Category Archives: Nature

End of the River

Sink of the Mojave River, Afton Canyon, Soda Lake

Rather than growing wider and emptying into the sea the Mojave River becomes smaller and smaller finding its way in the sand between the cobbles and rocks curling into crescent -shaped dark meanders and swales transitioning to dry sand and finally, collections of same sized stones.

Mojave River https://digital-desert.com/mojave-river/

A Striking Image

A survivor yucca grows out of a cleft appearing to be damaged from a high-speed contact. Taken during the last sliver of direct sunlight of the day. I thought the little shrub exquisite and beautiful. The granite, reddish and perfect–the light was a shear veil laid like a blessing. All the way from my birth and experiences and all the way from the time before time began when the stone was born and born again and again under oceans and earth and heat and wear. All the way from then through the life of the thing, growing its spikes like crazily splashed slashes of bold green paint contrasted on a red canvas, its sacred moment, its peak of existence. Pause, then slowly, deeply, exhale.

West Fork – Mojave River

Just Sayin’

I suppose, if there is any hard and clear boundary to the Mojave Desert that this is where it is. Over time, the Mojave River has cut away the bluff in Summit Valley, east of the Cajon Pass, as the Mojave Desert moves with the rest of the Mojave Block as it separates from the San Bernardino mountain range.

https://digital-desert.com/mojave-river/

Mono Lake

from: Roughing It, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Mono Lake lies in a lifeless, treeless, hideous desert, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is guarded by mountains two thousand feet higher, whose summits are always clothed in clouds. This solemn, silent, sail-less sea—this lonely tenant of the loneliest spot on earth—is little graced with the picturesque. It is an unpretending expanse of grayish water, about a hundred miles in circumference, with two islands in its centre, mere upheavals of rent and scorched and blistered lava, snowed over with gray banks and drifts of pumice-stone and ashes, the winding sheet of the dead volcano, whose vast crater the lake has seized upon and occupied.

Mono Lake

Mono Lake

The lake is two hundred feet deep, and its sluggish waters are so strong with alkali that if you only dip the most hopelessly soiled garment into them once or twice, and wring it out, it will be found as clean as if it had been through the ablest of washerwomen’s hands. While we camped there our laundry work was easy. We tied the week’s washing astern of our boat, and sailed a quarter of a mile, and the job was complete, all to the wringing out. If we threw the water on our heads and gave them a rub or so, the white lather would pile up three inches high. This water is not good for bruised places and abrasions of the skin. We had a valuable dog. He had raw places on him. He had more raw places on him than sound ones. He was the rawest dog I almost ever saw. He jumped overboard one day to get away from the flies. But it was bad judgment. In his condition, it would have been just as comfortable to jump into the fire.

Mono Lake canoe

The alkali water nipped him in all the raw places simultaneously, and he struck out for the shore with considerable interest. He yelped and barked and howled as he went—and by the time he got to the shore there was no bark to him—for he had barked the bark all out of his inside, and the alkali water had cleaned the bark all off his outside, and he probably wished he had never embarked in any such enterprise. He ran round and round in a circle, and pawed the earth and clawed the air, and threw double somersaults, sometimes backward and sometimes forward, in the most extraordinary manner. He was not a demonstrative dog, as a general thing, but rather of a grave and serious turn of mind, and I never saw him take so much interest in anything before. He finally struck out over the mountains, at a gait which we estimated at about two hundred and fifty miles an hour, and he is going yet. This was about nine years ago. We look for what is left of him along here every day.

also see;

Mono Lake

Mono Lake, at an elevation of 6,382 feet has held water for over 760,000 years. Of volcanic origins, Mono Lake covers an area of …

Pictorialism

Pictorialism, an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.

The Pictorialist perspective was born in the late 1860s and held sway through the first decade of the 20th century. It approached the camera as a tool that, like the paintbrush and chisel, could be used to make an artistic statement. Thus photographs could have aesthetic value and be linked to the world of art expression.

Encyclopædia Britannica

Kwanamis

Kwanamis

The dream world was as important to the Mojave People as was the physical world. It was from this dream state instruction was given that would guide them to their destiny.

The Mojave Warrior was as brutal and violent in battle as his enemy. Even more so, not only because of strength and endurance but because those who had bad dreams; dreams of death and misfortune, were left behind in the villages with the women so not to bring a curse to the war.

Among the small and dangerous bands were mixed the Kwanamis.  They were the elite warrior captains.  The Kwanamis were said to have dreamed of war and the death of their opponents in the womb before their birth.  Their dreams would be of ripping lion and bear creatures apart with bare hands and emerging from the dust victorious and unscathed.

The Kwanamis lived apart from the rest of the Mohave People, in the south of the valley where Mastamho, the God-son, fought with the serpent under the three peaks.  It was here they would fast and meditate on the death of their opponents and the art of warfare.

These men who were stoic and impervious to heat, cold, hunger, and pain, would practice with their war bows and clubs in order to be the most effective in ministering death to their foes.

Getting Used to the Wind

Death Valley was having one of its periodic wind storms when the tourists drove up in front of Inferno store to have their gas tank filled.

Hard Rock Shorty was seated on the bench under the lean-to porch with his hat pulled down to his ears to keep it from blowing away.

Desert wind storm

Desert wind storm

“Have many of these wind storms?” one of the dudes asked.

“Shucks, man, this ain’t no wind storm. Jest a little breeze like we have nearly every day. You have to go up in Windy Pass in the Panamints to find out what a real wind is like.

“Three-four years ago I wuz up there doin’ some prospectin’. Got together a little pile o’ wood an’ finally got the coffee to boilin’. Then I set it on a rock to cool while I fried the eggs.

“About that time one of them blasts o’ wind come along and blowed the fire right out from under the fryin’ pan. Blowed ‘er away all in one heap so I kept after it tryin’ to keep that fryin’ pan over the fire to git my supper cooked.

“I usually like my eggs over easy, but by the time 1 got one side done I wuz all tired out so I let ‘er go at that. Had to walk four miles back to the coffee pot.”

 

from; Desert Magazine – December 1953

No Burro — No Gold

Feral ass

Sandy Walker, Desert Rat, says that in the desert a Ford lives 3 years – a dog 3 times the age of the Ford – 9, a horse 3 times the age of a dog – 27, and a man 3 times the age of the horse – 81, and some say a burro 3 times the age of a man – 243, at least this is 4/5ths true.

Sandy Walker says you can’t find gold with Fords – have to have burros. Says he’s been out here in the desert 26 years, 6 years hunting gold and 20 years hunting burros. He didn’t find his mine while hunting gold. He found it while hunting his dadburned runaway burros.

Many prospectors will tell you that no one has ever seen a dead burro.

—Printed first in “The Gold Miner,” 1930.

Wild Burro

Uncommon to locally common in deserts of California. Range extends into eastern Lassen Co., and from extreme southern Mono Co. south to the Mexican border. Most are found in Inyo Co., northeastern San Bernardino Co., and in the vicinity of the Colorado River.

Victor Valley Volcano

The Wheeler map made in the 1880s shows a volcano between what is Victorville and Barstow.

The questions is; Is the “Volcano” either Stoddard Mountain or Bell Mountain?

Wheeler map 1880s Mojave Desert

Volcano location on 1880s map.

Stoddard Mountain and Bell Mountain (USGS map.

This USGS map shows the location of both Stoddard Mountain (yellow dot) and Bell Mountain (blue dot).

Both maps are superimposed and reconciled to critical match points.

The USGS map layer is replaced with the 1880s map layer and the layer with the location dots is turned on.

 So it looks as if the “Volcano” is nowadays known as Stoddard Mountain.

Stoddard Mountain

Stoddard Mountain

Maybe next time; Is Stoddard Mountain a real volcano?

Lizard Love

“… Then I walked out of the bar room
Couldn’t even turn around
I guess I know what they were going to do
I knew what was going down
It’s not a long way from the dance floor to the dark of the parking lot
It’s kinda like love but it’s not.”
~ Kinda Like Love – Molly Hatchet

Observances one spring morning at Silverwood Lake

Ben the lizard perches upon his boulder puffing and pushing in the mid-morning sun hoping to attract an attractive lizard lady.

Ben spies the beautiful Paula along the ridge. Overcome with his little lizard emotions, he hesitates for an instant … she disappears. But, … he wants her.

Paula slips behind Ben, brushing his tail ever-so-lightly to tease and vex him.

He is teased and vexed, so, her plan is working. She has captured his interest, and he follows– He is a tool.

Paula titillates Ben and toys with his tiny little lizard heartstrings.

Ben, with his eyes blurred with lascivious lust, lost his luscious lizard lady in a blink of all four of his little lizard eyelids.

Ben looks and looks again and again. He can smell the excellent fragrance of her seasonal readiness. They both have needs.

There is a flicker of shadow in the slice of sunlight between the granite boulders. He asks himself, “is that her?” “Could it be?” She certainly is pungent.

“Peek-a-boo,” her teeny lizard voice calls out to Ben in their little lizard language that only little lizards in lizard love can hear.

Paula holds still while wholly swollen Ben creeps carefully and kind of creepily toward her. He excretes his musk as dirty, dry, crystals of salt from his excreter thing and cautiously edges toward her.

“This is it! This is really happening!” Ben’s teensy little lizard heart is pounding as they slip into the shadows to “do the deed.” There is a rustling in the leaves and rubble…

Their hot and heavy sexual activity finishes considerably sooner than they both anticipated–Ben just couldn’t seem to concentrate. Paula left shortly thereafter to go find bugs with her friends. Ben is spent and does one last, exhausted pushup with the sun on his back before taking a long, well-earned nap.

The End

 

 

 

 

Chapter X: The Mojave Desert

Mojave Desert

Mojave Desert Map

An exceedingly interesting region of California is known as the Mojave Desert. The region is traversed for a distance of 100 miles by the Mojave River, from which it gets its name. The area includes Inyo and San Bernardino counties, and eastern Kern, northeastern Los Angeles, and northern and eastern Riverside counties. Death Valley lies to the north. There is no definite line of demarcation separating the desert to the south from the similarly desert region lying to the east of Owens Lake, and including Death Valley and the Amargosa Desert.

Location and Extent

49 Palms Oasis

Mojave Desert is separated from the Colorado Desert, which lies to the south, by a series of southeasterly trending mountain ranges. The San Bernardino Range extends southeast from Cajon Pass more than 100 miles, and the Cottonwood, Chuckawalla, and Chocolate ranges extend to the Colorado River. The San Gabriel Range separates the desert from the Los Angeles basin on the south. The Desert is bounded on the west by the southern Sierra Nevada Range and the Tehachapi Mountains. It extends north to the latitude of Mount Whitney, and east to the State line and into Nevada. On the south and east it extends to the Colorado River, which forms the boundary of the State of Arizona. It is a part of the Great Basin region of North America. This vast desert region embraces more than 30,000 square miles, an area almost as large as that of the State of Maine. It is a vast arid region destitute of any drainage streams that reach the ocean. The water supply, such as there is, is obtained from springs and wells. The region is much broken by mountains and hills, often rough and rocky.

San Bernardino Mountain Range

San Bernardino Mountain Range

 

Soda Lake

Soda Lake

The topography is typical of the western deserts, consisting of bare mountain ranges and isolated knobs separated by nearly flat arid belts of varying width. The mountains rise abruptly from the desert, in places almost precipitously. The appearance of the mountains suggests that they are the summits of more massive ranges whose lower slopes are submerged beneath unconsolidated desert deposits. It is thought the irregularly distributed ranges and peaks of the southeastern Mojave Desert are ridges and peaks of a former vast mountain system comparable to the Sierra Nevada, which has been lowered by subsidence of the region, and by erosion, which has resulted in tremendous valley-filling. Alluvial fans occur at the mouths of gullies, and these unite into broad aprons which slope gently toward the centers of the basins. In the center is generally a flat nearly level area known as a playa, dry lake, or alkali flat. Such flats may be covered with water during parts of the year, and they are commonly covered with a white crust of alkali or salt. Toward the west the surface of the desert is generally level. Toward the east it is marked by isolated knobs and short ranges of mountains having no system of arrangement, and separated by broad stretches of alluvial deposits in the form of fans and playas. To the north, in Inyo County, mountain ranges are prominent and are arranged in a somewhat definite north-south system.

A striking feature of the landscape in many parts of the desert is the presence of flat areas ranging in extent from a few acres to many square miles, which are entirely devoid of vegetation. This intensely arid region, lying between the Sierra Nevada Range and the Colorado River, is in extreme contrast with the region lying west and south of the San Gabriel Range, in Los Angeles and Orange counties. However, wherever sufficient water can be obtained in the desert ranches have been developed, and their bright green is a welcome sight to the traveler weary of the interminable desert waste and the dark, forbidding mountains. Many of the valleys or basins that separate the mountain ranges are absolutely desert, totally destitute of water,  and treeless for distances representing many days’ journey, gray sage brush alone giving life to the landscape. In the larger basins the land slopes toward a central depression into which an intermittent stream may convey water during rainy seasons, forming playas or mud plains. Some larger valleys have permanent lakes, and these are saline or alkaline. The shores of such lakes are devoid of all forms of life except salt-loving plants.

Arid Conditions Due to Mountains

The great Sierra Nevada mountain system is the factor which determines the climate of the  desert region. The moisture-laden winds from the Pacific Ocean shed their moisture upon the high mountains, and the lands to the east are left literally “high and dry.”

Death Valley Region

Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes, Death Valley

Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes

Saratoga Springs

Saratoga Springs, Death Valley

An outstanding feature of this great desert region is Death Valley. This remarkable sink of the earth’s crust is located about 50 miles east of the Sierra Nevada Range, 6 to 35 miles west of the Nevada State line. This depression of the earth’s crust has a length of more than 80 miles, and in width ranges from two to eight miles. It is 60 to 70 miles east of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the United States. The lowest point in Death Valley, according to the U. S. Geological Survey, is 296 feet below sea level. This point is three miles east of Bennett’s well, about 30 miles in a direct line west from Death Valley Junction on the Tonopah & Tidewater railroad, and  about the same distance northwest from Saratoga Springs, following the road down the valley. The rainfall does not exceed two to three inches annually, with no precipitation at all some years. Mountain ranges on either side of the Valley rise nearly to the line of perpetual snow. Funeral Mountains and Black Mountains, of the Amargosa Range, rise on the eastern side of the Valley to altitudes of 5,000 to 7,000 feet, while on the west the Panamint Range reaches a height of more than 10,000 feet.

High Temperature and Low Humidity

The most marked feature of the desert climate is the unusually high summer temperature and the low relative humidity. Temperatures in this arid region rise to 125 to 130 during the
summer months, and seldom during these months fall below 70. The humidity is low so that conditions are more endurable than would be the case under such conditions of heat in regions
of higher humidity. The highest officially recorded temperature of any place in the world is that of 134 at Greenland ranch in Death Valley. This is said to be the dryest and hottest place in the United States. A low temperature of 15 F. has been recorded at Greenland ranch. The difference between the highest and lowest recorded temperatures however is not as great in this desert region as in some parts of the United States. In the Dakotas and Montana differences of 150 have been recorded. In the desert region sunstroke is almost unknown, due to the low humidity. Because of the dryness of the air the moisture given off by the body quickly evaporates producing a cooling effect. Travelers in the desert should be provided with a sufficient water supply. One should never go far from a source of water, in winter or summer, without enough water to last until another supply can be reached. Travelers should carry at least two to four gallons of water per person for each 24 hours.

Three Rivers that Do Not Reach the Sea

Three rivers enter upon the vast domain of the Mojave Desert from high mountain ranges, but none delivers any water to the ocean. These are the Mojave, the Owens, and the Amargosa rivers. The rivers originate on high mountain ranges, fed by melting snows that gather upon the high ranges and peaks, and by rains that are condensed from the wind-borne clouds at high altitudes. These all start as rapidly flowing turbulent torrents. They continue for many miles as intermittent streams, but ultimately disappear by evaporation after passing into the porous soils and sands, detritus from the erosion of the mountain slopes. Other streams that flow as mountain torrents to the great desert plain sink at once into the sands and are “lost” as streams.

West Fork - Mojave River

West Fork – Mojave River


The Mojave is a typical desert river. It rises in the high San Bernardino Mountains, in southwestern San Bernardino County. The waters gather in the mountains and form a perennial stream. Within a short distance it emerges upon the desert plain, and much of the water sinks into the porous alluvium. The course of the stream is in a northerly direction to Barstow, where it turns to the northeast. In times of flood the water may be carried 40 miles east of Daggett to Soda Lake. Water sometimes flows into Silver Lake, another playa a mile or two to the north of Soda Lake. During many years no water from the river reaches the playas, but in years of extreme flood the water may be several feet deep in the playas and remain for
several months. The water that reaches the playas disappears by evaporation. The river ends in these depressions. The region of these playas has been called “the Sink of the Mojave.”

Aguereberry Point

Aguereberry Point

Owens River is the principal stream occupying Owens Valley. Owens Valley is a long narrow depression lying between the Inyo Range on the east and the Sierra Nevada Range on the
west. Between these two ranges Owens River flows south to its end in the saline sea called Owens Lake. The valley is thought to have originated as an enclosed and undrained basin
through profound faulting of the crust of the earth. The origin of the valley is thought to be similar to that of Death Valley and most of the enclosed undrained areas of the Great Basin. This great structural valley extends from the great bend of Owens River north of Bishop southeast to the southern end of Owens Lake, a distance of 100 miles. It is wholly in Inyo County.

Owens River rises in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near San Joaquin Pass and descends the rugged eastern slopes as a turbulent stream. The river emerges from a deep canyon cut in a
table-land of volcanic lava north of Bishop and enters upon the level floor of Owens Valley, whence it pursues a meandering course southeastward to Owens Lake. It is one of the few
perennial streams of the Great Basin. Owens Lake, into which the river empties, lies in an undrained depression at the south end of the valley, from which the water disappears by evaporation. The waters of the lake constitute a dense brine containing common salt, sodium carbonate, potassium sulphate, borax, and other salts. The recovery of sodium carbonate is an important chemical industry established near Keeler. About 40 miles above the point where the river enters Owens Lake, near Big Pine, the pure mountain water is diverted through the Los
Angeles Aqueduct and conveyed to that city.

Fresh Water of Owens River forms Saline Lake

The waters that gather from the mountains to form Owens River are “pure” as surface waters go. Even the pure clear sparkling waters of mountain streams contain some mineral matter dissolved from the rocks. By long continued evaporation from Owens Lake the contained mineral matter becomes concentrated so that the waters of Owens Lake are strongly saline. The river waters diverted by the Los Angeles Aqueduct are essentially pure. The salts now contained in solution in Owens Lake were undoubtedly derived by the slow accumulation and concentration of the river waters entering the basin.

In the geologic past Owens Lake overflowed and supplied water to a series of lakes in Indian Wells, Searles, and Panamint valleys. On the bottoms of these lakes deposits occurred consisting principally of clay, with minor amounts of sand and almost no gravel. In most places they include some chemically deposited salts. In a few places these salts are of economic value.

Amargosa River rises in a group of springs about 17 miles northeast of Bullfrog, Nevada. It is dry the greater part of the time throughout much of its course. It is about 140 miles long. Its course is east of south through Franklin Dry Lake, thence south through a canyon about 10 miles long to the southern end of Death Valley. Here it turns westward to Saratoga Springs, where it flows northwestward to the sink of Death Valley. The northern end of Death Valley lies nearly due west of the head of the river, so that the depression which is occupied by the Amargosa River as a whole is in the form of a long and narrow U. Ordinarily there is water at only a few places along the course of the channel, but when a cloud-burst occurs it may become a raging torrent for a few hours. For many years the river has not been known to carry enough water to flow on
the surface as far as the lowest depression of Death Valley. The waters of the Amargosa are briny along its lower course. Where it spreads out into the large playa at Resting Springs
Dry Lake it leaves fields of salt as well as of borax and niter. Hot springs discharge into it at a number of places.

Coyote Dry Lake

Coyote Dry Lake

Playas or “dry lakes” are widely distributed throughout the desert region. It is somewhat paradoxical to speak of a “dry” lake. Often flat dry surfaces of saline mud are ripple-marked
from the wind before the water disappeared. Seen from a distance such “dry lakes” may deceive the traveler, the dry flat bottom having the appearance of a water surface. The term
“dry lake” seems therefore not entirely inappropriate. In the desert region the rainfall is very light, but sporadic. Mountain torrents tear down the slopes with great erosional force after
sudden rains. Broad basins between mountain ranges are generally filled, often to depths of hundreds of feet, with alluvial wash from the surrounding mountains. In the lowest parts of such basins water may gather after storms, and large areas may be covered by shallow sheets of water for a time. Soon, however, the waters disappear by evaporation, and the lowest part of the basin becomes a salt-encrusted flat pan, or dry lake.

Soda Lake

Soda Lake

Salt Deposits Accumulate on Lake Bottoms

Scores of dry lakes or playas range in size from a few acres to lake beds several miles across. One of the largest and most important playas is Searles Lake, which has an area of about 60
square miles. This playa is important because of the extensive deposit of crystalline salt in the central part of the broad basin. Solid salt beds embrace an area of 11 or 12 square miles, and
extend to depths of 60 to 100 feet. It is unique in that the salt is nearly pure crystalline mineral (sodium chloride), and not interbedded or mixed with dust or clay, as is the case in many playas where saline deposits occur. This deposit of salt is free from earth sediments, it is thought, because of settling basins in Indian Wells and Salt valleys through which waters passed from Owens Lake during Quaternary (Pleistocene) time when waters from Owens Valley evaporated here. Death Valley contains an immense salt field. It extends fully 30 miles south from the old borax works. It varies in width from two to four miles. Borax was once manufactured two or three miles north of the point where Furnace Creek emerges from the hills of the west slope of Black Mountains (Amargosa Range) .

World's tallest thermometer (134')

World’s tallest thermometer (134′), Baker, CA.

Soda Lake, southwest of Baker, is one of the largest playas in the desert, having an area of approximately 60 square miles.It is here that Mojave River ceases as a stream. To the north, and separated by a low divide, is the playa of Silver Lake. The great structural trough in which these playas lie is continuous with the trough of Death Valley, and it is thought that waters from the Mojave Valley in Pleistocene time moved northward and joined the Amargosa, and then flowed into Death Valley. Strand lines or beaches high above the valley bottom show that a large body of water once filled Death Valley.

Antelope Valley

Poppy Reserve – Antelope Valley

Antelope Valley, lying north and east of the San Gabriel Mountains and south and east of the Tehachapi Mountains, is a closed basin, having no outlet for its surface waters. The rainfall is so slight and the evaporation is so great that not enough water reaches the bottom of the valley to form a lake. Several playas occur, the largest of which are Rosamond, Rogers, and Buckhorn. It is thought that at one time (Pleistocene) all three formed a single large playa. The rainfall in Antelope Valley ranges from 3 or 4 inches to 1 inches annually, varying widely different years. The greater part of the annual precipitation occurs during the winter months of January, February, and March. The summer rainfall is so slight and so irregular that it is not of much value to agriculture. Irrigation is therefore important. The greatest development of agriculture in the Mojave Desert region has been in the Antelope Valley, where it is claimed 10,000 to 1 5,000 acres are under cultivation. Water for irrigation is obtained from mountain streams.

Geology of the Region Very Complex

Panamint Valley

Panamint Valley

The geology of Mojave Desert and the Death Valley region is very complicated. The region embraces the southwestern  portion of the Great Basin plateau. In the north, in the Death
Valley region, mountain ranges trend in somewhat parallel lines in a generally north-northwest and south-southeast direction. Faults in many cases mark the boundaries of the ranges and valleys. Death Valley, lying west of the Amargosa Range (Funeral and Black mountains) , is a sunken basin in which the floor dips to the east and north toward the great fault scarp which marks the mountain side. The structure of Panamint Valley, lying west of the Panamint Range, suggests that it is a down-faulted block with the greatest depression on the east side of the valley. What is thought to be a fault-plane appears in the abrupt wall of the mountain range on the east. Hot springs at the north end of the valley, and the springs near Ballarat, indicate a zone of faulting along this edge of the valley. The parallel arrangement of the mountains and valleys is generally believed to be due to a series of parallel faults, the valleys representing large blocks that have been lowered relatively with respect to the blocks that have been elevated or tilted to form the mountains.Post Office Spring Ballarat ghost town

Post Office Spring (Ballarat)

Crystalline Basement Rock

1.7 billion year old Crystalline Basement Rock

Very ancient rocks, granites probably of Archaean age, occur in some of the mountains. Whatever rocks may have been deposited over them have been removed by erosion. During the early part of the Paleozoic era (Cambrian period) some parts of the region were submerged beneath the sea. This is shown by beds of limestone and other sea sediments in which fossils have been found. If the sea covered the entire region during Cambrian time the formations that were laid down have been removed by erosion from most of the region. During the long Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian periods it is thought that the region was land, as no fossils of these ages have been found. Small patches of rocks containing fossils of Carboniferous age have been found, showing that the sea covered parts of the region at least during Cambrian time. Throughout the Mesozoic era the region is thought to have been land, and was greatly eroded. In the early part of the Tertiary period volcanic outbursts occurred and great lava flows spread over large areas. Throughout the long time of the Tertiary and Quaternary periods erosion was actively going on. A large part of the Tertiary lava flows and other rocks were worn away until now only remnants of once continuous formations are left. Disturbance of the rocks by faulting completed the work of deformation and resulted in the present relief. Geological conditions have resulted in the accumulation of mineral deposits. These constitute the greatest resource of the region, and have been the incentive for the early exploration and much of the later industrial development. Of metallic ores those of gold, silver, copper, and iron have been principally mined, but lead, zinc, quicksilver, and many rarer metals also have been found. Non-metallic minerals, as salt, potash, niter, borax, and gypsum occur in many places, some in commercially important quantities. Much literature relating to the minerals and geologic features of the region is available. (See Appendix.)

Lava flow at Fossil Falls

Lava flow at Fossil Falls

 

 

From: ADVENTURES IN SCENERY
A Popular Reader of California Geology
BY DANIEL E. WILLARD, A.M.
Fellow American Geographic Society, Fellow A.A.A.S.

Joshua Tree

Mojave Desert Plants: Trees Joshua Tree
BOTANICAL AND ECOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS
SPECIES: Yucca Brevifolia (Joshua Tree)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION
Joshua tree is one of the most characteristic plants of the Mojave Desert and extends southward to the Mojave-Sonoran Desert ecotone. This species grows from southern California, Mexico, and western Arizona eastward into southern Nevada and southwestern Utah.Var. brevifolia reaches its greatest abundance in the vicinity of Joshua Tree National Park; California. var. jaegeriana grows primarily in the eastern portion of the Mojave; var. herbertii is restricted to parts of the western Mojave Desert in California.The Joshua tree was named after the biblical leader, Joshua, as it reminded the Mormon pioneers of the hero raising out-stretched arms toward the heavens.William Lewis Manly referred to them as “cabbage trees” in his book (Death Valley in ’49), about the rescue of the Bennett and Arcane families from Death Valley.Pedro Fages, in his expedition along the edge of the Mojave searching for deserters from the Spanish Army, called the ungainly trees “palm” trees.

Source: Joshua Tree

Aphid Loaf

Reeds along Big Bear Lake
I have heard the Indians would go to the reeds in the riparian areas where aphids fed in large numbers, brush away the tiny bugs and scrape their shiny-sticky waste from the blades. En masse the material would be shaped into a large, heavy loaf with a hardness and sweetness similar to rock candy. In Jedediah Smith’s first expedition across the Mojave his guides recovered a cache of the sweet bread to supplement their then meatless diet.

“But men accustomed to living on meat and at the same time travelling hard will Eat a surprising quantity of corn and Beans which at this time constituted our principal subsistence.”
~ J.Smith, 1826

Illustrator of Mojave Desert flora

Henry R. Mockle (1905-1981),
Illustrator of Mojave Desert flora

Rather than documenting the structure of each plant species in scientific detail, Henry Mockle intended his illustrations to capture “the pleasurable feeling at coming up on one of these little creations”.

Henry Mockle painting of desert Indian paintbrush

Paintbrush

As did naturalist Edmund Jaeger, Mockle took pride in all his studies of desert plants being taken directly from life. This work often involves lying on the ground for hours, in conditions ranging from hot to cold, windy to wet. As some annual plants – like the Phacelia – per growing up and through the protective spread of woody shrubs. Mockle found he had to lay beneath creosote bushes and other scrub vegetation to depict these wildflowers in full.

Henry Mockle painting of coyote melon

Coyote melon

 

Painting of desert mallow

Desert Mallow

 

Source: Riverside Metropolitan Museum

An Orchestral Landscape

desert landscape

An Orchestral Landscape


“The point of view is born of the desert herself. When you are there, face to face with the earth and the stars and time day after day, you cannot help feeling that your role, however gallant and precious, is a very small one. This conviction, instead of driving you to despair as it usually does when you have it inside the walls of houses, releases you very unexpectedly from all manner of anxieties. You are frightfully glad to have a role at all in so vast and splendid a drama and want to defend it as well as you can, but you do not trouble much over the outcome because the desert mixes up your ideas about what you call living and dying. You see the dreadful, dead country living in beauty, and feel that the silence pressing around it is alive.”

~ E. Bush-Perkins – The White Heart of Mojave
http://mojavedesert.net/white-heart/c07.html

Where are They Now?

white-tailed antelope squirrel, Joshua Tree National Park
Gary, the white-tailed antelope squirrel, succumbed to type II diabetes on July 29, 2011 after 4 years of surviving solely on corn chips provided by campers and tourists visiting his native national park habitat.
long-nosed leopard lizard
Ed Lizard – Long-nosed leopard lizard. Died at the pointed beak of an adult roadrunner, June 4, 2008.
Axl Squirrel (round-tailed ground squirrel) - b. unk. d October 12, 2013 Cause of death: eaten by hawk.
Axl Squirrel (round-tailed ground squirrel)
– b. unk. d October 12, 2013
Cause of death: eaten by red-tailed hawk.

Loving & Devoted Mother …

The following was written and recorded by E.C. Jaeger in 1922. I believe, although dated over 90 years ago, this behavior is just as relevant today as it was then, however, scaled down from our increasing intrusion into their ever-shrinking habitat:

If a female road-runner is approached when on the nest, she generally remains quiet until the intruder is right upon her; then she slips over the back of the nest and flies a short distance to safety, but where she can still see the unwelcome caller. At times she has been known to permit herself to be caught rather than forsake her young.

Geococcyx californianus, roadrunnner
Geococcyx californianus
baby roadrunners
Baby roadrunners about one third grown

A member of the Cooper Ornithological Club (Mr. J. R. Pemberton) gives a most interesting report concerning the actions of a female roadrunner whose nest he found some ten feet above ground in a sycamore tree. As the observer began climbing up to the nest, the bird hopped to the ground.

“Immediately,” says Mr. Pemberton, “it began to squirm, scramble, and drag itself away across an open space and in full view. The bird was simulating a broken leg instead of a broken wing! The bird held its wings closed throughout the demonstration, though frequently falling over on its side in its enthusiasm. The whole performance was kept entirely in my view, the bird gradually working away from the tree until it was some thirty-five feet distant, when it immediately ran back to the base of the tree and repeated the whole show. I had been so interested up to now that I had failed to examine the nest, which, when looked into, contained five young probably a week old. When I got to the ground the bird continued its ‘stunt’ rather more frantically than before, and in order to encourage the bird, I followed and was pleased to see it remain highly consistent until I was decoyed to a point well outside the grove. Here the bird ran suddenly away at full speed and in a direction still away from the nest.”

Life in Harmony with Nature

Olive Oatman

Olive Oatman

Indians living in harmony with nature is an idealization to say the least. Life was hard and often got harder as evidenced by Olive Oatman’s observations of the Mojave Indians in the 1850s.

“One day I was out gathering. Chottatoe, when I was suddenly surprised and frightened by running upon one of the victims of this stupid, barbarous inhumanity. He was a tall, bony Indian of about thirty years. His eye was rather sunken, his visage marred, as if he had passed through extreme hardships. He was lying upon the ground, moaning and rolling from side to side in agony the most acute and intense. I looked upon him, and my heart was moved with pity. Little Mary said, ‘I will go up and find out what ails him.’ On inquiry we soon found that he had been for some time ill, but not so as to become utterly helpless. And not until one of their number is entirely disabled, do they seem to manifest any feeling or concern for him. The physician was called, and soon decided that he was not in the least diseased. He told Mary that nothing ailed him save the want of food ; said that he had been unable for some time to procure his food ; that his friends devoured any that was brought into camp without dividing it with him ; that he had been gradually running down, and now he wanted to die. O there was such dejection, such a forlorn, despairing look written upon his countenance as made an impression upon my mind which is yet vivid and mournful.”
~ Olive Oatman

 

Cloud covered Mountains

Joshua trees with storm rolling up behind them
Phelan, California

Clouds fall over the mountains onto the desert as if they were a tidal wave in slow motion. Rather than crash on the sand, pieces tear themselves away rising to the sky to make a silent escape.

The Empty Desert

Mojave Desert scenery
View from the El Paso Mountains – Red Rock Canyon, California State Park

I first went to the desert to experience what I thought would be sensory deprivation–after all, there was nothing there. It wasn’t like that though. I saw the wild geology, plants of all different kinds, animals fitting every niche, and human history, then even further back in time to the people without names. The closer I looked, the more I saw, and it all connected. These experiences filled my senses; to see the subdued pastels, to hear the cooing mourning doves, to smell the dust and creosote, to feel the rocky earth, and to even taste the gritty wax the dry heat of the desert left thick on my lips. Blazing days, frozen nights, campfires cooking up damned strong coffee. Red sunrises, hallowed and silent sunsets.

Differences

Sometimes the scenery appears to be the same– It looks like that here and there and over there.  Look closer–this sameness is the differences. There are no gradual changes or blending. Everything is this or that.  Hard contrast.  Then, instead of becoming this faceless hole in our memory, we can become aware of our attachment to common reality.

Cajon Pass
Mormon Rocks

Erosion at Mormon Rocks

The sameness of the differences at Mormon Rocks in the Cajon Pass

Better Holes & Middens

Desert Woodrat
Neotoma lepida

Desert pack rat nests can be used by the same pack rat families for generations and generations.

Packrat nest
Wood rat midden


This rodent is commonly known as the “pack rat” or “trade rat” named for collecting any shiny or metallic object it fancies. Its burrow is easily recognized by the rubbish littered about the entrance.

More about the wood rat:
https://digital-desert.com/wildlife/rodents/desert-woodrat.html

Playas …

Playas, dry lakes, they hypnotize me. Flat and dry and scarred but still pure. Hardened earth and soft skies. An elegant monotony that locks in on whatever lobe in my brain it is that controls my fascination for seeking a niche, an edge, a flaw as my eye draws up to, in this specific case, a dark and slivered horizon. Few words. Clear and open thought. Appreciation. I clap my hands. The sound dissipates and the ever so slight vibrations go on endlessly.

Playa, Superior dry lake, Barstow, CA.

Playa, Superior dry lake


http://digital-desert.com/dry-lakes/

Human Impact on the Mojave Desert

by Laurie J. Schmidt – EROS Data Center DDAC

What do you do when a fragile desert ecosystem turns into a recreational playground? Leonard Gaydos, Coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Recoverability and Vulnerability of Desert Ecosystems project, and colleagues are using satellite data to develop tools that will help Mojave Desert land managers decide what recreational activities to allow and where to allow them. Specifically, the research team is studying vulnerability and recoverability of desert lands.

“Our goal is to create predictive models of the desert that land managers can use to forecast what is likely to happen to a specific piece of land, given its exposure to various types of disturbances,” said Gaydos.

The Mojave Desert encompasses 125,000 square kilometers in southern Nevada, western Arizona, southwestern Utah, and a quarter of California. Situated between the burgeoning cities of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, it is within a day’s drive of 40 million people.

“The Mojave Desert is increasingly viewed as a playground,” said Gaydos. “It now contains four national parks, with millions of people around the edges.” That wasn’t always the case, he said.

“The Mojave Desert was a place you went to get away from civilization. You didn’t have to worry about disturbing anyone or causing any harm,” Gaydos said. In fact, it was largely for this reason that the U.S. military established most of its training facilities there. “It was the last piece of open space in the continental United States where the military could conduct training and not disturb anyone,” Gaydos said.

But, the Mojave’s growing pains make an ideal case study for researching long-term effects of disturbances to desert ecosystems. Land managers are now faced with the daunting task of dealing with competing demands on the land, including impacts from all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, military activities, and grazing livestock.

“It is incumbent upon the U.S. military, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and other land managers to understand the effects of these disturbances on the land,” said Gaydos. “All compact the soil and disturb resources at the land’s surface.”

The project requires a combination of expertise, involving researchers who have worked extensively in adjacent arid land regions, such as southern Arizona, the Grand Canyon, and southeast Utah’s Canyonlands. “The project’s multidisciplinary nature means that scientists on the project team are learning from each other,” said Gaydos. “We have geologists out in the field looking for soil crusts and counting tortoise burrows — not traditional tasks for a geologist.”Map of Desert Southwest

Shaded-relief model of the Desert Southwest (Image courtesy of the USGS Recoverability and Vulnerability of Desert Ecosystems project.

Remote sensing is one of the most valuable tools the team is using. “Satellite imagery enables us to look at the age and characteristics of a site’s surface geology, which is essential to understanding the rate at which that site will recover from disturbances,” said Gaydos.

The scientists use geologic maps created from Landsat 5 data, supplied by the EROS Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (EDC DAAC) in Sioux Falls, SD. In addition, Landsat data have proved invaluable for identifying study unit boundaries when the team is working in the Mojave. The team also plans to use satellite data to examine dust movement in the desert, an important symptom of disturbance.

The researchers work with high-tech tools such as digital ortho-photos created by the USGS, and imagery from the Advanced Visible and Infrared Imaging System (AVIRIS). Digital ortho-photos are produced by applying corrections to aerial photos using an elevation model. “This process enables us to remove distortions from aerial photos so that they scale correctly, which helps us interpret what we’re seeing,” said Gaydos.

The multi-band capability of the AVIRIS sensor enables computer enhancement of land features, a vital part of the geologic mapping process. “This application of AVIRIS data is still experimental, but it shows lots of promise in mapping the surface geology of the Mojave Desert,” said Gaydos.

These tools have greatly contributed to some of the project’s key findings. First, the research team found that under most circumstances, land seems to recover faster in the years immediately following the disturbance than in later years. In addition, not all areas recover at the same rate.

“The good news is that the desert seems to recover faster than earlier models predicted. The bad news is that it still takes the land a long time to return to its original state, and, in some cases, it may never be exactly what it was before the disturbance occurred,” said Gaydos.

As an example, Gaydos described one of the project’s test sites that lies near an old railroad line built in the early 1900s. For the past 50 years or so since the railroad was abandoned, a berm has acted as an artificial dam for surface processes, such as erosion and runoff. By digging trenches on the slope side of the railroad line, team members measured nearly a dozen flood events. Successive flash-floods rinsed sediment down and built up the surface nearly a meter. “This tells us that we’re dealing with a very dynamic system in the Mojave,” said Gaydos. “At various intervals, flood events wash the sediment down, the plants adapt, and the desert renews itself.”

Land management ranks are also subject to renewal. To keep changing land management and restoration staffs apprised of current findings, Gaydos and his team must maintain regular communications with those in the field.

Sustaining investment is critical, according to Gaydos, because the project still has a way to go. “In the past, the Mojave Desert has been benignly neglected,” he said. “People haven’t worried about it much — it’s not Yellowstone or the Everglades, or any of the places that tend to come to mind when people think of protecting the environment.”

Fortunately, those values seem to be changing, and the desert “playground” is now deemed a valuable resource.

The Thousand Year Ballet

Migration- plants migrate. Plants are always looking for ideal conditions, conditions that help them live longer and better. This is a condition of life. Everything living does this. Inch by inch, foot by foot, generation after generation–plant populations move, march on toward better lives in more conducive environments. They adapt. They evolve. They move in the gradual changes of long-term weather patterns. We may not see it in our lifetimes, but we can in the histories find evidence of, and compile; this used to be here, that used to be there, relict populations remain if any. A seed grows here but not there, and a seed will sprout on this side and not that side. A slow dance extending much longer than we can personally experience, but a dance indeed.

Mojave yucca
Yucca schidigeraMojave National Preserve