Ventifact Ridge is a part of a basaltic lava flow. Seismic reflection data (Louie et al., 1992) show 140 m of flat-lying section below the 5.12 Ma basalts, this section lying unconformably on tilted and faulted sediments. *deposited in marine basins during Precambrian continental rifting algal marine dolomite. Mosaic Canyon Trail: 2306 Reviews, Map - California | AllTrails The crust responds to this force by sending a large and long roughly v-shaped block of crust down which forms the bedrock of the valley floor (see Basin and Range). Vegetation in the area is sparse, largely confined to hearty sagebrush. 48 Hours in Death Valley National Park - bemytravelmuse.com Mississippian The age of fill in Death Valley is not directly observed. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our, Copyright 2023 Geological Society of America. The Noonday Dolomite ( Fig. These consist of sediments of the Pahrump Group, Noonday Dolomite, and Johnnie Formation, along with some outcrops of Proterozoic basement (Fig. A lithologic correlation with a similar conglomerate-sandstone succession at Tucki Mountain has also been used to constrain both the age and amount of extension along the Furnace Creek fault zone (Wernicke et al., 1988b). McKenna and Hodges (1990) mapped extensional structures at Trail Canyon. Interpretations of the geology of Death Valley have played an important role in the development of models of continental extension, particularly for models that incorporate large-magnitude extension accommodated by low-angle detachment faults (Wright and Troxel, 1973; Hamilton, 1988; Wernicke et al., 1988a; Snow and Wernicke, 2000; Hayman et al., 2003). This inference is based on a compilation of age data for the Death Valley region, combined with a new interpretation of the geometry of detachment surfaces. The salt in the Devil's Golf Course consists of the minerals that were dissolved in the lake's water and left behind in the Badwater Basin when the lake evaporated. Generally considered a moderately challenging route, it takes an average of 1 h 59 min to complete. Both the Walker Lane and ECSZ are characterized by north- to northwest-trending topography with active dextral strike-slip and normal faults (Oldow et al., 1994, 2008; Henry et al., 2007; Lee et al., 2009; Dokka and Travis, 1990a, 1990b). Includes many rhyolite and lesser trachyte and comendite masses, many of them associated with calderas. A 20 m thick white quartzite marks the base of the unit in the Specter Range and northwestern Spring Mountains. 2; Hodges et al., 1987; Wernicke et al., 1988b). 2) at 15.6 Ma, followed by a period of slow uplift then renewed normal slip at 2.8 Ma. Two hours after sundown, walk 30 minutes into the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes outside Stovepipe Wells. Early Holocene Medium grained leucocratic granodiorite consisting of sodic plagioclase, quartz, microcline, and muscovite; locally, a minor amount of biotite and a trace of garnet are observed. This relative timing can be seen in Figure 3, where events associated with Basin and Range extension predate deposition of most of the Artist Drive through Funeral Formations. 252. b. Cemented fan gravel with interbedded basaltic lavas, gravels cut by veins of calcite (Mexican onyx); perhaps 1000 feet thick. In the 1930s, geologist Levi F. Noble studied the faulting and folding in the area, dubbing it the "Amargosa chaos" due to the extreme warping of the rock. The Panamint Range has previously been interpreted as an extensional allochthon, with the entire range transported from on top of or east of the Black Mountains. contains the lowest dry point in North America. 9 Furnace Creek Formation In the second 3 Ma restoration, the topography that formed as a result of young transtensional strike slip is removed. Figure 3 is a tectonostratigraphic chart showing a compilation of Neogene geologic events in the Death Valley region. Noonday Dolomite is limestone that was formed 750 million years ago when Death Valley was part of the Pacific Ocean, before being buried, heated, and exposed to enormous amounts of pressure. Recommended. These sediments are younger than the Copper Canyon Formation, with the 0.77 Ma Bishop tuff (number 3 in Fig. Scolithus ? a. Labels are colored for visibility only. Fan gravel; silt and salt buried under floor of playa; perhaps 2,000 feet thick.]. Lee et al. Modern geologists have documented four major deformational events that faulted and folded the Amargosa Chaos. The massive expanse of white is made up of almost pure table salt. Mosaic Canyon's polished marble walls are carved from the Noonday Dolomite and other Precambrian carbonate rocks. The highest strandline is one of the principal clues that geologists use to estimate the depth of the lake that once filled Death Valley. DPDarwin Plateau (Snyder and Hodges, 2000); WSPWillow Springs Pluton (Calzia nd Rm, 2000); SMGSmith Mountain Granite (Miller and Pavlis, 2005); MSGgranite of Miller Spring (Calzia and Rm, 2000); SWNVFSouthwest Nevada Volcanic Field (Sawyer et al., 1994); TC+RTTrail Canyon volcanics and Rhodes Tuff/Sheepshead andesite (McKenna and Hodges, 1990). 37 Noonday Dolomite 21 Rest Spring Shale The Noonday Dolomite has since been tilted from uplift. This fault pattern is not consistent with a low-angle detachment fault underlying Death Valley that would link the Black Mountains and Panamint Range, with the Black Mountains the footwall of the detachment and the Panamints the hanging wall. (1988a), and Snow and Wernicke (2000). Along this profile, then, Death Valley is an asymmetric graben with a steep (50) eastern fault and less steep (30) western fault. 13 Strozzis Ranch Rhyolite "Tr" b. Quartzite, mostly massive arid granulated due to shearing, locally it) beds 6 inches to 2 feet thick ' trot much cross bedded. Ammonites, smooth-shelled brachiopods, belemnites, and hexacorals. Ninemile Formation is absent in most locations in the eastern part of the map area. Permian A mix of carbonate and siliciclastic sequences from a shallow, near-shore depo. Further implications of this update will be discussed elsewhere. It lies underneath the extensional allochthons on the east side of the range, surfacing along the west side of these allochthons in the east-dipping Harrisburg fault zone mapped by Hodges et al. Ordovician Death Valley National Park CA, NV Mosaic Canyon Topographic map (600kb PDF) for Mosaic Canyon NPS - Dan Kish Distance: 4 mi (6.4km) out and back, round trip. Similar rock travel patterns have been recorded in several other playas in the region but the number and length of travel grooves on The Racetrack are notable. Called the Artist Drive Formation, the rock unit provides evidence for one of the Death Valley area's most violently explosive volcanic periods. The Panamint Range is more symmetric, with perhaps a slightly steeper western flank. Adventure Tours. Dark red lines in Death Valley are faults from Blakely et al. a. The 3 Ma restoration is shown in two phases for convenience. Typically located at the end-depositional sites in basin interiors. environment three groups of stromatolites have been found in the uppermost section - lower carbonate member contains domical and branching forms of stromatolites. This deformational event shifted the crust vertically, creating thinning and thickening of some sedimentary layers as they were being deposited. This means that the structures are young, created in the last 3 m.y., although the rocks that make up the turtleback megamullions formed the footwall to the Basin and Range extensional system and were tectonically exhumed in the Miocene. The concept illustrated here is that faulting due to strike slip broke and separated the original Basin and Range detachment surface. Contact with overlying Bonanza King Formation is commonly marked by a change from slope-forming yellowish-weathering limestone of the Carrara to more massive cliff-forming limestone and dolomite of the Bonanza King formation. The fourth and final event occurred quite recently, geologically speaking. Group is about 410 m thick in the Dry Mountain area of the Cottonwood Mountains, 384 m thick in the Panamint Range, 320 m thick in the Nopah Range, 360 to 700 m thick in the Spring Mountains and souther Sheep Range, 957 m thick in the Pahrangat Range, and 1,050 m in NTS area. This shear zone developed as a result of the evolving tectonics of western North America, particularly eastward propagation of the boundary between the Pacific and North America plates. The following list of geologic formations and corresponding ages represents what has been collected in the park and are available for viewing at our curatorial facility. The Pacific Nitrate Company arrived in 1909 and built a small camp, but left within a few years. Dunderberg Shale Member consists of reddish-brown to greenish-brown shale, thin-bedded limestone, and some siltstone; trilobite fragments are common. 92328, Download the official NPS app before your next visit. Limestone beds contain ooids, oncoids, and are stromatolitic. Titus Canyon is a narrow gorge in the Grapevine Mountains near the eastern boundary of Death Valley National Park. Far below the surface, high pressure and temperature altered the dolomite into the metamorphic rock, marble. Quartz grains are usually fine- to medium-grained. 3; Snyder and Hodges, 2000). Dips of the flanks of the Panamint Range are shallow, averaging 10. Round Trip Length: 2-7.8 miles (3.2-12.6 km) depending on route. This paper was sponsored by the PLATES project at UTIG. The kilns were located here as the trees single-leaf pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla) and Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) dominate the landscape in the upper Panamint Mountains. The last two columns in Figure 3 show tectonic events and interpreted tectonic regimes. Also in this area, McKenna and Hodges (1990) mapped the 8.69.4 Ma Trail Canyon volcanic sequence (Fig. (2005). The Death Valley region has played a key role in development of models of Basin and Range extension. Also, crinoidal columnals, fragments of cephalopods, and gastropods have been found from the Ash Meadow area. Contains limestone, siltstone, and shale units with the fusilinids Schwagerina and Pseudoschwagerina, solitary corals, bryozoans, and gastropods. Death Valley lies between two sets of mountains, the taller Panamint Range to the west and the dryer Amargosa Range along the Nevada-California border. Sharp edges of ventifacts called Kanters are formed when two or more facets (planar surfaces) intersect. [8] Endemic species include the Eureka Dune Grass, the Eureka Evening Primrose and the Shining Locoweed. It is here that the last survivor of Lake Manly resides; the Death Valley pupfish. The first phase, lasting from ca. Topography (USGS DEM, 2009) in gray shades fills in spaces where there are no Cenozoic sediments. Death Valley Adventure Trips - National Geographic The students stayed in a Beatty hotel and visited nine total sites in Death Valley National Park. The Neoproterozoic-Cambrian section in Death Valley consists of (in ascending order) the Pahrump Group (Crystal Spring Formation, Beck Spring Dolomite, and Kingston Peak Formation), the Noonday Dolomite, the Johnnie Formation, the Stirling Quartzite, the Wood Canyon Formation (with the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary), the Zabriskie Quartzite, and part of the Carrara Formation (Nolan, 1924 . Neogene sediments preserved within Death Valley record the latest phases of structural evolution of the basin. (1999), using an earlier version of the gravity-derived sediment thickness map of Blakely and Ponce (2002), showed a system of northwest-striking strike-slip faults and northeast-striking normal faults that is illustrated in Figure 5. Itinerary. If the detachment system along the east side of the Panamints is the one along which the Panamints moved, as in the model of Stewart (1983), then there is a correlation problem. "[12] While the origin of the name is unknown, it has become a tradition for visitors to attach teakettles to the sign with messages written on them. Geology of the Death Valley area, from Workman et al. a. Late Pleistocene 4). 3). The above summary of younger deposits in the Death Valley region highlights some of the structurally important inferences that can be drawn from these sections. As I said earlier, it's a big driving day and you will spend a lot of time in your car. While flooded, some of the salt is dissolved, then is redeposited as clean, sparkling crystals when the water evaporates. These volcanics correlate across Death Valley with the Rhodes Tuff and Sheepshead Andesite in the southern Black Mountains (TC+RT, Fig. 1 Alluvial fan and lacustrine deposits Mosaic Canyon, Death Valley - DesertUSA Places of interest in the Death Valley area - Wikipedia Death Valley National Park is not a summertime destination, at least in my opinion. Shaly and silty units increase in abundance in the upper part of the formation. Places of interest in the Death Valley area, Haff, P. K. 1986. Unit is from 6 to 150 m thick. In the northern Black Mountains and Furnace Creek Basin, the Artist Drive, Greenwater, Furnace Creek, and Funeral Formations reach a cumulative 4000 m (Hunt and Mabey, 1966; Greene, 1997; Wright et al., 1999). Polished marble, chiseled dolomite, and the canyon's namesake mosaic-like fragment formations . See Table 1 for data and explanations of abbreviations used. 4; the Noonday Dolomite is included in the Johnnie Formation in this digital compilation), with the highest peak of the range at Telescope Peak consisting of argillites of the Johnnie Formation (Albee et al., 1981). No fossils. The Pahrump Group is found in the western Panamint Range and southern Black Mountains region, in a configuration that Wright et al. Contained within its boundaries is a diverse rock record stretching throughout most of geologic time. The suggestion in this paper that the Panamints are not a far-traveled extensional allochthon means that this reconstruction must be reexamined. (1974) showed that the turtlebacks include many linear structures parallel to the direction of strike slip, ranging from minute slickenslides to fault mullions tens or hundreds of meters in amplitude (Wright et al., 1974, p. 54). The scarce springs and surrounding lush oases support thriving plant communities and attract a wide variety of animals. There are several falls, but they are mainly divided into the upper and lower with a small grotto in between. Ubehebe Crater is the largest of more than a dozen of in the Ubehebe Craters field. Unit exceeds 900 m thick in the Halfpint Range, and is estimated at 2,000 m thick in the Funeral Mountains, only 600 m of unit exposed in Spring Mountains. Dips of the Paleozoic strata at the eastern end of the section are from Hunt and Mabey (1966), as is the location of the detachment below these strata; Figure 7 is a summary of stratigraphic nomenclature for these older sediments. Permian-Pennsylvanian How to Plan Your Death Valley Day Trip from Las Vegas Cretaceous Crinoid stems abundant, Including large types. Death Valley National Park, the largest in area in the lower 48, boasts the lowest point in North America and the world record hottest temperature. Figure 4 shows surface geology (Workman et al., 2002) and Figure 5 the thickness of Cenozoic sediments (Blakely and Ponce, 2002) in the Death Valley area. Shrubs of Mormon tea (Ephedra sp. Extension in Death Valley is usually interpreted as a combination of low-angle Basin and Rangestyle extension and strike slip associated with the developing Pacific-North America plate boundary in western North America, with these two tectonic regimes operating synchronously in Death Valley. The small, narrow valley where the creek and falls are located features a rare collection of riparian greenery in the vast desert and is home to indigenous fauna such as quail. The west side of the basin shows a steep segment bordering the main basin and a gently dipping surface that joins to the Panamint Range. The Late Miocene intrusives consist of the mafic Willow Springs pluton and the felsic Smith Mountain granite. (1999) question the correlation because the Funeral Mountains section is underlain by a Miocene conglomerate unit that does not occur at Tucki Mountain and there are differences in structures in the underlying Paleozoic section (a thrust fault in the Mississippian strata in the Funeral Mountains is not seen at Tucki Mountain). Tectonostratigraphic chart for the Death Valley area. Presumably deposited in a basin like present-day Death Valley, these sediments are today located up to 800 m above the valley floor. Pressure and heat transformed the stone into the metamorphic rock we call marble. Golden Canyon (U.S. National Park Service) Canyon, but made of smooth, polished marble. The canyons of Death Valley National Park are justly famous for their geologic complexity and beauty, and Mosaic Canyon is one of the most beautiful that you can hike on a short trip to the park. In the Ash Meadow area crinoidal columns have been found. It is derived from the topography (Fig. These volcanics were deposited partly on the exhumed detachment surface from the earlier phase of Basin and Range extension. Cross sections in Figures 6, 8, and 9 are labeled A, B, and C. APAguereberry Point; ARArgus Range; BWBadwater; BMBlack Mountains; CCCopper Canyon; CHConfidence Hills; CMCottonwood Mountains; DPDarwin Plateau; DVDeath Valley; EMEagle Mountain; FMFuneral Mountains; FPFuneral Peak; GMGrapevine Mountains; GRGreenwater Range; HCHanaupah Canyon; HMHunter Mountain; IRInyo Range; KRKingston Range; MPMormon Point; NDFZNorthern Death Valley fault zone; NRNopah Range; PRPanamint Range; PVPanamint Valley; SDFZSouthern Death Valley fault zone; TBTecopa Basin; TCTrail Canyon; TMTucki Mountain; TPTelescope Peak. A hapsiphyllid tetracoral, Triplophyllites was collected immediately south of Rest Spring. Upper and lower third of units consists of interbedded red and brown quartzite, brownish green micaceous siltstone and minor orange-weathering silty dolomite. Red Cathedral is a geological formation located between highways 178 and 190. In the White Mountains northwest of Death Valley, Stockli et al. Cross section across Tucki Mountain along profile A in previous location maps. By night, it's otherworldly. 36 Johnnie Formation In basal 100 feet, trilobite trash beds containing Elburgis, Pseudagnostus, Horriagnostris, Elvinia , Apsotreta. Data from Smith and Sandwell (1997). The Lippincott Member (?) This, the nation's greatest evaporation potential, means that even a 12-foot (3.7m) deep, 30 miles (48km) long lake would dry up in a single year. (1990). It should be noted that 3 formations have been given unofficial names: Warm Spring Granite, Skidoo Granite, and Strozzis Ranch Rhyolite. 3) Smith Mountain granite. Evolution of Death Valley is best described as a two-stage process. I would like to thank Dave Reynolds and Stefan Boettcher for introducing me to Death Valley geology. Each newly formed lake doesn't last long though, because the 1.9 inches (48mm) average rainfall is overwhelmed by a 150-inch (3,800mm) annual evaporation rate. Pliocene (3.3 3.5 Ma) Mostly shale, some limestone, abundant spherical chert nodules. Widely distributed fusilinids. Massive black dolomite, 400-800 feet thick. Dashed line shows inferred location of the detachment fault across Tucki Mountain. In Wildrose Canyon, unit contains abundant microcline, and dominant rock type is granite. The petroglyphs here are made possible because many of the rocks in these arid conditions have desert varnish on them. 11 Artist Drive Formation is a cherty argillaceous unit containing Lower Devonian fish, the pteraspidids Blieckaspis and Panamintaspis from the Trail Canyon area. The Devil's Golf Course is a large salt pan on the floor of Death Valley. Uplift history of the range is uncertain with present data. The scale of this core complex, 3040 km wide by 60 km long with an amplitude of 4 km, is larger than other well-known core complexes like the Snake Range and Whipple core complexes (Block and Royden, 1990). Faults are from the USGS Quaternary faults database. Several springs overflow into pools totaling 6.6 acres (2.7 ha) in area, making the site the third largest marsh in the park. As discussed earlier, the present-day contact between the Artist Drive Formation and basement of the Badwater surface is faulted, but the geometry shown in this restoration shows that the Artist Drive Formation could have been originally deposited on basement, with faulting seen today a result of postdeposition emergence of the Badwater turtleback. Miocene Elevation Gain: 535 ft to 834ft (163m to 254m) Like the Bonanza King, alternating light- and dark-gray beds for distinctive color bands, but bands are thicker and more prominent. (2002), in this case supplemented from the map of Hunt and Mabey (1966). This is the greatest topographic relief in the conterminous U.S. Nearly black to grayish-yellow dolomite; some chert nodules; base marked by brownish-weathering shaly and cherty limestone and dolomite; incipiently to highly contact metamorphosed. 3 Ma, deposition of a thick sequence of volcanics, clastics, and some lacustrine carbonates signaled a period of relative tectonic quiescence, with sediments in some areas covering the exhumed detachment surfaces. This pan was first created by the drying-up of 30-foot (9.1m) deep Recent Lake 2000 to 3000 years ago. Occur in small bars and embankments; locally cemented with lime carbonate caliche. They are made up of Proterozoic basement gneiss, early Tertiary pegmatitic intrusives, and Late Miocene plutonic rocks. In the second category, based on the pull-apart model developed by Burchfiel and Stewart (1966), strike-slip faults penetrate deeply into the crust and drive extension between their terminations (Wright and Troxel, 1984; Topping, 1993; Serpa and Pavlis, 1996; Miller and Prave, 2002). Cichanski (2000) suggests that the higher-angle faults are part of the Panamint Valley strike-slip fault. McKenna and Hodges (1990) use the name Eastern Panamint fault system for a series of faults that include a basal detachment and higher faults that collectively form an extensional duplex. The only fossiliferous bed is shale below limestone member neat middle of formation. *9 Members* alternating siliciclastic and carbonate facies lower four (of the nine) members and the lower part of the fifth member contain Early Cambrian olenellid trilobites. There is a Conglomerate Member, an Upper Limestone Member, a Shale Member, and a Lower Limestone Member. The rocks on its exposed and barren ridge are famous for being shaped by wind erosion and are called ventifacts. *5 Members* The upper member contains conodonts, microgastropod steinkerns, sponge spicules, and fish remains. All these formations were deposited in basins formed by Basin and Range low-angle extension; in the model presented here, the floor of these basins was in some areas the exhumed Basin and Range detachment surface. a. Sediment age at the base of this well was estimated by Lowenstein et al. Megamullions in oceanic crust have been mapped since the development of multibeam bathymetry in the 1980s. Gear List. The oldest outcropping basin deposit consists of flat-lying basalt as old as 5.12 Ma (Calzia and Rm, 2000). (1990) along the west side of the range, but the dip of this fault is not known. The dip on the eastern side of the basin is 50. a. In the first phase, up to 8 km of uplift of the White Mountains (WM, Fig. 20 Bird Spring Formation Lake Manly once covered the valley to a depth of 30 feet (9.1m). Unnamed limestone formation, 725 feet thick, consists of interbedded chert and limestone in thin beds and in about equal proportions. The wetland lies at the southern tip of the Ibex Hills, on the floor of Death Valley and just northeast of the Amargosa River. A few scattered olenellid trilobites and archaeocyathids in upper part of formation. Over time the small amount of solutes in the water accumulate to form this linear salt pan. Also in the last few years, several important data sets relevant to a regional understanding of the geology of the Death Valley area have become available. When Burchfiel and Stewart (1966) first suggested that Death Valley was formed as a pull-apart basin, little was known about timing of tectonic events in the region. (2002) and, for the area west of the Panamint Range, from Saucedo et al. At Tucki Mountain, the detachment tracks over the top of the anticline that forms Tucki Mountain (Fig. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service. In the Grapevine Mountain there are two primary fossil assemblages; the stratigraphically lower assemblage is dominated by trilobites and brachiopods; the stratigraphically higher assemblage is dominated by receptaculitids, the large gastropods Palliseria robusta, Macrulites, orthoconic and coiled nautiloids, and a species of graptolite. Wildrose Canyon has 2 campgrounds above the kilns, Thorndyke at 7,490 feet and Mahogany Flat at 7923 feet. The remains of a lateral leaf lobe Lyonothamnus mohavensis has been reported from the upper section of this formation. Geology of the Death Valley area - Wikipedia The primary source of the dune sands is probably the Cottonwood Mountains which lie to the north and northwest. c. Widely exposed in map area. Rocks along the highest points of the northern Black Mountains are volcanics of the Artist Drive formation, including 6.5-m.y.-old rhyolite at the popular tourist overlook, Dantes View (Greene, 1997). The Walker Lane belt and ECSZ therefore together form a single strike-slip zone, which will be referred to as the ECSZ in this paper. Holocene - Pleistocene CA Naming conventions for these formations vary among different authors (e.g., Knott et al. a. This eastward propagation is likely to continue with the Pacific-North America plate boundary ultimately moving to the ECSZ, with motion on the San Andreas fault ceasing (Faulds et al., 2005). This model, using the preceding data and interpretations, includes two tectonic phases separated by a short interval of relative tectonic quiescence, as summarized in the timing chart in Figure 3. Hunt and Mabey (1966) summarize data from three borax exploration wells, the deepest reaching 300 m, drilled in Death Valley.