dolomite canyon death valleydolomite canyon death valley

9 Furnace Creek Formation Located 1/4 mile west of Stovepipe Wells Village, the 2-mile gravel access road climbs 1000 ft. to the parking area. Smoky Member is light-to dark-gray cliff-forming dolomite, dark-gray to light gray; mottled, medium crystalline and thin to thick-bedded, discontinuous layers and nodules of dark-brown weathering chert. (1974) do not suggest that the turtlebacks themselves are mullion structures, but a comparison with oceanic megamullions suggests that this is what they are. Ammonites, smooth-shelled brachiopods, belemnites, and hexacorals. Although the ECSZ today accommodates 25% of Pacific-North America relative motion, timing of initiation of this shear zone is poorly known. Overview. In summary, the turtlebacks are antiformal structures that strike and dip toward the northwest, exposed along the range front bordering Death Valley. Late Precambrian Cretaceous (67 Ma, 87 Ma) 28 Pogonip Group Beds contain tabuliar-planar and trough cross bed sets, and Skolithus burrows. American Scientist. Non-stop winds on this ridge are concentrated and compressed at the top of the hill and are very fast as a result. Locally metamorphosed to sub-greenschist to lower greenschist facies at Bare Mountain, Funeral Mountains, and parts of the northwestern Spring Mountains. Death Valley is a playground for geology enthusiasts, maybe even more like a Mecca. Also, since varnish is created at a predictable rate, it is possible to date petroglyphs based on the amount of re-varnishing that has taken place since the marks were made. (1976) and McAllister (1976). (1999). The springs were probably named in 1871 by the Wheeler Survey after the resort town of Saratoga Springs, New York, and were an important water source for the twenty-mule teams of the 1880s. Figure 6 is a cross section constructed from the data in Figures 2 and 4, approximately along the line illustrated by Hunt and Mabey (1966), profile A in Figures 4 and 5. The Black Mountains were elevated as a result of footwall uplift, with the well-known turtleback structures being megamullions along these bounding faults. 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. Compiled from Wright et al. At Mosaic Canyon, for instance, where the detachment surface is exposed (TD, Fig. occur in this formation at Dolomite Canyon. 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. Total thickness uncertain because of faulting; estimated 2,000 feet. Hunt and Mabey (1966) summarize data from three borax exploration wells, the deepest reaching 300 m, drilled in Death Valley. a. DATA AND EXPLANATIONS OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN FIGURE 3, Jackson School of Geosciences, Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin, J.J. Pickle Research Campus, Bldg. Topography (USGS DEM, 2009) in gray shades fills in spaces where there are no Cenozoic sediments. The largest dune is called Star Dune and is relatively stable and stationary because it is at a point where the various winds that shape the dunes converge. The Walker Lane belt and ECSZ therefore together form a single strike-slip zone, which will be referred to as the ECSZ in this paper. Elevation Gain: 535 ft to 834ft (163m to 254m) Shorelines of ancient Lake Manly are preserved in several parts of Death Valley, but nowhere is the record as clear as at Shoreline Butte. This profile is close to the one shown by Hunt and Mabey (1966). As mentioned above in the discussion on Tucki Mountain, the west side of Tucki Mountain is today a low-angle fault. Foraminifera and crinoid columns have also been reported from this formation. The correlation between thrust complexes is still valid, but instead of the entire Panamint Range being moved, only the extensional allochthons need to be moved. 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. Stromatoporoids. South of Mormon Point, another important data point for structural evolution is in the Confidence Hills (CH, Fig. c. White, pink, and red orthoquartzite; laminated to thick-bedded, commonly cross-bedded, and well cemented; has skolithos. The other period of interruption occurred between 350 and 250 Ma when sporadic pulses of mud swept southward into the Death Valley region during the erosion of highlands in north-central Nevada. The salt in the Devil's Golf Course consists of the minerals that were dissolved in the lake's water and left behind in the Badwater Basin when the lake evaporated. Today, however, these formations all show significant structural dip, such as the 30 NE dip of the Furnace Creek Formation seen at Zabriskie Point (Greene, 1997). (2009) consists of exhumation and normal faulting initiated along the eastern Inyo fault zone (IFZ in Fig. (2005). The west side of the basin shows a steep segment bordering the main basin and a gently dipping surface that joins to the Panamint Range. Also in the last few years, several important data sets relevant to a regional understanding of the geology of the Death Valley area have become available. But due to the uplift when the next flood hit the area it would deeply cut the streambed which forms stairstep-shaped banks. It features megabreccia and other rock formations, petroglyphs, and wildlife of various kinds, including bighorn sheep. 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. Tectonostratigraphic chart for the Death Valley area. In lower beds: Protopliomerops , Kirkella , Orthid brachiopods. From these data, Hunt and Mabey (1966) assume that about a third of the fill [of Death Valley] is Quaternary and that the rest is Tertiary (Hunt and Mabey, 1966, p. A72). These sediments are important recorders of tectonic development of Death Valley, but their chronostratigraphy was poorly known in 1966 because of the mostly endemic fauna in these deposits and limited radiometric age control. c. In NTS area, consists of (from top to base) the Antelope Valley Limestone, Ninemile Formation, and the Goodwin Limestone). These sediments are younger than the Copper Canyon Formation, with the 0.77 Ma Bishop tuff (number 3 in Fig. As I said earlier, it's a big driving day and you will spend a lot of time in your car. 5 Funeral Formation Unit exceeds 900 m thick in the Halfpint Range, and is estimated at 2,000 m thick in the Funeral Mountains, only 600 m of unit exposed in Spring Mountains. Massive quartzite, with thin-bedded quartzite at base and top, 350 feet thick. Thickness uncertain because of faulting; estimate 750 feet. 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. The middle section contains bryozoans and some brachiopods, while the lower section has no fossils. Along the western side of Tucki Mountain, rocks in the hanging wall of the detachment are MiocenePliocene sediments and volcanics of the Nova Basin (Tn in Fig. Cambrian 7 Warm Spring Granite Chemical weathering and hydrothermal alteration cause the oxidation and other chemical reactions that produce the variety of colors displayed in the Artist Drive Formation and nearby exposures of the Furnace Creek Formation. The Late Miocene intrusives consist of the mafic Willow Springs pluton and the felsic Smith Mountain granite. No fossils. The basin is the second lowest depression in the Western Hemisphere, eclipsed only by Laguna del Carbn in Argentina at 344 feet (105m). Papoose Lake Member is mostly dark-gray dolomite with distinctive brownish-gray to grayish-orange burrow mottles; sparse limestone and silty dolomite beds. In all current models, strike-slip and low-angle extensional faults are regarded as synchronous. Half-day Tours. and a different linear scale from 5 to 25 m.y. Later studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 9,000 feet (2,700m).[6]. Rocks in the footwall of the detachment are Late Proterozoic Pahrump Group and Johnnie Formation. 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. At the one-mile mark, the canyon narrows for the first time to a width of roughly 40 feet across. Locally metamorphosed to subgreenschist to lower greenschist facies south of NTS in Funeral Mountains and Specter Range. 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). Hamilton (1988) examined the structures at Hanaupah Canyon and correlated this Hanaupah detachment (Hamilton's more appropriate term; HD, Fig. Several thin limestone layers near the top of the formation at Quartz Spring are fossiliferous. Later researchers discovered that the region had experienced substantial tension that pulled large blocks of crust apart. The turtlebacks are therefore formed of rocks that were exhumed due to extension and at the same time were intruded by a variety of igneous rocks. In this interpretation, motion was accommodated along the Amargosa detachment fault. 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. From 1.8 billion-year-old metamorphic rocks exposed in the Black mountains, to recent playa sediments deposited in the valley basins, Death Valley possesses a superb geologic record. Mostly shale, some limestone, abundant spherical chert nodules. b. Faults are from the USGS Quaternary faults database (2009). Titus Canyon is a narrow gorge in the Grapevine Mountains near the eastern boundary of Death Valley National Park. C. cornicula. This formation is composed of angular fragments of many different kinds of parent rock, and it can be seen on the floor of the canyon just south of the parking area. This fuel was then transported to mines in The Argus Range, 25 miles to the west, to feed smelting and ore extraction operations. *3 Members* upper member (Papoose Lake Member) is a fossiliferous shale containing trilobites of Glossopleura middle member (Informal Middle Member)contains trilobite "hash beds" with fragments of Ehmaniella and with linguloid brachiopod beds within a shale layer lower member (Banded Mountain Member) contains no fossils. Also shown are the three Quaternary pluvial Lake Manly events when Death Valley was flooded (Anderson and Wells, 2003). The 3 Ma restoration is shown in two phases for convenience. a. These consist of sediments of the Pahrump Group, Noonday Dolomite, and Johnnie Formation, along with some outcrops of Proterozoic basement (Fig. 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). Thickness more than 150 feet, variable because of shearing. a. 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). Interbedded shale, quartzite, and dolomite in the upper part of the Wood Canyon Formation in the ridge along the north side of Blackwater Wash.Circa 1960. Open grooves in the ventifacts are called flutes. The canyon offers a suite of folds on almost all scales and styles to bedazzle the geologically-inclined visitor. Other historic charcoal kilns in the United States include the Cottonwood Charcoal Kilns at Owens Lake, the Piedmont Charcoal Kilns in Wyoming, and the Walker Charcoal Kiln in Arizona. The Mosaic Canyon trail in Death Valley National Park is a popular hike up a narrow, . This eastward propagation is likely to continue with the Pacific-North America plate boundary ultimately moving to the ECSZ, with motion on the San Andreas fault ceasing (Faulds et al., 2005). c. Widely exposed in map area. Round Trip Length: 2-7.8 miles (3.2-12.6 km) depending on route. Several lakes have occupied Death Valley since the close of the Pleistocene epoch 10,000 years ago, but these younger lakes were quite shallow compared to Lake Manly (See Badwater and Devils Golf Course above). The steeply dipping faults seen in Figure 9 make interpretation of Death Valley as a pull-apart basin more realistic than the low-angle fault interpretation. Along the profile of Figure 9, the west flank of the range averages a 10 dip and the east flank 9.5. (1976) relate to a Proterozoic aulacogen. 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. It is an endorheic basin that can form a lake after heavy rain. The massive expanse of white is made up of almost pure table salt. The interpretations presented above offer some new ideas for the evolution of Death Valley. Toward the end of this episode of tectonic denudation, deposition of the predominantly volcanic Artist Drive Formation began. By far the largest national park in the contiguous United States, more than 90% of Death Valley's 3.3 million acres are protected as a designated Wilderness Area. Ventifact Ridge is a part of a basaltic lava flow. Death Valley is mysterious enough by day. Death Valley National Park is one of many units within the National Park service established because of its underlying geologic theme. [7] As sand moves down the dune face it produces a booming noise, known as singing sand phenomenon, due to the small grain size and loose, dry packing. Ubehebe Crater is the largest of more than a dozen of in the Ubehebe Craters field. Unit is 457 m thick in the northwestern Spring Mountains, 500 m thick in the Striped Hills and 350 m thick at Bare Mountain, 420 m thick in the Montgomery Mountains. During periods of heavy rain, water washes down from nearby mountain slopes onto the playa, forming a shallow, short-lived lake. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/GES00588.1. This matches well with fault dips of 4554 mapped by Miller (1991) along the base of the Badwater turtleback, so it is logical to assume that the eastern flank of the basin is a high-angle fault. Mississippian-Pennsylvanian periodically flows at the surface. 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). No fossils. a. Above this unit is an upper crinoidal limestone, which was deposited on an offshore bar or bank. Rocks now in the crest of the range were metamorphosed to greenschist facies, representing 10 km burial, in the Jurassic, with retrograde metamorphism associated with granitic intrusions in the Cretaceous (Labotka and Albee, 1990). 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). tubes. The depositional base of the oldest of these northern Black Mountains formations, the Artist Drive, is not seen. 196, 10100 Burnet Road (R2200), Austin, Texas 78758-4445, USA. b. Limestone in light and dark beds 1-10 feet thick give striped effect on mountainsides. 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. Along the eastern base of the Panamint Range, between Trail and Hanaupah Canyons (TC and HC, Fig. The suggestion in this paper that the Panamints are not a far-traveled extensional allochthon means that this reconstruction must be reexamined. Dates. This is illustrated in Figure 8, a cross section across the Panamint Range near Trail Canyon. (1990) along the west side of the range, but the dip of this fault is not known. Tin Mountain Limestone 1000 feet thick, is black with thin-bedded lower member and thick-bedded upper member. (1990). The pools provide habitat for several endemic species, including the Saratoga Springs pupfish. The low-angle detachment surfaces in the latter category are normal faults linking the strike-slip faults. Consists of a lower lagoonal or mudflat limestone. It is located in the Basin and Range extensional province (Sonder and Jones, 1999; Burchfiel et al., 1992), in the Walker Lane belt (Stewart, 1988), and also in the Eastern California Shear Zone (ECSZ; Dokka and Travis, 1990a). Smooth, polished marble walls enclose the trail as it follows the canyon's sinuous curves. Using this very rough estimate of 1.81 Ma (base of Quaternary) for a third of the section and assuming a constant sedimentation rate, the base of the section would be at 5.4 Ma. 6) is an antiformal structure formed by arching of the exposed detachment surface; I suggest that this arching also forms the rest of the Panamint Range, making the entire range a core complex. Death Valley NP is renowned world-wide for its exposed, complex, unique tectonics and diverse geologic resources. Most of this formation (lower 2/3 to ) is cliff-forming, medium-dark-gray, burrow-mottled, irregularly thin-to-thick-bedded dolomite with common planar laminations; includes nodules and lenses of dark-grey to dark-brown chert. b. Basal unit is well-bedded quartzite above 1,650 feet thick ' shaly Unit above this 520 feet thick contains lowest olenellids in section; top unit of dolomite and quartzite 400 feet thick. 4). 4 Mormon Point Formation One of the data points used in structural restorations comes from a thrust complex, preserved in one of the Basin and Range allochthons in the northern Panamint Range, which correlates with a thrust complex of similar geometry in the Nopah Range (Snow and Wernicke, 2000). In basal 100 feet, trilobite trash beds containing Elburgis, Pseudagnostus, Horriagnostris, Elvinia , Apsotreta. Death Valley National Park Photos (2,214) Directions Print/PDF map Length 3.4 miElevation gain 964 ftRoute type Out & back Check out this 3.4-mile out-and-back trail near Death Valley, California. Labels are colored for visibility only. (2000). Places of interest in the Death Valley area, Haff, P. K. 1986. c. Widely exposed in map area. It features megabreccia and other rock formations, petroglyphs, and wildlife of various kinds, including bighorn sheep. It has a width of about 10 miles (16km). The detachment fault in the Black Mountains is known as the Amargosa detachment (Wright et al., 1974). $85.00. 3) near the top of the section (Hillhouse, 1987). These volcanics correlate across Death Valley with the Rhodes Tuff and Sheepshead Andesite in the southern Black Mountains (TC+RT, Fig. Ash layers, important for age control on sediments, are included in the igneous activity column, although the volcanism that produced these ash beds was usually well outside the Death Valley area (Knott et al., 2005). (2002; Fig. Lee et al. These data sets include digital geologic maps published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) (Workman et al., 2002) and the California Geologic Survey (Saucedo et al., 2000), digital elevation model (DEM) topography (USGS DEM, 2009), and tectonic and sediment fill compilations (Blakely and Ponce, 2002). Further south, a strike-slip fault has been mapped by Zhang et al. (2005) for the UbehebeLake Rogers Formation (U-LR), also in the Cottonwoods area, and from Snow and Lux (1999) for the Bat Mountain Formation. 2; Cemen et al., 1999). b. Recent work, especially tephrochronology (Sarna-Wojcicki et al., 2001) and argon-argon radiometric dating, has greatly increased our knowledge of the ages of these deposits. Massive black dolomite, 400-800 feet thick. HIKING NOT ADVISED AFTER 10 AM IN THE SUMMER. The event that commenced at 15.6 Ma included 16 westward tilt of the Inyo Range and 5300 m of uplift of the eastern flank, at a rapid rate of 1.9 mm/a. Cambrian 3 Ma, these basins were uplifted in the footwall of the Black Mountains fault block, which is why they now lie high above the valley floor. Polished marble, chiseled dolomite, and the canyon's namesake mosaic-like fragment formations . Der Death-Valley-Nationalpark (Anhren? Typically located at the end-depositional sites in basin interiors. CA At the junction where the unimproved road from Ubehebe Crater meets roads to the Racetrack Playa and Hunter Mountain (364537N 1173233W / 36.76028N 117.54250W / 36.76028; -117.54250), there is a sign reading "Teakettle Junction. This desert butte was once an island in a lake that filled Death Valley several times during the Pleistocene ice ages. Wind, water, and plate tectonics are still hard at work shaping the park on a day-to-day basis. Geology of the Death Valley area, from Workman et al. The best Death Valley National Park things to do, from the dunes and Artist's Palette to the Badwater Basin. Natural Bridge Canyon is found on the east side of the park and is one of the few canyons with an official trailhead. 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. *2 Members* Lower member is limestone and upper member is siltstone. Mostly shale, in part olive brown, in part purple. 92328, Download the official NPS app before your next visit. Unit is 580 m to 1,700 m thick in the NTS area, about 1,000 m thick in the Cottonwood Mountains, 1,150 to 1,350 m thick in the Montgomery Mountains and Nopah Range respectively, about 610 m thick in the norther Last Chance Range, 445 to 900 m thick in the Spring Mountains and southern Sheep Range, and reaches a maximum thickness of 1,633 m in the Groom Range area, Lincoln County. Following a right-hand bend and broader left turn, the canyon further constricts at 1.25 miles, forming orange- and gray-tinted narrows. Miocene This means that the structures are young, created in the last 3 m.y., although the rocks that make up the turtleback megamullions formed the footwall to the Basin and Range extensional system and were tectonically exhumed in the Miocene. a. Lacustrine and alluvial fan deposits found throughout the valley surface. The end result of these forces was the formation of marble that was smoothed over thousands of years by wind and water. a. Places of interest in the Death Valley area are mostly located within Death Valley National Park in eastern California. The Pacific Nitrate Company arrived in 1909 and built a small camp, but left within a few years. 31 Bonanza King Formation Basement mapped by Blakely and Ponce (2002) shows only a shallow basin in Panamint Valley, west of the Panamint Range. Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult Elevation Gain: 1,200 ft (366m) Interpretations of tectonic settings in Figure 3 come from Snow and Lux (1999) for formations in the Cottonwood Mountains (Tub, Tpn, Tnv), from Knott et al. a. The first event metamorphosed Death Valley's Precambrian basement rocks and occurred around 1,700 million years ago. Death Valley lies between two sets of mountains, the taller Panamint Range to the west and the dryer Amargosa Range along the Nevada-California border. The term is applied to large domed structures formed in inside-corner settings at the intersections of spreading centers and transform faults (Tucholke and Lin, 1998). A feature of these intrusives is that they are intruded along the structural top of each turtleback, with the Willow Springs diorite structurally beneath the younger (Fig. Wowzers. 3 Lake Manly Deposits Megamullions in oceanic crust have been mapped since the development of multibeam bathymetry in the 1980s. Widely distributed fusilinids. Natural Bridge Canyon: On the east side of the park . by Curtis Von Fange . The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are at the northern end of the valley floor and are nearly surrounded by mountains on all sides. Blakely et al. Scolithus ? 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. Lake Manly once covered the valley to a depth of 30 feet (9.1m). Located four miles (6.4km) south of the Artist's Drive scenic loop, the canyon contains a natural stone bridge, accessible after a fifteen-minute walk from the parking area. These rock formation began as limestone deposited during Late Precambrian (about 850-700 million years ago) when the area was covered by a warm sea. Lee et al. (2005). Ordovician Dark-brown to orange burrow mottling is prevalent, and several layers have dark-brown weathering chert beds and nodules. Itinerary. 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. LCSLittle Chief Stock (10.6 Ma granite; Hodges et al., 1990). They are made up of Proterozoic basement gneiss, early Tertiary pegmatitic intrusives, and Late Miocene plutonic rocks. Cross section across the Panamint Range and Black Mountains, profile C in previous location maps. 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. This eastward propagation continues today with strike slip in the ECSZ, which will become the full plate boundary if the San Andreas fault ceases activity in western California and the plate boundary continues its eastward migration (Faulds et al., 2005). Late Pleistocene This shale contains linguloid brachiopods and trilobite trash beds with fragments of "Ehmaniella." [13][14][15][16] National Park Service rangers will sometimes remove a number of teakettles when there are too many. In the first phase, up to 8 km of uplift of the White Mountains (WM, Fig. b. Cemented gravel; mostly stream deposits; 3,000 feet thick. The three turtleback structures in the Black Mountains, as pointed out by Miller and Pavlis (2005), are keys to understanding tectonic evolution of the area. 32 Carrara Formation *deposited in marine basins during Precambrian continental rifting algal marine dolomite. These events include exhumation of the detachment surfaces now exposed in the Black Mountains (Holm et al., 1992; Holm and Dokka, 1993) and, outside Death Valley, extension in the Cottonwood Mountains (Snow and Lux, 1999), the Inyo Range (Lee et al., 2009), and the Kingston PeakTecopa Basin area (Calzia and Rm, 2000). Other layers have been sliced out of their original sequence altogether. Telescope Peak can also be seen from here which is 11,331 feet (3,454m) above sea level. It should not be confused with an actual golf course in Furnace Creek, also in Death Valley. 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. Permian Mostly resistant, gray, white, and tan, rhyolitic lava flows and volcanic domes, and subordinate ashflow and airfall tuff. Darwin Falls is a waterfall located on the western edge of Death Valley National Park near the settlement of Panamint Springs, California. Holocene - Pleistocene Modern geologists have documented four major deformational events that faulted and folded the Amargosa Chaos. The rock unit being folded is the Noonday Dolomite, a Neoproterozoic carbonate unit that exhibits gorgeous ductile deformation in Mosaic Canyon. The Walker Lane belt was originally defined by Stewart (1988) as the triangular zone of high topographic relief separating the Sierra Nevada from the Great Basin, with its southern limit the Garlock fault. b. Mississippian First narrows of Fall Canyon 4) commenced prior to intrusion of the 10.6 Ma Little Chief stock, which was intruded to 3 km below the contemporary surface. 27 Eureka Quartzite Death Valley National Park Self-Guided Audio Driving Tour. For the SWNVF, Sawyer et al. Lower section is dark gray cherty dolomite and the upper section is light gray dolomite; the base of the lower unit is fossiliferous, consisting of silicified rhynchonellid brachiopods, conodonts, streptelasmid corals, and Halysites.