Ibex Dunes, SE California

Owens River

Meandering River and floodplain, eastern California

Owens Lake, SE California

Badwater Spring, Death Valley, California. This spring issues from a large normal fault zone, of which fault scarps can be seen in the background. At 282 feet below sea level, this spring lies at the lowest elevation in the United States.

Salt mining on Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah

Dust storm over playa, SE California

Dust Devil, eastern California

Ventifacts, Death Valley, California

Desert Pavement, SE California

Spring wildflowers, Death Valley

Ancient Shorelines, Nevada

DV: This intrusive relation lies in the footwall of the Badwater Turtleback. The pegmatite is early Tertiary in age; the gneiss is Proterozoic, but was deformed in the early Tertiary. In most other places in the turtleback, however, the gneiss was deformed during late Tertiary extension

Death Valley: Aerial view of Titus Canyon Anticline. This mountain-scale fold is an overturned anticline-the oldest rock lies in the core. At the level of the canyon bottom, note how the rock is overturned

Death Valley: Angular unconformity and Ryan mining camp. Angular unconformities are significant features because they indicate an upper limit for timing of crustal deformation in a given area. This unconformity shows 4 Ma Funeral basalt overlyingArtist Drive Fm (left) faulted against tilted Furnace Creek Fm (right). As the basalt is only mildly deformed, this unconformity indicates that most crustal deformation in this part of Death Valley was over by about 4 Ma. After this time, the locus of active deformation shifted westward, and the formation of modern Death Valley began. The 1920''s era mining camp of Ryan sits on the hills just below the unconformity. This area has been the site of underground and strip mining of borate minerals.

Death Valley: Copper Canyon Turtleback fault, view to the northwest. The Copper Canyon Turtleback is one of three so-called "turtlebacks" in the Black Mountains, named because their curving shapes resemble the backs of turtles. They consist of a core of ductiley deformed metamorphic basement rock (the greenish rock in the foreground), and "upper plate" of brittley faulted sedimentary or volcanic rock (reddish rock in the middleground), and a low-angle normal fault between them.

Death Valley: Aerial view of Black Mountains frontal fault zone and Copper Canyon Turtleback, view to the north. The green-colored, rounded part of the mountain front in the foreground of this picture is underlain by metamorphic rock of the Copper Canyon Turtleback. Separating this rock from the red and tan rock above it is the Copper Canyon Turtleback fault, a large low-angle normal fault. Note the presently active frontal fault zone that marks the western edge of the Black Moutains.

Death Valley: Eureka Sand Dunes. Death Valley National Park contains at least 5 different dune fields: those shown here in the Eureka Valley are the tallest in California. Dunes form wherever there is abundant sand, wind, and something to block the wind and cause deposition of the sand. Consequently, many of the dune fields in Death Valley form on the edge of valley floors, next to mountain fronts, which can afford some protection from the wind

Death Valley: Flood Damage at Zabriskie Point. In 2004, a flash flood swept down Furnace Creek Wash, tearing up the state highway and destroying the structures in and around the Zabriskie Point area. Such flash floods are relatively common, as most rainfall tends to run off into channels instead of soak into the ground. This particular flood was especially severe though because the rain fell in small area over a short amount of time.

Death Valley: Death Valley''s salt pan is hundreds of square miles in size. It is actually the broad distributary terminus of a desert river, called the Amargosa River --but it has no outlet, so all water emptying into Death Valley stays until it evaporates. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind salt. Beneath the salt pan lies thousands of feet of salt and gravel deposits

Death Valley: Dantes View lies on the crest of the Black Mountains. The incredibly steep west side of the Black Mountains is the result of active faulting and uplift along the Black Mountains fault zone, which runs right along their base. Note the difference in size of the alluvial fans. On the east side of the valley, against the Black Mountains fault, they are small; on the west side, they form large bajadas. This discrepancy results from an eastward tilt of the mountains and valley floor along the fault zones

Tilted Conglomerate, Death Valley, California. These rocks are part of the Miocene Furnace Creek Formation and were deposited on alluvial fans

Mudflow deposit, Death Valley, California. Note that there are two deposits here, the one with the largest particles being on top

Eolian cross-beds in Jurassic Navajo Sandstone, Zion National Park, Utah

Intrusive Contact, southern Sierra Nevada, California Cretaceous granodiorite can be seen intruding Triassic metavolcanic rock of the southern Sierra Nevada. The volcanic rock was contact metamorphosed by the intruding granite

Mafic dike intruding deformed Paleozoic sedimentary rock, SE California Note the gentle fold in the sedimentary rock; it is cut by this near vertical dike. Consequently, we can infer that intrusion occurred after deposition of the rock and after deformation

Mafic sill and dike intruding foliated marble, Death Valley, California These two mafic intrusions nicely demonstrate the difference between dikes and sills. The lower intrusion is the dike, as it cuts across layering (which in this case is foliation in marble); the upper intrusion is the sill, as it runs parallel to the layering

Death Valley: Star Dune . Where wind direction tends to vary a lot, star dunes, with arms that reach out in all directions, may form

Cinder Cone, Mojave Desert, California.Cinder cones are relatively small, short-lived volcanoes, composed of cinders that are shot out of the vent during an eruption. These cinders accumulate around the vent building a cone in the process. Most uneroded cinder cones have a well-defined crater at the top

Owens valley

Fault scarp at site of 1872 rupture on Owens Valley fault, CA

Fault scarp on Owens Valley fault, California