A Hot and Windy Whirlwind Trip (Now with report!)

[GowerGulch42]

Visited last weekend (Aug. 16-18) to scout a few locations for my upcoming geology field trips I'm leading. I got to bring a friend who'd never been before, and he was pretty amazed with what DV has to offer! (He's from Colorado and grew up going to the CO desert and Moab, so pretty different from DV). High temperature: 118˚F, wind gusts about 35 MPH.

I've mentioned this before, but I'm leading a couple of geology field trips to the region this coming season. Juggling the end of grad school, starting a new job, research commitments, and music engagements meant I wasn't able to schedule until… the middle of August. I had to work all day on Friday and Monday so we flew to Las Vegas, rented a car, and drove to Stovepipe, settling into bed a little after midnight. 

I had a long laundry list of things I wanted to check out for the field trip, which is focused on the tectonic processes that built Death Valley and evidence of the major earthquakes that shape the landscape. First up was a spot at the southern end of the Kit Fox Hills where the Northern Death Valley fault zone crops out at the surface. Near here, a ~1-foot-thick ash bed from Yellowstone's 2nd to last major super-eruption is exposed. It's actually visible from the road, so that's pretty cool. That ash layer is also recorded in alluvium at Mormon Point, Pleasant Canyon over in Panamint Valley, and a number of other localities.


Lava Creek B ash bed (~760 ka) by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Fault exposure, Kit Fox Hills by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Northern Death Valley fault zone by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Northern Death Valley FZ (annotated) by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

Next up was the north end of the Kit Fox Hills. Since it was already pushing 110˚F, I abandoned the original plan to walk out to Triangle Spring. I settled for a little bench just a couple hundred yards from the road, where the Northern Death Valley fault creates a nice bench with scenic vista, to boot. The wind was getting gusty but some clouds wandered over, offering some relief from the heat. I experienced a very odd sensation when I could feel the sweat evaporating directly out of my sweat pores - a strange tingle up and down my arms.


Mesquite Flat by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Looking south along NDVFZ by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

There were nice tufa deposits here. This was an estuary during one of Lake Manly's more recent iterations, probably about 15,000 years ago.


Lake Manly tufa/shoreline deposits by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Cloud Shadows over Titus by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

Next, it was over to Titus where the Grapevine fault daylights. This is the fault that allows the valley to drop and the mountains to rise, where the Northern Death Valley fault primarily accommodates lateral motion. When I was here in March, the other side of the valley was not visible due to the high winds. The fault plane exhibits grooves, called slickenlines, which show the fault's motion.


Mouth of Titus by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Looking down by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Pure normal motion by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr (I won't say too much about this because I'm working on a paper about it!)

Next we ran over to Ubehebe. I wanted to see how the Tin Mountain fault looks in the crater, and it turns out that I've been looking right at it for years! We took the opportunity to go up to Little Hebe, which I hadn't been to before. It's such a nice little spatter crater.


Tin Mountain fault by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Little Hebe Crater by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

I looked at a few more non-notable things, but finished pretty early due to the heat (118˚F according to the car thermometer) so we went to the Charcoal Kilns, which I hadn't been to in probably 12 years at least. We were treated with one of the most magical things I've ever seen in DV…


Baby Burro! by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


TWO Baby Burros! by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Baby burro! by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

The wonder of the two baby burros (impossibly fuzzy and cute) was tainted slightly by this fellow who walked right up and stuck his head in the window.


Intruder by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Kilns by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

The Stovepipe restaurant is undergoing remodeling, so we had a rather average dinner of pizza-oven-cooked hamburgers and headed to Mosaic for sunset.


Mosaic at Dusk by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Twilight over Mosaic (iPhone!) by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr
Can you believe that's a phone picture? Wow.

The next day was for destinations south. Here's the first stop, an unremarkable fault scarp formed by the Black Mountains fault north of Badwater.


Black Mountains fault zone by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

Surprisingly, we found a mini natural bridge here!


Mini-natural bridge by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Mini-natural bridge by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

We stopped off at Badwater before the worst of the day's heat…


Badwater by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

… and made it down to what might be Death Valley's most scenic toilet at Ashford Mill. This was the first time I'd made it that far south in daylight hours.


Ashford Mill by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Ashford Mill bajada by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

On our drive back north from Ashford, we were stopped by this imposing canyon mouth just south of Mormon Point.


Mouth of "Dead Bird Canyon" by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

Just inside was the best outcrop of the Black Mountains fault I've yet found:


Black Mountains FZ outcrop by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


BMFZ by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

This short canyon (the grotto in the right distance above is the end, at a dry fall) had some strange geology with weird faults and what I suspect is a major, ancient structure called a detachment which allowed Mormon Point to uplift. There were also some nice hoodoos. The one on the right is about 12 feet tall.


Dead Bird Hoodoos by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Marble fold - 1.5 m across by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

The strangest thing in this weird canyon were the four dead birds we found at the end. Three were mourning doves, in good condition and intact apart from one, and the fourth was this little songbird. The best guess I could come up with was a western tanager, but any birders among us are welcome to chime in. What was she doing down here?


Female western tanager? by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

We poked into the canyon next door (north) too. The fault outcrops weren't as good, but we found some bones that I couldn't identify, and another dead bird – this one a raptor of some kind.


Unidentified skeletal part by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Unidentified skeletal part by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

At this point, the temperature was about 112˚F. Although a certifiably bad idea, we walked a short ways up Golden Canyon since the parking lot was empty. In full sun, in August, with wind off the salt pan, it's like a solar oven in there. It was pretty cool to have it to ourselves, though. Not a common phenomena in winter or spring.


Empty Golden Canyon by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

To cap it all off, we stopped for lunch at the taproom in the Furnace Creek Inn. We drove up to Dante's View to soak it all in before driving back to Vegas to return to the mild climate of Portland. It was nice to have an excuse to hit the familiar sights again, and I'm glad I got to introduce a new Death Valley enthusiast!


Dante's View by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr