*3 Members* a large, cliff-forming carbonate unit with three members (Dunderberg/Halfpint Members, Smokey Member) basal shale and silty limestone beds of this formation are persistently fossiliferous characterized by trilobites, conodonts, and the brachiopod Linnarssonella - Dunderberg/ Halfpint Members are divided into seven facies and contain sponge Hintzespongia, spicule-like elements of Chancelloria, eocrinoid fragments, lingulid and acrotretid brachiopods, trilobites, and single-element species of paraconodonts and protocondonts - Smokey Membercharacterized by the black and buff colored banded dolomite also contains stromatolites and thrombolites within packstones and grain stones, a dark dolomite above the middle of the Nopah Formation contains small-silicified Trempleauan gastropods, a singular mollusk Matthevia, and trilobites. The Late Miocene intrusives consist of the mafic Willow Springs pluton and the felsic Smith Mountain granite. Late Precambrian (1999) as 200 10 kA. 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). Based on research, 61 formations are known to exist in the park. Breccia is an Italian word meaning gravel. Dark-brown to orange burrow mottling is prevalent, and several layers have dark-brown weathering chert beds and nodules. The area saw a failed nitrate rush in 1902, and similarly unsuccessful attempts to mine gold and silver in the middle part of the decade. The Panamint Valley basin runs between the Panamint Range to the east and Argus and Slate ranges to the west for 65 miles (105km). The 3 Ma restoration is shown in two phases for convenience. No fossils. Stewart (1983) proposed that the Panamint Range forms the hanging wall of an extensional system that transported the Panamint Range westward from on top or east of the Black Mountains, with the latter forming the footwall of this extensional system. 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. 1) developed and has forced deformation to the east, into the ECSZ. Detachment fault surfaces are exposed in several places in the Death Valley region, with the best studied being the antiformal structures known as turtlebacks in the Black Mountains on the east side of the valley (Figs. Dave Reynolds, Larry Lawver, and especially an anonymous reviewer provided excellent suggestions for improving the manuscript. Light-to moderate-brown, dusky-yllowish brown, varicolored red, and white to light-brown quartzite and sandstone; sand grains are fine to medium-grained. Along this profile, then, Death Valley is an asymmetric graben with a steep (50) eastern fault and less steep (30) western fault. ), such as Death Valley ephedra (Ephedra funerea), are spaced between them, with other xeric sub-shrubs and native bunchgrasses. As shown in Figure 6, this section is also seen in the extensional allochthons on the east flank of Tucki Mountain. 1) on the west side of the White Mountains. The Artist Drive Formation is in fault contact with Proterozoic gneiss and Miocene intrusives of the Badwater turtleback structure. No fossils. Check out the dolomite promontory that gave mosaic Canyon its name, too! Mostly shale, some limestone, abundant spherical chert nodules. The cross section was made by extracting topography from the DEM data (Fig. [12] If there's a moon,. In this formation, the placoderm Dunkleosteus (a small cladodont) and cochliodont tooth have been found. a. C. cornicula. AMAvawatz Mountains; ARArgus Range; BMBlack Mountains; CMCottonwood Mountains; DPDarwin Plateau; DVDeath Valley; FMFuneral Mountains; FCFZFurnace Creek fault zone; GMGrapevine Mountains; HMHunter Mountain; HMFHunter Mountain fault; IFZInyo fault zone; IRInyo Range; KPKingston Peak; NDVFZNorthern Death Valley fault zone; NRNopah Range; OVOwens Valley; PRPanamint Range; PVPanamint Valley; SMSpring Mountain; SDVFZSouthern Death Valley fault zone; SVSaline Valley; SWNVFSouthwest Nevada Volcanic Field; TMTucki Mountain. 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. This multiphase history of the structures plus their location along a preexisting rift may explain why the turtlebacks are unique features of the western North America extensional province. 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. In this figure, the detachment surface is shown schematically tracking across the top of the Panamint Range, rather than underneath it. 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. Places of interest in the Death Valley area, Haff, P. K. 1986. This older faulting is interpreted as the final phase of Basin and Range extension in the area (Louie et al., 1992; Calzia and Rm, 2000). In Figure 11 a sinusoidal function with these dimensions is included in the cross section across Badwater. Ventifact Ridge is a part of a basaltic lava flow. Wildrose Canyon has 2 campgrounds above the kilns, Thorndyke at 7,490 feet and Mahogany Flat at 7923 feet. contains the lowest dry point in North America. The Inyo Mountains, south of the White Mountains, are bounded to the east by the East Inyo fault zone, which links via the Hunter Mountain fault to the Panamint Valley. Death Valley NP is renowned world-wide for its exposed, complex, unique tectonics and diverse geologic resources. As summarized in Figure 6, interpretations of the extensional structures at Tucki Mountain show that the footwall of the detachment surface consists of Proterozoic basement and metasediments. The younger age is further confirmed by occurrence of one of the Mesquite Spring tuffs (3.13.35 Ma; numbers 7 and 8 in Fig. Banded Mountain Member generally is light- to dark-gray, fine- to medium crystalline dolomite and limestone, alternating light- to dark-gray colors of beds give the member a distinctive banded appearance. Fault dips along the southwest flanks of the turtlebacks are steep, e.g., 50 at Badwater as shown in Figure 9. This idea has been incorporated into several models for the structural evolution of Death Valley. Skolithos) and some interbedded bioturbated silstones. Triassic No fossils. The Dolomites (Italian: Dolomiti [dolomiti]; Ladin: Dolomites; German: Dolomiten [dolomitn] (); Venetian: Doomiti [doomiti]: Friulian: Dolomitis), also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range in northeastern Italy.They form part of the Southern Limestone Alps and extend from the River Adige in the west to the Piave Valley (Pieve di . b. Mapped as 1 unit (Lee Flat, Perdido and Tin together). In Wildrose Canyon, unit contains abundant microcline, and dominant rock type is granite. The Panamint Range is more symmetric, with perhaps a slightly steeper western flank. At Tucki Mountain, the detachment tracks over the top of the anticline that forms Tucki Mountain (Fig. The ECSZ was originally defined by Dokka and Travis (1990a) based on mapping of strike-slip faults in the Mojave Desert, and included the Death Valley area (i.e., north of the Garlock fault) as its northern limit. From here Badwater Basin can be seen, which Detachment faults (italicized): TDTucki Detachment; EFEmigrant Detachment; HFHarrisburg fault; HCHanaupah Detachment. Jurassic (134 Ma, 156 Ma, 178 Ma, 182 Ma) The primary source of the dune sands is probably the Cottonwood Mountains which lie to the north and northwest. As also discussed earlier, the Panamint Range is a large, almost symmetric anticlinal structure, with no high-angle faults along the western side of the range. Favosites. 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. Der Death-Valley-Nationalpark (Anhren? In upper part, gastropods. As noted above, Late Proterozoic rocks make up the crest of the Panamint Range. Evolution of Death Valley is best described as a two-stage process. This implies 7 km of unroofing between the Cretaceous and 10.6 Ma, with some of this unroofing due to the extension (Labotka and Albee, 1990). Along the east side of Tucki Mountain, extension is marked by Paleozoic sedimentary rocks in fault contact with Proterozoic rocks that have been tectonically exhumed from mid-crustal (greenschist; Hodges et al., 1987) levels. The strong link between Pacific-North America plate motion and structural evolution of the ECSZ is emphasized by this synchronous timing. Goodwin is medium gray to grayish-orange weathering limestone and dolomite, dark-brown weathering chert layers, and distinctive intraclastic limestone conglomerate; contains trilobite and brachiopods fragments, and sparse ooids; base of Goodwin contains Late Cambrian conodonts in the Spring Mountains and souther Sheep Range. 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). 24 Lost Burro Formation The Wildrose Charcoal Kilns were completed in 1877 by the Modock Consolidated Mining Company, above Death Valley in the Panamint Range, and were used to reduce pinyon and juniper tree wood to charcoal in a process of slow burning in low oxygen. 6 Nova Formation The students stayed in a Beatty hotel and visited nine total sites in Death Valley National Park. 1) occurred in the Middle Miocene as a result of footwall uplift associated with east-west extension. 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. No fossils. Brachiopods abundant, especially Spirifer , Cyrtospirifer , Productilla , Carmarotoechia , Atrypa. Massive black dolomite, 400-800 feet thick. Please keep in mind that collecting rocks within Death Valley is illegal without a permit! 21 Rest Spring Shale Erosion over the millennia since the eruption revealed multi-colored stripes on the crater walls dating to the Miocene. Search for other works by this author on: This site uses cookies. It features megabreccia and other rock formations, petroglyphs, and wildlife of various kinds, including bighorn sheep. In this paper, I suggest that Death Valley also formed in two phases, with low-angle Basin and Rangestyle extension in the Miocene followed by pull-apart basin development during strike-slip deformation in the last three million years. a. Interbedded fluvial and marine sequences fine-grained, cross-stratified, locally conglomeratic sandstone, intervals of siltstone and carbonate rocks in the Funeral Mnts. 33 Zabriskie Quartzite Presumably deposited in a basin like present-day Death Valley, these sediments are today located up to 800 m above the valley floor. 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. Titus Canyon is a narrow gorge in the Grapevine Mountains near the eastern boundary of Death Valley National Park. Ammonites, smooth-shelled brachiopods, belemnites, and hexacorals. Darwin Falls is a waterfall located on the western edge of Death Valley National Park near the settlement of Panamint Springs, California. Like the Bonanza King, alternating light- and dark-gray beds for distinctive color bands, but bands are thicker and more prominent. Location Fall Canyon is located in the Grapevine Mountains, towards the less-traveled north end of Death Valley National Park.It is close to Titus Canyon, another colorful ravine that is popular because of the rough one-way track that extends through it - this is a 4WD route that starts from road NV 374 in Nevada, crosses the flat Amargosa Valley into California and then winds through the . Along the profile of Figure 9, the west flank of the range averages a 10 dip and the east flank 9.5. b. Cemented gravel, silty and saliferous playa deposits; various salts, especially borates, more than 5,000 feet thick. (2005). Locally metamorphosed to subgreenschist to lower greenschist facies south of NTS in Funeral Mountains and Specter Range. A dirt road provides access to an overlook of the area, but human entry into the wetland itself is prohibited in order to the protect the sensitive habitat. Racetrack stones only move once every two or three years and most tracks last for just three or four years. Basin and Range extensional allochthons occur along the east flank of the range; these formed during MioceneEarly Pliocene Basin and Range extension. a. 5 Funeral Formation The turtlebacks are megamullions very similar to megamullions adjacent to seafloor spreading centers. [8] Endemic species include the Eureka Dune Grass, the Eureka Evening Primrose and the Shining Locoweed. Ian Norton; Two-stage formation of Death Valley. Cambrian Shaly and silty units increase in abundance in the upper part of the formation. As groundwater exploded into steam due to the heat of magma underneath, an empty pit was left behind and the debris spread around the field. Dips of the flanks of the Panamint Range are shallow, averaging 10. From here an easy 1/4 mile walk leads into the canyon narrows . Pressure and heat transformed the stone into the metamorphic rock we call marble. Cross section across Tucki Mountain along profile A in previous location maps. 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. The Noonday Dolomite has since been tilted from uplift. South of Mormon Point, another important data point for structural evolution is in the Confidence Hills (CH, Fig. It takes some time for waves to gnaw away terraces like the ones seen on Shoreline Butte, so these benches provide records of times when the lake level stabilized long enough for waves to leave their mark on the rock. Syringopora (open-spaced colonies) Caninia cf. The fourth and final event occurred quite recently, geologically speaking. *3 Members* (Goodwin, Ninemile, Antelope Valley Limestone) carbonates, the upper member (AVL) is most prominent fossiliferous, cliff-forming, limestone/dolomite. Diatoms, pollen. Digital elevation model (DEM) topography of the Death Valley region, from USGS DEM (2009). b. Limestone in light and dark beds 1-10 feet thick give striped effect on mountainsides. b. Well-bedded quartzite in beds 1-5 feet thick comprising thick members of quartzite 700-800 feet thick separated by 500 feet of purple shale, crossbedding conspicuous in quartzite. Mon-Fri 7am-5pm PT. This canyon was formed through a process of cut and fill which included periodic erosive floods followed by long periods of deposition and uplift. Scarce fossils. The pools provide habitat for several endemic species, including the Saratoga Springs pupfish. Over time the small amount of solutes in the water accumulate to form this linear salt pan. To understand more about structural evolution of Death Valley, it is useful to consider the area's position in relation to structural provinces that have been defined in western North America. 23 Tin Mountain Limestone Purple polygons (Prot bsmnt) are exposures of Proterozoic basement, generally denoting detachment footwalls, from Workman et al. a. As I said earlier, it's a big driving day and you will spend a lot of time in your car. It overlies a 19.8 0.2 Ma (K/Ar age) tuff and is in turn overlain by a 13.7 0.4 Ma (K/Ar age) tuff (Cemen et al., 1999). Cichanski (2000) suggests that the higher-angle faults are part of the Panamint Valley strike-slip fault. Red Cathedral is a geological formation located between highways 178 and 190. The interpretations presented above offer some new ideas for the evolution of Death Valley. The cross section of Figure 9 with, superimposed at Badwater, a generalized cross section across an oceanic megamullion structure (megamullion data from Tucholke and Lin, 1998). Death Valley is mysterious enough by day. *2 Members* cemented fan gravel exposed at: Furnace Creek, Artist Drive, Mormon Point, and Emigrant Wash. No fossils found. 3) Smith Mountain granite. No fossils reported (1999). 3; Snyder and Hodges, 2000). This is the greatest topographic relief in the conterminous U.S. Miller and Pavlis (2005) divided these models into two categories, depending on how strike-slip and low-angle detachment faulting are combined. First narrows of Fall Canyon Visitors can hike on trails to the bottom or around the rim. Polished marble, chiseled dolomite, and the canyon's namesake mosaic-like fragment formations . *2 Members* Lower member is limestone and upper member is siltstone. Numerous trilobite trash beds in lower part yield fragments of olenellid trilobites. c. Widely exposed in map area. 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. (1976) and McAllister (1976). The second phase was the development of Death Valley as a pull-apart basin, with higher-angle faults and transtensional motion. Extension along the Harrisburg fault (HF, Fig. Miocene Death Valley, Hamilton (1988) examined the structures at Hanaupah Canyon and correlated this Hanaupah detachment (Hamilton's more appropriate term; HD, Fig. 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. Holocene - Pleistocene Between the Last Chance Range and Saline Mountains is the graben Eureka Valley. This desert butte was once an island in a lake that filled Death Valley several times during the Pleistocene ice ages. Hunt and Mabey (1966) summarize data from three borax exploration wells, the deepest reaching 300 m, drilled in Death Valley. 3) near the top of the section (Hillhouse, 1987). Adding another day to your visit to Death Valley helps to balance out the long drive to and from Las Vegas. 2; Cemen et al., 1999). Middle (?) As mentioned in the Introduction, Stewart (1983) suggested that the Panamint Range forms the hanging wall of a fault system that transported the Panamints westward from a position on top or east of the Black Mountains. This shale contains linguloid brachiopods and trilobite trash beds with fragments of "Ehmaniella." These structures are created when the surface of the earth is under extensional, or a pulling force. Schematic evolution of the cross section of Figure 9. To accommodate as many events as possible, the time scale (from Gradstein et al., 2004) is shown with a variable vertical scale, logarithmic from 1000 yr to 1 m.y., then a linear scale from 1 to 5 m.y. They were then cut by strike-slip faults, forming the flanks of the Death Valley pull-apart basin. Round Trip Time: 1.5 to 4.5 hours depending on route. b. Dolomite, with some limestone, at base, shale unit in middle, massive dolomite at top. (2002; Fig. This part of the valley has numerous cotton top cactus, blister beetles and cholla cactus. These sediments are younger than the Copper Canyon Formation, with the 0.77 Ma Bishop tuff (number 3 in Fig. Canyon, but made of smooth, polished marble. Gear List. Syringopora have also been found. These low hills are composed of clastic sediments of the Confidence Hills Formation (Wright and Troxel, 1984), with an age range of 1.72.2 Ma (Knott et al., 2005). Highly fossiliferous shale member 100 feet thick at base, upper 1 200 feet is dolomite in thick alternating black and light hands about 100 feet thick. (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. Areas below sea level are in blue. 74, 1: 376-381, rocks that mysteriously move across its surface, "USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) 1 meter Downloadable Data Collection from The National Map 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) - National Geospatial Data Asset (NGDA) National Elevation Data Set (NED)", Death Valley National Park Furnace Creek Area (U.S. National Park Service), "Eureka Dunes, Death Valley National Park", "Death Valley Has a Secret Shrine toTea", "Earthquake: 3.2 quake strikes near Teakettle Junction in Death Valley", USGS: Death Valley National Park Virtual Geology Field Trip, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Places_of_interest_in_the_Death_Valley_area&oldid=1150267321, This page was last edited on 17 April 2023, at 05:09. Also, crinoidal columnals, fragments of cephalopods, and gastropods have been found from the Ash Meadow area. In NTS area, unit is from 700 to 1,150 m thick, about 600 m thick in the Montgomery Mountains, and 640 to 820 m thick in the northwest Spring Mountains. c. Unit is white, pale red, purple, pink, and gray, quarzite and sandstone, conglomeratic quartzite, and minor beds of light- to dark-brown micaceous siltstone. [17], The rock at the junction includes the bedrock sandstone of the Eureka Quartzite strata.[18]. Locally metamorphosed to sub-greenschist to lower greenschist facies at Bare Mountain, Funeral Mountains, and parts of the northwestern Spring Mountains. Un road trip en van dans l'ouest des tats-Unis, un city trip New York City ou Chicago, des randonnes dans les montagnes rocheuses du Colorado.
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