. Death Valley National Park is visited annually by more than 770,000 visitors who come to enjoy its diverse geologic features, desert wildlife, historic sites, scenery, clear night skies and the solitude of the extreme desert environment.

Mining
Mining

Mining is the extraction of value minerals or other geology materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, Sodium chloride and potash....
 was the primary activity in the area before it was protected. The first known non-Native American
Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
s to enter Death Valley did so in the winter of 1849, thinking they would save time by taking a shortcut to the gold fields of California
California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California, California....
. They were stuck for weeks and in the process gave the Valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to exploit minor local bonanzas of gold. The only long-term profitable ore
Ore

An ore is a type of Rock that contains minerals such as gemstones and metals that can be extracted through mining and refined for use. Samples of ore in the form of exceptionally beautiful crystals, exotic layering visible when sectioned or polished or metallic presentations such as large nuggets or crystalline formations of metals suc...
 to be mined, however, was borax
Borax

Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid....
, a mineral used to make soap and an important industrial compound. Twenty-mule teams were famously used to transport ore out of the Valley, helping to make it famous and the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies.

The natural environment of the area has been profoundly shaped by its geology. The oldest rock
Rock (geology)

In geology, rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock....
s are extensively metamorphosed
Metamorphism

Metamorphism is the solid-state Crystallization of pre-existing Rock due to changes in physical and chemical conditions, primarily heat, pressure, and the introduction of chemically active fluids....
 and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rift
Rift

In geology, a rift is a place where the Earth's Crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics.Typical rift features are a central linear downdropped geologic fault segment, called a graben, with parallel normal faulting and rift-flank uplifts on either side forming a rift valley, where the rift r...
ing opened the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
. Additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. This uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcano
Volcano

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or Crust , which allows hot, molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from below the surface....
es. Later the crust
Crust (geology)

In geology, a crust is the outermost solid shell of a planet or moon, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle . Crusts of Earth , our Moon, Mercury , Venus, and Mars have been generated largely by igneous processes, and these crusts are richer in incompatible elements than their respective mantle s....
 started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range
Basin and Range

The Basin and Range Province is a large geologic province which includes parts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, typified by basin and range topography....
 landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of ice age
Ice age

The general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers....
s, with lakes, such as Lake Manly
Lake Manly

Lake Manly was a large freshwater lake which filled the Death Valley basin prior to the dry climatic period which has prevailed since the last ice age....
.

Death Valley Np Master Map

Geographic setting

Within the park there are two major valleys: Death Valley
Death Valley

Death Valley is a desert located in the southwestern United States. It is the lowest, driest, and hottest location in North America. Badwater, a depression located within Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 85.5 meter below sea level....
 and Panamint Valley
Panamint Valley

Panamint Valley is a long basin located east of the Argus Range and Slate Range, and west of the Panamint Range in eastern California, in the western United States....
, both of which were formed within the last few million years and both bounded by north–south-trending mountain range
Mountain range

A mountain range is a chain of mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by mountain pass or valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geology, though they often do; they may be a mix of different orogeny, for example volcanoes, uplifted mountains or Fold mountains...
s. These and adjacent valleys follow the general trend of Basin and Range
Basin and Range

The Basin and Range Province is a large geologic province which includes parts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, typified by basin and range topography....
 topography with one modification: there are parallel strike-slip faults that perpendicularly bound the central extent of Death Valley. The result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and relatively more subsidence there.

Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the valley floor are both occurring. The uplift on the Black Mountains is so fast that the alluvial fan
Alluvial fan

An alluvial fan is a fan -shaped deposition formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows, and spreads typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatter plain....
s (fan-shaped deposits at the mouth of canyons) there are relatively small and steep compared to the huge alluvial fans coming off the Panamint Range
Panamint Range

The Panamint Range is a short rugged fault-block mountain range on the northern edge of the Mojave Desert in eastern California in the western United States....
. In many places so-called "wine glass canyons" are formed along the Black Mountains front as a result. This type of canyon results from the mountain range's relatively fast uplift which does not allow the canyons enough time to cut a classic V-shape all the way down to the stream bed. Instead a V-shape ends at a slot canyon halfway down with a relatively small and steep alluvial fan on which the stream sediments collect.

At below sea level
Sea level

Mean sea level is the average height of the sea, with reference to a suitable reference surface. Defining the reference level , however, involves complex measurement, and accurately determining MSL can prove difficult....
, Badwater on Death Valley's floor is the second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere (behind Laguna del Carbón
Laguna del Carbón

Laguna del Carb?n is a 105 metre below sea level depression located at coordinates in the Santa Cruz Province , Argentina. It is the Extremes on Earth of both the Western Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere Hemispheres, and the 7th lowest point on Earth....
 in Argentina
Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
), while Mount Whitney
Mount Whitney

Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States with an elevation of . It is located at the boundary between California's Inyo County, California and Tulare County, California counties, just west of the lowest point in North America at Badwater in Death Valley National Park ....
, only to the west, rises to . This topographic relief is the greatest elevation gradient in the contiguous United States and is the terminus point of the Great Basin
Great Basin

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the western United States. Its boundaries depend on how it is defined. Its most common definition is the contiguous drainage basin, roughly between the Wasatch Mountains, in Utah and the Sierra Nevada , that has no natural outlet to the sea....
's southwestern drainage. Although the extreme lack of water in the Great Basin makes this distinction of little current practical use, it does mean that in wetter times the lake that once filled Death Valley (Lake Manly
Lake Manly

Lake Manly was a large freshwater lake which filled the Death Valley basin prior to the dry climatic period which has prevailed since the last ice age....
) was the last stop for water flowing in the region, meaning the water there was relatively saturated in dissolved materials. Thus the salt pan
Salt pan (geology)

Natural salt pans are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the sun. They are found in deserts, and should not be confused with salt evaporation ponds....
s in Death Valley are among the largest in the world and are rich in minerals, such as borax
Borax

Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid....
 and various salt
Salt

A salt, in chemistry, is defined as the product formed from the neutralisation reaction of acids and base . Salts are ionic compounds composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically electric charge ....
s and hydrate
Hydrate

Hydrate is a term used in inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry to indicate that a substance contains water. The chemical state of the water varies widely between hydrates, some of which were so labeled before their chemical structure was understood....
s. The largest salt pan in the park extends from the Ashford Mill Site to the Salt Creek Hills, covering some of the Valley floor.Badwater, the Devils Golf Course, and Salt Creek are all part of the Death Valley Saltpan. The second-best known playa
Playa

A playa is a dry or Ephemeral lakebed, generally extending to the shore, or a remnant of, an endorheic lake. Such flats consist of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts....
 in the park is the Racetrack
Racetrack Playa

Racetrack Playa is a seasonally dry lake located in the northern part of the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley National Park, California, U.S.A.....
, famous for its moving rocks.

Climate


Death Valley is one of the hottest and driest places in North America due to its lack of surface water and its low relief. On July 10, 1913, a record was measured at the Weather Bureau's observation station at Greenland Ranch (now the site for the Furnace Creek Inn), the highest temperature ever recorded on that continent
Continent

A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents ? they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia ....
 as of 2007. Daily summer temperatures of or greater are common, as well as below freezing nightly temperatures in the winter. July is the hottest month, with an average high of and an average low of . December is the coldest month, with an average high of and an average low of . The record low is .

Several of the larger Death Valley springs derive their water from a regional aquifer
Aquifer

An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials from which groundwater can be usefully extracted using a water well....
, which extends as far east as southern Nevada
Nevada

Nevada is a U.S. state located in the Western United States of the United States of America. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas, Nevada....
 and Utah
Utah

The State of Utah is a western United States U.S. state of the United States. It was the List of U.S. states by date of statehood admitted to the United States on January 4, 1896....
. Much of the water in this aquifer has been there for many thousands of years, since the Pleistocene
Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years Before Present covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
 ice age
Ice age

The general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers....
s, when the climate
Climate

Climate encompasses the temperatures, humidity, atmospheric pressure, winds, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other Meteorology elements in a given region over long periods of time, as opposed to the term weather, which refers to current activity of these same elements....
 was cooler and wetter. Today's drier climate does not provide enough precipitation to recharge the aquifer at the rate at which water is being withdrawn.

The highest range in the park is the Panamint Range with Telescope Peak
Telescope Peak

Telescope Peak is the highest point within Death Valley National Park, in the US state of California. It is also the highest point of the Panamint Range, and lies in Inyo County, California....
 being its highest point at . The Death Valley region is a transitional zone in the northernmost part of the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert

The Mojave Desert , , locally referred to as the High Desert, occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, and northwestern Arizona, in the United States....
 and consists of five mountain ranges removed from the Pacific Ocean. Three of these are significant barriers: the Sierra Nevada, the Argus Range
Argus Range

The Argus Range is a mountain range located in eastern California, southeast of the town of Darwin, California, between the Coso Range and the Panamint Valley....
, and the Panamint Range. Air masses tend to lose moisture as they are forced up over mountain ranges, in what climatologists call a rainshadow effect.

The exaggerated rainshadow effect for the Death Valley area makes it North America's
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
 driest spot, receiving about of rainfall annually at Badwater (some years fail to register any measurable rainfall). Annual average precipitation varies from overall below sea level to over in the higher mountains that surround the Valley. When rain does arrive it often does so in intense storms that cause flash flood
Flash flood

A flash flood is a rapid flooding of geomorphic low-lying areas - washes, rivers and streams. It is caused by heavy rain associated with a thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm....
s which remodel the landscape and sometimes create very shallow ephemeral lakes.

The hot, dry climate makes it difficult for soil to form. Mass wasting
Mass wasting

Mass wasting, also known as slope movement or mass movement, is the geomorphology process by which soil, regolith, and rock move downslope under the force of gravity....
, the down-slope movement of loose rock, is therefore the dominant erosive force in mountainous area, resulting in "skeletonized" ranges (literally, mountains with very little soil on them). Sand dunes in the park, while famous, are not nearly as numerous as their fame or the dryness of the area may suggest. One of the main dune fields is near Stovepipe Wells in the north-central part of the Valley and is primarily made of quartz
Quartz

Quartz is the most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust . It is made up of a Crystal structure of silica tetrahedra. Quartz has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale and a density of 2.65 g/cm?....
 sand. Another dune field is just to the north but is instead mostly composed of travertine
Travertine

Travertine is a sedimentary rock. It is a natural chemical precipitation of carbonate minerals; typically aragonite, but often recrystallized to, or primarily, calcite....
 sand. Yet another dune field is near the seldom-visited Ibex Hill in the southernmost part of the park, just south of the Saratoga Springs marshland. Prevailing winds in the winter come from the north, and prevailing winds in the summer come from the south. Thus the overall position of the dune fields remain more or less fixed.

Human history


Early inhabitants and passers-through

Four Native American
Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
 cultures are known to have lived in the area during the last 10,000 years or so. The first known group, the Nevares Spring People, were hunters and gatherers who arrived in the area perhaps 9,000 years ago (7000 BCE) when there were still small lakes in Death Valley and neighboring Panamint Valley. A much milder climate persisted at that time, and large game animals were still plentiful. By 5,000 years ago (3000 BCE) the Mesquite Flat People displaced the Nevares Spring People. Around 2,000 years ago the Saratoga Spring People moved into the area, which by then was probably already a hot, dry desert.The last known lake to exist in Death Valley likely dried up 3,000 years ago. This culture was more advanced at hunting and gathering and was skillful at handcrafts. They also left mysterious stone patterns in the Valley.

Petroglyphs2 Above Mesquite Springs 800px
A thousand years ago the nomadic Timbisha
Timbisha

The Timbisha are a Native Americans in the United States people who have lived in Death Valley, California region of North America for over 1000 years....
 (formerly called "Shoshone" and also known as "Panamint" or "Koso") moved into the area and hunted game and gathered mesquite
Mesquite

Mesquite is a legume plant of the Prosopis genus found in Northern Mexico and the United States from the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas up to southwestern Kansas and from southeastern California and southwestern Utah to the southern limits of the Sonoran desert....
 beans along with pinyon pine
Pinyon pine

The pinyon pine group grows in the southwestern United States and in Mexico. The trees yield edible pine nut, which were a staple of the Indigenous people of the Americas, and are still widely eaten....
 nuts. Because of the wide altitude differential between the valley bottom and the mountain ridges, especially on the west, the Timbisha practiced a vertical migration pattern. Their winter camps were located near water sources in the valley bottoms. As the spring and summer progressed and the weather warmed, grasses and other plant food sources ripened at progressively higher altitudes. November found them at the very top of the mountain ridges where they harvested pine nuts before moving back to the valley bottom for winter.

The California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California, California....
 brought the first people of European descent known to visit the immediate area. In December 1849 two groups of California Gold Country-bound white travelers with perhaps 100 wagons total stumbled into Death Valley after getting lost on what they thought was a shortcut off the Old Spanish Trail
Old Spanish Trail (trade route)

The Old Spanish Trail is a historic trade route which connected the northern New Mexico settlements near or in Santa Fe, New Mexico with that of Los Angeles, California and southern California....
. Called the Bennett-Arcane Party
Death Valley '49ers

The Death Valley '49ers were a group of pioneers who faced great hardship when they attempted to reach the Sutter's Fort area during the California Gold Rush via the Nevada and California deserts....
, they were unable to find a pass out of the valley for weeks; they were able to find fresh water at various springs in the area, but were forced to eat several of their oxen to survive. They used the wood of their wagons to cook the meat and make jerky. The place where they did this is today referred to as "Burned Wagons Camp" and is located near the sand dunes.

After abandoning their wagons, they eventually were able to hike out of the valley. Just after leaving the valley, one of the women in the group turned and said, "Goodbye Death Valley," giving the valley they endured its name.In fact only one member of the Death Valley '49ers died in Death Valley, an elderly man named Culverwell, who was half dead already when he entered it. Included in the party was William Lewis Manly
William L. Manly

William Lewis Manly is an United States pioneer of the mid-nineteenth century. He was at first a fur hunter, a guide of caravans towards the West, seeker of gold, then farmer and writer at last....
 whose autobiographical book Death Valley in '49 detailed this trek and popularized the area (geologists later named the prehistoric lake that once filled the valley after him).

Boom and bust

20 Mule Team in Death Valley
The ores that are most famously associated with the area were also the easiest to collect and the most profitable: evaporite deposits such as salts, borate
Borate

Borates in chemistry are chemical compounds containing boron oxoanions, with boron in oxidation state +3. The simplest borate ion is the trigonal planar, BO33-, although many others are known....
, and talc
Talc

Talc is a mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate with the chemical formula Hydrogen2Magnesium34 or Magnesium3Silicon4Oxygen102....
. Borax was found by Rosie and Aaron Winters near Furnace Creek Ranch (then called Greenland) in 1881. Later that same year, the Eagle Borax Works became Death Valley's first commercial borax operation. William Tell Coleman
William Tell Coleman

William Tell Coleman was an United States Settler. He was born in Cynthiana, Kentucky, Harrison County, Kentucky, and was educated at Saint Louis University....
 built the Harmony Borax Works
Harmony Borax Works

The Harmony Borax Works are located at Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley National Park. After discovery of borax deposits here in 1881, William T....
 plant and began to process ore in late 1883 or early 1884, continuing until 1888. This mining and smelting company produced borax to make soap
SOAP

SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks....
 and for industrial uses. The end product was shipped out of the valley 165 miles (265 km) to the Mojave
Mojave, California

Mojave is a census-designated place in Kern County, California, California, United States. The population was 3,836 at the 2000 census. The town is located at the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert, below the Oak Creek Pass....
 railhead in 10-ton-capacity wagons pulled by "twenty-mule teams" that were actually teams of 18 mules and 2 horses each. The teams averaged two miles (3 km) an hour and required about 30 days to complete a round trip. The trade name 20-Mule Team Borax
Twenty-Mule-Team Borax

Twenty-mule-team Borax is a brand of cleaner manufactured by the U.S. soap firm Dial Corporation....
 was established by Francis Marion Smith
Francis Marion Smith

Francis Marion Smith was an United States business magnate and civic builder in Oakland, California. Smith Mountain in Death Valley is named after him....
's Pacific Coast Borax Company
Pacific Coast Borax Company

The Pacific Coast Borax Company was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis Marion Smith. The company established and aggressively developed the famous Twenty-Mule-Team Borax trademark in order to promote the sale of its product....
 after Smith acquired Coleman's borax holdings in 1890. A memorable advertising campaign used the wagon's image to promote the Boraxo
Boraxo

Boraxo is an United States brand of powdered hand soap.As its name implies, Boraxo is composed largely of borax, and is marketed as a product for those who get their hands especially dirty during the course of their work, such as mechanics and farmers....
 brand of granular hand soap and the Death Valley Days
Death Valley Days

Death Valley Days is a long-running United States old-time radio and television Anthology series about true stories of the American Old West, particularly the Death Valley area....
 radio and television programs. Mining continued after the collapse of Coleman's empire, and by the late 1920s the area was the world's number one source of borax. Some four to six million years old, the Furnace Creek Formation is the primary source of borate minerals gathered from Death Valley's playas.

Skidoo in 1906
Other visitors stayed to prospect for and mine deposits of copper
Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity....
, gold
Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
, lead
Lead

Lead is a main-group Chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metal ....
, and silver
Silver

Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....
. These sporadic mining ventures were hampered by their remote location and the harsh desert environment. In December 1903, two men from Ballarat were prospecting for silver. One was an out-of-work Irish miner named Jack Keane and the other was a one-eyed Basque butcher named Domingo Etcharren. Quite by accident, Keane discovered an immense ledge of free-milling gold by the duo's work site and named the claim the Keane Wonder Mine
Keane Wonder Mine

The Keane Wonder Mine and mill is an abandoned mining facility located within Death Valley National Park.The facilities consisted of a Mining, a gravity powered Aerial tramway, and a Stamp mill....
. This started a minor and short-lived gold rush
Gold rush

A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers into the area of a dramatic discovery of commercial quantities of gold.Eight gold rushes took place throughout the 19th century in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States....
 into the area. The Keane Wonder Mine, along with mines at Rhyolite
Rhyolite, Nevada

Rhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County, Nevada, in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is located in the Bullfrog Hills, about west of the town of Beatty, Nevada, near the eastern edge of Death Valley....
, Skidoo
Skidoo, California

Skidoo is a ghost town located in Death Valley National Park, Inyo County, California, USA.Skidoo was famous in the first decade of the 20th century when gold had been found in the area....
 and Harrisburg, were the only ones to extract enough metal ore to make them worthwhile. Outright shams such as Leadfield
Leadfield, California

Leadfield is a ghost town located in Death Valley National Park, Inyo County, California.Ore was being exploited in Titus Canyon as early as 1905, but the townsite of Leadfield dates to the years 1925 and 1926....
 also occurred, but most ventures quickly ended after a short series of prospecting mines failed to yield evidence of significant ore (these mines now dot the entire area and are a significant hazard to anyone who enters them). The boom towns which sprang up around these mines flourished during the first decade of the 20th century but soon declined after the Panic of 1907
Panic of 1907

The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic, was a financial crisis that occurred in the United States when the New York Stock Exchange fell close to 50 percent from its peak the previous year....
.

Early tourism

Scotty's Castle Under Construction
The first documented tourist facilities in Death Valley were a set of tent houses built in the 1920s where Stovepipe Wells is now located. People flocked to resorts built around natural springs thought to have curative and restorative properties. In 1927, Pacific Coast Borax turned the crew quarters of its Furnace Creek Ranch into a resort, creating the Furnace Creek Inn and resort. The spring at Furnace Creek was harnessed to develop the resort, and as the water was diverted, the surrounding marsh
Marsh

In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland which is subject to frequent or continuous flood . Typically the water is shallow and features Poaceaees, Juncaceaees, Phragmites, typhas, Cyperaless, and other herbaceous plants....
es and wetland
Wetland

File:Mangrove trees in Everglades.JPGA wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with moisture either permanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially or completely by shallow pools of water....
s started to shrink.

Soon the Valley was a popular winter destination. Other facilities started off as private getaways but were later opened to the public. Most notable among these was Death Valley Ranch, better known as Scotty's Castle
Scotty's Castle

Scotty's Castle is a two-story Spanish Villa located in northern Death Valley National Park, California, USA. It is also known as Death Valley Ranch....
. This large ranch home built in the Spanish Revival style became a hotel in the late 1930s and, largely due to the fame of Death Valley Scotty, a tourist attraction. Death Valley Scotty, whose real name was Walter Scott, was a gold miner who pretended to be owner of "his castle", which he claimed to have built with profits from his gold mine. Neither claim was true, but the real owner, Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 millionaire Albert Mussey Johnson
Albert Mussey Johnson

Albert Mussey Johnson , was an eccentric millionaire who served as President for many years of the National Life Insurance Company, built Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park, and was variously partner, friend, and dupe of infamous American Old West con man Walter E....
, encouraged the myth. When asked by reporters what his connection was to Walter Scott's castle, Johnson replied that he was Mr. Scott's banker.

Protection and later history

Ccc Boys in Death Valley
President Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States . Besides his political career, Hoover was a professional mining engineer and author....
 proclaimed a national monument
U.S. National Monument

A National Monument in the United States is a protected area that is similar to a United States Park Service except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a National Monument without the approval of United States Congress....
 in and around Death Valley on February 11, 1933, setting aside almost two million acres (8,000 km²) of southeastern California and small parts of westernmost Nevada. Twelve companies worked in Death Valley using Civilian Conservation Corps
Civilian Conservation Corps

File:CCC constructing road.gifThe Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program for unemployed men, focused on natural resource conservation from 1933 to 1942....
 workers during the Great Depression
Great Depression

File:International depression.pngThe Great Depression was a worldwide economic Recession starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries....
 and on into the early 1940s. They built barracks, graded 500 miles (800 km) of roads, installed water and telephone lines, and erected a total of 76 buildings. Trails in the Panamint Range were built to points of scenic interest, and an adobe
Adobe

Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, and water, with some kind of fibrous or organic material , which is shaped into bricks using frames and dried in the sun....
 village, laundry and trading post were constructed for Shoshone
Shoshone

The Shoshone are a Native Americans in the United States in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
 Indians. Five campgrounds, restrooms, an airplane landing field and picnic facilities were also built.

Creation of the monument resulted in a temporary closing of the lands to prospecting and mining. However, Death Valley was quickly reopened to mining by Congressional action in June of the same year. As improvements in mining technology allowed lower grades of ore to be processed, and new heavy equipment allowed greater amounts of rock to be moved, mining in Death Valley changed. Gone were the days of the "single-blanket, jackass prospector" long associated with the romantic west. Open pit and strip mines scarred the landscape as international mining corporations bought claims in highly visible areas of the national monument. The public outcry that ensued led to greater protection for all national park and monument areas in the United States.

Mine At Leadfield
In 1976 Congress passed the Mining in the Parks Act, which closed Death Valley National Monument to the filing of new mining claims, banned open-pit mining and required the National Park Service
National Park Service

The National Park Service is the List of United States federal agencies that manages all List of areas in the United States National Park System, many U.S....
 to examine the validity of tens of thousands of pre-1976 mining claims. Mining was allowed to resume on a limited basis in 1980 with stricter environmental standards. The park's Resources Management Division monitors mining within park boundaries and continues to review the status of 125 unpatented mining claims and 19 patented claim groups, while ensuring that federal guidelines are followed and the park's resources are protected. As of 2003, the only active mining operation in Death Valley National Park is the Billie Mine, an underground borax mine located along the road to Dante's View.

Death Valley National Monument was designated a biosphere reserve
Biosphere reserve

A biosphere reserve is an international conservation designation given by UNESCO under its Programme on Man and the Biosphere . The World Network of Biosphere Reserves is the collection of all 531 biosphere Nature reserve in 105 countries ....
 in 1984. On October 31, 1994, the Monument was expanded by 1.3 million acres (5,300 km²) and redesignated a national park
National park

A national park is a reserve of land, usually declared and owned by a national government, protected from most human development and pollution....
 by passage of the Desert Protection Act. This made it the largest national park in the contiguous United States
Contiguous United States

The term contiguous United States refers to the 48 contiguous U.S. states located on the North American continent south of the border with Canada, plus the Washington, D.C.....
.

Many of the larger cities and towns within the boundary of the regional ground water flow system that the park and its plants and animals rely upon are experiencing some of the fastest growth rates of any place in the United States. Notable examples within a radius of Death Valley National Park include Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada, the seat of Clark County, Nevada, and an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and entertainment....
 and Pahrump, Nevada
Pahrump, Nevada

Pahrump is a census-designated place in Nye County, Nevada, Nevada, United States. The population was 24,631 as of the United States Census 2000, making it by far the largest settlement in the county....
. In the case of Las Vegas, the local Chamber of Commerce estimates that 6,000 people are moving to the city every month. Between 1985 and 1995, the population of the Las Vegas Valley increased from 550,700 to 1,138,800.


Geologic history

Death Valley Basin Cross Section
The park has a diverse and complex geologic history. Since its formation, the area that comprises the park has experienced at least four major periods of extensive volcanism, three or four periods of major sedimentation
Sedimentation

Sedimentation describes the motion of molecules in solutions or particle s in suspension in response to an external force such as gravitation, centrifugal force or electromagnetism....
, and several intervals of major tectonic
Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere. The theory encompasses the older concepts of continental drift, developed during the first decades of the 20th century by Alfred Wegener, and seafloor spreading, understood during the 1960s....
 deformation where the crust has been reshaped. Two periods of glaciation (a series of ice age
Ice age

The general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers....
s) have also had effects on the area, although no glacier
Glacier

A glacier is a large, slow-moving mass of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity and high pressure....
s ever existed in the ranges now in the park.

Basement and Pahrump Group

Little is known about the history of the oldest exposed rock
Rock (geology)

In geology, rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock....
s in the area due to extensive metamorphism
Metamorphism

Metamorphism is the solid-state Crystallization of pre-existing Rock due to changes in physical and chemical conditions, primarily heat, pressure, and the introduction of chemically active fluids....
 (alteration of rock by heat and pressure). Radiometric dating
Radiometric dating

Radiometric dating is a technique used to date materials, usually based on a comparison between the observed abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope and its decay products, using known decay rates....
 gives an age of 1,700 million years for the metamorphism (during the Proterozoic
Proterozoic

The Proterozoic is a eon representing a period before the first abundant complex life on Earth. The Proterozoic Eon extended from 2500 annum to 542.0 ? 1.0 Ma , and is the most recent part of the old, informally named ?Precambrian? time....
: See bottom of the geologic timeline). About 1,400 million years ago a mass of granite
Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of Intrusion , felsic, igneous rock rock . Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as Porphyry ....
 now in the Panamint Range intruded this complex. Uplift later exposed these rocks to nearly 500 million years of erosion.

On these basement rocks was deposited the sedimentary formation of the Pahrump Group. This occurred after uplift-associated erosion removed whatever rocks covered the Proteozoic-aged rocks. The Pahrump is composed of arkose conglomerate
Conglomerate (geology)

A conglomerate is a Rock consisting of individual stones that have become cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of rounded fragments and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts....
 (quartz clasts in a concrete-like matrix) and mud stone in its lower part, followed by dolomite
Dolomite

Dolomite is the name of a sedimentary carbonate rock and a mineral, both composed of calcium magnesium carbonate calciummagnesium2 found in crystals....
 from carbonate
Carbonate

In chemistry, a carbonate is a salt or ester of carbonic acid....
 banks topped by algal mats in stromatolite
Stromatolite

Stromatolites are layered accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms of microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria ....
s, and finished with basin-filling sediment derived from the above, including possible glacial till from the hypothesized Snowball Earth
Snowball Earth

Snowball Earth refers to hypotheses regarding paleoclimate global-scale glaciation, claiming that the Earth's surface was nearly or entirely frozen at some points in its past....
 glaciation. The very youngest rocks in the Pahrump Group are from basalt
Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually gray to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet....
ic lava flows.

Rifting and deposition

A rift opened and subsequently flooded the region as part of the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia
Rodinia

In geology, Rodinia is the name of a supercontinent, a continent which contained most or all of Earth's landmass. According to plate tectonic reconstructions, Rodinia existed between 1100 and 750 million years ago, in the Neoproterozoic era ....
 in the Neoproterozoic
Neoproterozoic

The Neoproterozoic Era is the unit of geologic time scale from 1,000 to 542 +/- 0.3 million years ago. The terminal Era of the formal Proterozoic Eon , it is further subdivided into the Tonian, Cryogenian, and Ediacaran Periods....
 (by about 755 million years ago) and the creation of the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
. A shoreline similar to the present Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
 margin of the United States lay to the east. An algal mat
Algal mat

An algal mat is a layer of usually filamentous algae on Marine or fresh water soft bottoms. Algae and cyanobacteria are ubiquitous, often forming within the water column and settling to the bottom....
-covered carbonate bank was deposited, forming the Noonday Dolomite. Subsidence of the region occurred as the continental crust
Continental crust

The continental crust is the layer of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks which form the continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as Continental shelf....
 thinned and the newly formed Pacific widened, forming the Ibex Formation. An angular unconformity
Unconformity

An unconformity is a buried erosion surface separating two Rock masses or Stratum of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous....
 (an uneven gap in the geologic record) followed.

A true ocean basin developed to the west, breaking all the earlier formations along a steep front. A wedge of clastic sediment then began to accumulate at the base of the two underwater precipices, starting the formation of opposing continental shelf
Continental shelf

The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain, and was part of the continent during the glacial periods, but is undersea during Ice age such as the current epoch by relatively shallow seas and Bay....
s. Three formations developed from sediment that accumulated on the wedge. The region's first known fossil
Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
s of complex life are found in the resulting formations. Notable among these are the Ediacara fauna
Ediacaran

The Ediacaran Period is the last geological period of the Neoproterozoic Era and of the Proterozoic Eon, immediately preceding the Cambrian Period, the first period of the Paleozoic Era and of the Phanerozoic Eon....
 and trilobite
Trilobite

Trilobites are extinction marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. They appeared in the Early Cambrian period and flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic era before beginning a drawn-out decline to extinction when, during the Late Devonian extinction, all trilobite orders, with the sole exception of Proetida, died out....
s, both part of the Cambrian Explosion
Cambrian explosion

The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the seemingly rapid appearance of most major groups of complex animals around , as evidenced by the fossil record....
 of life.

The sandy mudflats gave way about 550 million years ago to a carbonate platform (similar to the one around the present-day Bahamas), which lasted for the next 300 million years of Paleozoic
Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
 time (refer to the middle of the timescale image). Death Valley's position was then within ten or twenty degrees of the Paleozoic equator
Equator

The equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the Plane perpendicular to the Earth's rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass....
. Thick beds of carbonate-rich sediments were periodically interrupted by periods of emergence. Although details of geography varied during this immense interval of time, a north-northeasterly trending coastline generally ran from Arizona
Arizona

The State of Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona....
 up through Utah
Utah

The State of Utah is a western United States U.S. state of the United States. It was the List of U.S. states by date of statehood admitted to the United States on January 4, 1896....
. The resulting eight formations and one group are thick and underlay much of the Cottonwood, Funeral, Grapevine, and Panamint ranges.

Compression and uplift

In the early- to mid-Mesozoic
Mesozoic

The Mesozoic Era is one of three Geologic time scale of the Phanerozoic eon . The division of time into eras dates back to Giovanni Arduino, in the 18th century, although his original name for the era now called the 'Mesozoic' was 'Secondary' ....
 the western edge of the North American continent was pushed against the oceanic plate under the Pacific Ocean, creating a subduction zone. A subduction zone is a type of contact between different crustal plates where heavier crust slides below lighter crust. Erupting volcanoes and uplifting mountains were created as a result, and the coastline was pushed to the west. The Sierran Arc
Sierran Arc

In early Triassic time, an extensive volcanic arc system, called the Sierran Arc began to develop along the western margin of the North American continent....
 started to form to the northwest from heat and pressure generated from subduction, and compressive forces caused thrust fault
Thrust fault

A thrust fault is a type of Geologic fault, or break in the Earth's crust with resulting movement of each side against the other, in which a lower stratigraphic position is pushed up and over another....
s to develop.

A long period of uplift and erosion was concurrent with and followed the above events, creating a major unconformity, which is a large gap in the geologic record. Sediments worn off the Death Valley region were carried both east and west by wind and water. No Jurassic- to Eocene
Eocene

The Eocene Geologic time scale is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era....
-aged sedimentary formations exist in the area, except for some possibly Jurassic-age volcanic rock
Volcanic rock

Volcanic rock is an igneous rock of Volcano origin.Texture Volcanic rocks are usually fine-grained or aphanitic to glassy in texture....
s (see the top of the timescale image).

Erosion over many millions of years created a relatively featureless plain. Thirty-five million years ago, sluggish streams migrated laterally over its surface. Several other similar formations were also laid down.

Stretching and lakes

Lake Manly System
Basin and Range
Basin and Range

The Basin and Range Province is a large geologic province which includes parts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, typified by basin and range topography....
-associated stretching of large parts of crust below southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico started around 16 million years ago and the region is still spreading. This stretching began to effect the Death and Panamint valleys area by 3 million years ago.. Before this, rocks now in the Panamint Range were on top of rocks that would become the Black Mountains and the Cottonwood Mountains. Lateral and vertical transport of these blocks was accomplished by movement on normal faults. Right-lateral movement along strike-slip faults that run parallel to and at the base of the ranges also helped to develop the area. Torsional forces, probably associated with northwesterly movement of the Pacific Plate
Pacific Plate

The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean.To the north the easterly side is a divergent boundary with the Explorer Plate, the Juan de Fuca Plate and the Gorda Plate forming respectively the Explorer Ridge, the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Gorda Ridge....
 along the San Andreas Fault
San Andreas Fault

The San Andreas Fault is a geologic transform fault that runs a length of roughly 800 miles through California in the United States. The fault's motion is dextral strike-slip ....
 (west of the region), is responsible for the lateral movement.

Igneous activity associated with this stretching occurred from 12 million to 4 million years ago. Sedimentation is concentrated in valleys (basins) from material eroded from adjacent ranges. The amount of sediment deposited has roughly kept up with this subsidence, resulting in retention of more or less the same valley floor elevation over time.

Pleistocene
Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years Before Present covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
 ice ages started 2 million years ago, and melt from alpine glacier
Glacier

A glacier is a large, slow-moving mass of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity and high pressure....
s on the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains fed a series of lakes that filled Death and Panamint valleys and surrounding basins (see the top of the timescale image). The lake that filled Death Valley was the last of a chain of lakes fed by the Amargosa
Amargosa River

The Amargosa River is an intermittent stream, long, in southern Nevada and eastern California in the United States. It drains a high desert region northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada into Death Valley, where it disappears into the ground....
 and Mojave River
Mojave River

The Mojave River is a river in the Mojave Desert, California....
s, and possibly also the Owens River
Owens River

The Owens River is a river in eastern California in the United States, approximately long. It drains into an arid ranching basin, called the Owens Valley, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains....
. The large lake that covered much of Death Valley's floor, which geologists call Lake Manly
Lake Manly

Lake Manly was a large freshwater lake which filled the Death Valley basin prior to the dry climatic period which has prevailed since the last ice age....
, started to dry up 10,500 years ago. Saltpans and playas were created as ice age glaciers retreated, thus drastically reducing the lakes' water source. Only faint shorelines are left.


Biology

Habitat
Habitat (ecology)

A habitat is an ecological or Natural_environment area that is inhabited by a particular animal or plant species. It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population....
 varies from saltpan at below sea level to the sub-alpine conditions found on the summit of Telescope Peak, which rises to . Vegetation zones include Creosote Bush
Creosote bush

Larrea tridentata, known as creosote bush , is a flowering plant in the family Zygophyllaceae. It is a prominent species in the Mojave Desert, Sonoran Desert, and Chihuahuan Desert Deserts of western North America, including portions of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and western Texas in the United States, and norther...
, Desert Holly, and mesquite
Mesquite

Mesquite is a legume plant of the Prosopis genus found in Northern Mexico and the United States from the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas up to southwestern Kansas and from southeastern California and southwestern Utah to the southern limits of the Sonoran desert....
 at the lower elevations and sage
Sagebrush

Sagebrush is a common name of a number of shrubby species in the genus Artemisia native to North America:*Artemisia arbuscula ? Little Sagebrush, Low Sagebrush...
 up through shadscale, blackbrush, Joshua Tree, pinyon-juniper
Juniper

Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the mountains of Central America....
, to Limber Pine
Limber Pine

The Limber Pine is a species of pine tree that occurs in the mountains of the Western United States and Canada, specifically the subalpine areas of the Rocky Mountains from southwest Alberta south to the Mexico border; the Great Basin mountains of Nevada and Utah; and the White Mountains , the east slope of the Sierra Nevada and the San...
 and Bristlecone Pine
Great Basin Bristlecone Pine

Pinus longaeva, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, is a long living species of tree found in the higher mountains of the southwest United States....
 woodlands. The saltpan is devoid of vegetation, and the rest of the valley floor and lower slopes have sparse cover, although where water is available, an abundance of vegetation is usually present. These zones and the adjacent desert support a variety of wildlife species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
, including 51 species of native mammal
Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s, 307 species of bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s, 36 species of reptile
Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s, 3 species of amphibians, and 2 species of native fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
.

Small mammals are more numerous than large mammals, such as Bighorn Sheep
Bighorn Sheep

Bighorn sheep is a species of sheep in North America and Siberia with large horns which can weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates that there are three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered: Ovis canadensis sierrae....
, Coyote
Coyote

The coyote , also known as the prairie wolf, is a species of canid found throughout North America and Central America, ranging from Panama in the south, north through Mexico, the United States, and Canada....
s (image), Bobcat
Bobcat

The Bobcat is a North American mammal of the cat family, Felidae. With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern east Mexico, including most of the continental United States....
s, Kit Fox
Kit Fox

The 'Kit Fox' is a relatively common North American fox. Its range extends into northern Mexico. Some mammalogists classify it as conspecific with the Swift Fox V....
es, Cougars, and Mule Deer
Mule Deer

The mule deer is a deer whose habitat is in the western half of North America. It gets its name from its large mule-like ears. Adult male mule deer are called bucks, adult females are called does, and young of both sexes are called fawns....
. Mule Deer are present in the pinyon/juniper associations of the Grapevine, Cottonwood, and Panamint ranges. Bighorn Sheep are a rare species of mountain sheep that exist in isolated bands in the Sierra and in Death Valley. These are highly adaptable animals and can eat almost any plant. They have no known predators, but humans and burro
Donkey

The 'donkey' or 'ass', Equus africanus asinus, is a Domestication member of the Equidae or horse family, and an Odd-toed ungulates. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the Wild Ass, E....
s compete for habitat.

Death Valley Pupfish Spawning in Salt Creek
The ancestors of the Death Valley Pupfish
Death Valley pupfish

The Death Valley pupfish, Cyprinodon salinus salinus, is a species of fish that is the last known survivor of what is thought to have been a large ecosystem of fish species that lived in Lake Manly, which dried up at the end of the last ice age leaving the present day Death Valley in California....
 swam to the area from the Colorado River
Colorado River

The Colorado River is a river in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately 1,450 mi long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains....
 via a long-since dried-up system of rivers and lakes (see Lake Manly
Lake Manly

Lake Manly was a large freshwater lake which filled the Death Valley basin prior to the dry climatic period which has prevailed since the last ice age....
). They now live in two separate populations: one in Salt Creek and another in Cottonwood Marsh.

Death Valley is one of the hottest and driest places in North America, yet it is home to over 1,000 species of plant
Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
s; 23 of which are not found anywhere else. Adaptation to the dry environment is key. For example, creosote bush and mesquite have tap-root
Root

In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant body that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial root or aerating ....
 systems that can extend down in order to take advantage of a year-round supply of ground water. The diversity of Death Valley's plant communities results partly from the region's location in a transition zone between the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert

The Mojave Desert , , locally referred to as the High Desert, occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, and northwestern Arizona, in the United States....
, the Great Basin Desert
Great Basin

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the western United States. Its boundaries depend on how it is defined. Its most common definition is the contiguous drainage basin, roughly between the Wasatch Mountains, in Utah and the Sierra Nevada , that has no natural outlet to the sea....
 and the Sonoran Desert
Sonoran Desert

The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which straddles part of the United States-Mexico border and covers large parts of the U.S. states of Arizona and California and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California....
.

Sphinx Moth On Rock Nettle At Mosaic Canyon
This location, combined with the great relief found within the Park, supports vegetation typical of three biotic life zone
Life zone

The Life Zone concept was developed by Clinton Hart Merriam in 1889 as a means of describing areas with similar plant and animal communities. Merriam observed that the changes in these communities with an increase in latitude at a constant elevation are similar to the changes seen with an increase in elevation at a constant latitude....
s: the lower Sonoran, the Canadian, and the Arctic/Alpine in portions of the Panamint Range. Based on the Munz and Keck (1968) classifications, seven plant communities can be categorized within these life zones, each characterized by dominant vegetation and representative of three vegetation types: scrub, desert woodland, and coniferous forest. Microhabitats further subdivide some communities into zones, especially on the valley floor.

Unlike more typical locations across the Mojave Desert, many of the water-dependent Death Valley habitats possess a diversity of plant and animal species that are not found anywhere else in the world. The existence of these species is due largely to a unique geologic history and the process of evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
 that has progressed in habitats that have been isolated from one another since the Pleistocene
Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years Before Present covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
 epoch.

Activities


Sightseeing is available by personal automobile, four-wheel drive
Four-wheel drive

Four-wheel drive, 4WD, 4x4 , or AWD is a four-wheeled vehicle with a Powertrain that allows all four wheels to receive torque from the engine simultaneously....
, bicycle, mountain bike (on established roadways only), and hiking
Hiking

Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often on trail. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous :Category:Hiking organizations worldwide....
. State Route 190
California State Route 190

State Route 190 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that is split into two parts by the Sierra Nevada . The western portion of begins at Tipton, California at a junction with California State Route 99 and heads east towards Porterville, California before ending at Quaking Aspen, California in the Sequoia National Forest....
, the Badwater Road, the Scotty's Castle Road, and paved roads to Dante's View and Wildrose provide access to the major scenic viewpoints and historic points of interest. More than of unpaved and four-wheel-drive roads provide access to wilderness hiking, camping, and historical sites. All vehicles must be licensed and street legal. There are hiking trails of varying lengths and difficulties, but most backcountry areas are accessible only by cross-country hiking. There are literally thousands of hiking possibilities. The normal season for visiting the park is from October 15 to May 15 due to summer extremes in temperature. A costumed living history tour of the historic Death Valley Scotty's Castle
Scotty's Castle

Scotty's Castle is a two-story Spanish Villa located in northern Death Valley National Park, California, USA. It is also known as Death Valley Ranch....
 is conducted for a fee.

Surfing Star Dune
There are nine designated campgrounds within the park, and overnight backcountry camping permits are available at the Visitor Center. Xanterra Parks & Resorts owns and operates a private resort, the Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch Resort, which comprises two separate and distinct hotels: the Furnace Creek Inn is a four-star historic hotel, and the Furnace Creek Ranch is a three-star ranch-style property reminiscent of the mining and prospecting days. Xanterra also operates the Stovepipe Wells Village
Stovepipe Wells, California

Stovepipe Wells is a small way-station in the northern part of Death Valley, California. There is a motel with swimming pool, a gas station/general store, a gift shop, a ranger station and a restaurant/bar....
 motel. The Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch and the Stovepipe Wells Village are the only inns located inside Death Valley proper. There are a few motels near various entrances to the park, in Shoshone
Shoshone, California

Shoshone is a census-designated place in Inyo County, California, California, United States. The population was 52 at the 2000 census.Although small, it is notable as a southern gateway to Death Valley National Park; in addition to being a junction of roads leading from Baker, California and Pahrump, Nevada, it has the last services availa...
, Death Valley Junction, and Panamint Springs.

The visitor center is located in the Furnace Creek resort area on State Route 190. A 12-minute introductory slide program is shown every 30 minutes. During the winter season—November through April—rangers offer interpretive tours and a wide variety of walks, talks, and slide presentations about Death Valley cultural and natural history. The visitor center has displays dealing with the park's geology, climate, wildlife and natural history. There are also specific sections dealing with the human history and pioneer experience. The Death Valley Natural History Association maintains a bookstore specifically geared to the natural and cultural history of the park.

Death Valley National Park is a popular location for stargazing as it has one of the darkest night skies in the United States. Despite Death Valley's remote location, its air quality and night visibility are threatened by civilization. In particular, light pollution is introduced by nearby Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada, the seat of Clark County, Nevada, and an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and entertainment....
.

See also

  • List of nationally protected areas of the United States


Bibliography


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  • (adapted public domain text)* (adapted public domain text)
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External links

  • Official site: