Death Valley, CA

This file is an Arch E size map showing the locations of 720 mines in the study area for this guidebook. The map is at a scale of 1:120,000.

Details about these 720 mines are found in Table 4A and 4B of this guidebook.

For links to other documents and maps in this guidebook go to http://www.greggwilkerson.com/death-valley.html

This is a table of 720 mines in the southern Death Valley Region sorted alphabetically. Fields in this table are

Mine Name
Commodities
Development Status
References
Legal Location: Township, Range, Section
Latitude
Longitude

For links to other documents and maps in this guidebook go to http://www.greggwilkerson.com/death-valley.html

This field guide starts at Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, Kern County and ends at the Saline Valley Warm Springs in Inyo county, California. The field trip route is 230 miles long. The Points of Interest along the field trip route are listed in Appendix POI-1. Stops include
Panamint-Argus Rane
Trona Pinnaces
Pleasant Canyon
Briggs Mine
Ballerat
Panamint City
Aguerberry Point
Emigrant Canyon
Skidoo
Stovepipe Wells
Mosaic Canyon
Devil's Corn Field
Chloride Cliffs and Chloride City
Titanothere Canyon
Rhyolite and Titus Canyon
Leadfield
Scotty's Castle
Ubehebe Crater
Ubehebe Mine
Racetrack Playa
Lippencott Mine
Saline Valley Salt Tram
Saline Valley Borax Works
Snow Flake Talc Mine
Saline Valley Hot Springs

This file is the text to the field guide. The field guide starts in Ridgecrest and explores the western side of the Panamint Range with visits to Trona, Ballarat, Panamint City , Briggs Mine, Wildrose Graben,  Aguereberry Point,  and Emegrant Canyon. We go down to Stovepipe Wells, and then to Mosaic Canyon. Then we go over to the northeast side of Death Valley with a side trip to Chloride Cliffs. Then we go to Rhyolite and then return west down Titus Canyon to the north floor of Death Valley. We go on up to Scotty's Castle. Then we continue southwest to Ubehebe Crater, Racetrack Playa and the Lippencott Mine. Then we decend into Saline Valley to see the salt tram and end our trip at the Saline Valley Hot springs.

This file is a set of 22 geologic strip maps along the field trip route. For a geologic index of maps used to create these Area Maps, see Part 2 of this field guide.

Links to other parts of this field guide are at http://www.greggwilkerson.com/southern-death-valley.html

ABSTRACT Volborthella tenuis is an enigmatic Lower Cambrian fossil, represented by small agglutinated cones with a central lumen. In the southwestern Great Basin, Volborthella occurs both as isolated specimens and in great abundance as mm-to dm-thick fossil concentrations; the latter are not just winnowed lag deposits, but likely represent locally high influxes of bioclastic debris.

This file is a collection of maps designed to be plotted on Arch E (36” x 42”) size paper.

The maps include:

GENERAL GEOLOGY
GEOLOGIC MOSAIC
GEOLOGIC MOSAIC INDEX
LAND STATUS AND PLSS
ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES
MINERAL RESOURCES
AREA MAP INDEX FOR PROJECT REGION

Links to other parts of this field guide are at http://www.greggwilkerson.com/southern-death-valley.html

Despite the occurrence of Neoproterozoic strata throughout the southwestern US and Sonora, Mexico, glacial units overlain by enigmatic cap carbonates have not been well-documented south of Death Valley, California. Here, we describe in detail the first glaciogenic diamictite and cap carbonate succession from Mexico, found in the Cerro Las Bolas Group. The diamictite is exposed near Sahuaripa, Sonora, and is overlain by a 5 m thick very finely-laminated dolostone with soft sediment folds.

Nancy Langston, in Human and Ecological Change in the Inland Northwest Forests, argued that human desires were the definition of a healthy natural system. (Langston, n.d., pp. 430) This healthy ecosystem depended on eliminating anything that interfered with controlled annual growth of trees, including: insects, older trees, fire, and natural processes that reduce production of commodities. (Langston, n.d., pp. 430)

Gary Snyder, in The Rediscovery of Turtle Island, shares the indigenous Nisenan and Maidu’s Sacramento Valley story of Coyote, Turtle and Earth Maker creating the Earth, from a small grain of dirt received from the ocean. (Snyder, n.d., pp. 305) In the story of creation, altered from the biblical Judeo-Christian version, life has its place and rightful time; Coyote imagined the developed land, but he also imagined an ending for each species time, on the planet. (Snyder, n.d., pp. 306) We appreciate and value our experiences.

Alan Thein Durning shared the story of the unmapped watershed route of the Pacific Northwest, in This Place On Earth Home and the Practice of Permanence. (Durning, n.d., pp. 259) No other part of the industrial world had as many natural ecosystems intact than the Pacific Northwest, with sustainability practices implemented and enforced to lead to an ecologically conscientious outcome. (Durning, n.d., pp. 264) According to this article, the Pacific Northwest had a civility, culture and humanity that matched its beautiful, rugged scenery, as a model for sustainability, that the world could learn from. (Durning, n.d., pp. 264) Death Valley is part of this scenery; no other place on earth had as many geological features in one place, still intact. We find inspiration and learn about our connection to a place, where we work and live.

This file is an Arch E  (32" x 42") size map depicting the location of Area Maps 01 to 42 provided in Part 2A and 2B of this field guide at a scale of 1:120,000. 

For links to other documents and maps in this report go to http://www.greggwilkerson.com/death-valley.html

This file is a table of 720 mines in the southern Death Valley Region sorted by legal location (Township, Range, Section). Fields in this table are

Mine Name
Commodities
Development Status
References
Legal Location: Township, Range, Section
Latitude
Longitude

For links to other documents and maps in this guidebook go to http://www.greggwilkerson.com/death-valley.html

Death Valley, California is today the hottest hyperarid area in the western Hemisphere with temperatures of 57 °C (134 °F) recorded. During the late Quaternary, pluvial Lake Manly covered much of the Valley and contributed to a much more moderate climate. The abrupt draining of Lake Manly in the mid-Holocene and coincident dramatic shifts in temperature and aridity exerted substantial selection pressure on organisms living in this area. Our research investigates the adaptive response of Neotoma (woodrats) to temperature change over the late Quaternary along a steep elevational and environmental gradient. By combining fieldwork, examination of museum specimens, and collection of paleomiddens, our project reconstructs the divergent evolutionary histories of animals from the valley floor and nearby mountain gradients (- 84 to > 3400 m). We report on recent paleomidden work investigating a transition zone in the Grapevine Mountains (Amargosa Range) for two species of woodrats differing significantly in size and habitat preferences: N. lepida, the desert woodrat, and N. cinerea, the bushy-tailed woodrat. Here, at the limits of these species' thermal and ecological thresholds, we demonstrate dramatic fluctuations in the range boundaries over the Holocene as climate shifted. Moreover, we find fundamental differences in the adaptive response of these two species related to the elevation of the site and local microclimate. Results indicate that although N. cinerea are currently extirpated in this area, they were ubiquitous throughout the late Pleistocene and into the middle Holocene. They adapted to climate shifts over this period by phenotypic changes in body mass, as has been demonstrated for other areas within their range; during colder episodes they were larger, and during warmer intervals, animals were smaller. Their presence may have been tied into a much more widespread historical distribution of juniper ( Juniperus sp.); we document a downward displacement of approximately 1000 m relative to juniper's modern extent in the Amargosa Range. These results suggest a cooler and more mesic habitat association persisting for longer and at lower elevations than previously reported.

Pecked petroglyphs of a prehistoric Mojave Desert slot canyon hint at experience crafting processes in rock image production.  The unique qualities here not shared by other area petroglyph sites support the need to consider archaeological and geographic context of these sites as a critical variable, rather than an assumed constant.  With narrow passages, dry falls, and towering vertical walls, the slot's metamorphised limestone substrate yields the potential for sound characteristics not found at many other petroglyph sites in the region.  A summer 2014 expedition undertook experimentation with percussive sounds in the highest density concentrations of rock art within the slot.  this research aims to indentify novel acoustic properties brought about by  both the unique landform and curious continuity of the use of pecking strategy in image production.  Weathering suggests continuity in pecked engraving technique over a substantial time depth - likely spanning through both the Numic and part of the Archaic Periods.  This study adds depth to the range of variables to consider relevant in recording rock art sites.  More broadly, it demonstrates the capacity of experimental archaeology to push the limits of interpretation by expanding the range of inferences which can be reasonably drawn from even faint traces.

The small shelly fossil Qinella occurs in an oolite sample from the Lower Cambrian Wood Canyon Formation, Echo Canyon,
Death Valley, California. Until now, Qinella has been reported exclusively from upper Proterozoic strata. The Death Valley
specimens reach 3.5 mm diameter, and are preserved in limestone matrix that hosts ooids, trilobites, and archaeocyaths with
lumpy, cerebroid coatings. Although reworked, the Qinella specimens are not derived from Proterozoic deposits, as one specimen has a trilobite fragment lodged deeply in its interior.

The fossils were collected under permit from an elevated desert pavement surface during a Mount Holyoke College expedition to
Death Valley. The oolite sample suite was initially thought to belong to the Proterozoic Johnnie Formation. Thin sections, however, revealed the presence of juvenile ethmophylloid archaeocyaths occurring as coated grain nuclei alongside the Qinella.

Cerebroid ooids characterize the lower oolite of the upper Wood Canyon Formation. Under cathodoluminescence, the small
shelly fossils reveal characteristic Qinella wall structure, manifest as nested, loosely‑spaced cylindrical walls of variable
thickness. Walls may thin and pinch out against adjacent walls, as seen in both transverse and longitudinal section.

Qinella, also known from the Proterozoic La Ciénega Formation of Sonora, México, is one of very few genera known to survive
the Cambrian explosion. Qinella's wall structure evidently provided a formidable defense against boring micropredators. The
enhanced protection afforded by its multilamellate shell allowed Qinella to survive well into the Cambrian.

This file contains several tables with information about:

POI Points of Interest
This file has the latitude and longitude and Township-Range-Section designations for each point of interest and stop for this field trip guidebook

M1 Historic Mines
This file is an alphabetical listing of mines in the Project Region with information about location (latitude and longitude and Township-Range-Section) and commodities produced at each mine

M2 Mine Commodity Distribution
This is a statistical grouping of the number of mines in the Project Region by commodity type

M3 Producing Mines
This is a listing of producing mine in the Project Region.

G1 Thermal Springs and Wells

Links to other parts of this field guide are at

http://www.greggwilkerson.com/southern-death-valley.html

This is Part 2B of my report which contains Area Maps 023 to 42. These are designed for printing on Tabloid (11" x 14") size paper. Most of these maps are at 1:24,000 scale. For a link to other parts of this report go to http://www.greggwilkerson.com/death-valley.html.