Death Valley Geology
The pleasure of your trip through the Big Sink will be enhanced if you
know something about the structural features which are sure to arrest
your attention.
For undetermined ages Death Valley was desert. Then rivers and lakes.
Rivers dried. Lakes evaporated. Again, desert. It is believed that in
thousands of years there have been no changes other than those caused by
earthquakes and erosion.
It is no abuse of the superlative to say that the foremost authority
upon Death Valley geology is Doctor Levi Noble, who has studied it under
the auspices of the U.S. Geological Survey since 1917. He has ridden
over more of it than anyone and because of his studies, earlier
conclusions of geologists are scrapped today.
From a pamphlet published by the American Geological Society with the
permission of the U. S. Dept. of Interior, now out of print, I quote a
few passages which Doctor Noble, its author, once described to me as
“dull reading, even for scientists.”
“The southern Death Valley region contains rocks of at least eight
geologic systems whose aggregate thickness certainly exceeds 45,000 feet
for the stratified rocks alone.”
“The dissected playa or lake beds in Amargosa Valley between Shoshone
and Tecopa contain elephant remains that are Pleistocene....”
“Rainbow Mountain is one of the geological show places of the Death
Valley region.... Here the Amargosa river has cut a canyon 1000 feet
deep.... The mountain is made up of thrust slices of Cambrian and
pre-Cambrian rocks alternating with slices of Tertiary rocks, all of
which dip in general about 30 to 40 degrees eastward, but are also
anticlinally arched.”
“None of the geologic terms in common use appear exactly to fit this
mosaic of large tightly packed individual blocks of different ages
occupying a definite zone above a major thrust fault.”
The significant feature is that a stratum that began with creation may
lie above one that is an infant in the age of rock—a puzzle that will
engage men of Levi Noble’s talents for years to come. But one doesn’t
have to be a member of the American Geological Society to find thrills
in other gripping features.
Throughout the area south of Shoshone are many hot springs containing
boron and fluorine—some with traces of radium. The water is believed to
come from a buried river. The source of other hot springs in the Death
Valley area is unknown.
More startling features were related to Shorty Harris and me at
Bennett’s Well in the bottom of Death Valley where we met one of
Shorty’s friends. Lanky and baked brown, in each wrinkle of his face the
sun had etched a smile. “Shorty,” he said, “yachts will be sailing
around here some day. There’s a passage to the sea, sure as hell.”
“What makes you think so?” Shorty asked.
“Those salt pools. Just come from there. I was watching the crystals;
felt the ground move a little. Pool started sloshing. A sea serpent with
eyes big as a wagon wheel and teeth full of kelp stuck his head up.
Where’d he come from? No kelp in this valley. That prove anything?”
Ubehebe Crater is believed to have resulted from the only major change
in the topography of the valley since its return to desert, but John
Delameter, old time freighter, thought geologists didn’t know what they
were talking about. “When I first saw Saratoga Spring I could straddle
it. Full of fish four inches long. Next time, three springs and a lake.
Fish shrunk to one inch and different shaped head.”
Actually these fish are the degenerate descendants of the larger fish
that lived in the streams and lakes that once watered Death Valley—an
interesting study in the survival of species. The real name, _Cyprinodon
Macularius_, is too large a mouthful for the natives so they are called
desert sardines, though they are in reality a small killifish.
Dan Breshnahan, in charge of a road crew working between Furnace Creek
Inn and Stove Pipe Well, ordered some of the men to dig a hole to sink
some piles. Two feet beneath a hard crust they encountered muck. When
they hit the pile with a sledge it would bounce back. Dan put a board
across the top. With a man on each end of the board, the rebound was
prevented and the pile driven into hard earth. “I’m convinced that under
that road is a lake of mire and Lord help the fellow who goes through,”
Dan said.
A heavily loaded 20 mule team wagon driven by Delameter broke the
surface of this ooze and two days were required to get it out. To test
the depth, he tied an anvil to his bridle rein and let it down. The lead
line of a 20 mule team is 120 feet long. It sank (he said) the length of
the line and reached no bottom.
On Ash Meadows, a few miles from Death Valley Junction and on the side
of a mountain is what is known as The Devil’s Hole which it is said has
no bottom. True or false, none has ever been found.
A steep trail leads down to the water which will then be over your head.
Indians will tell you that a squaw fell into this hole within the memory
of the living and that she was sucked to the bottom and came out at Big
Spring several miles distant. The latter is a large hole in the middle
of the desert and from its throat, also bottomless, pours a large volume
of clear, warm water.
“Explored?” shouted Dad Fairbanks one day when a white-haired prospector
declared every foot of Death Valley had been worked over. “It isn’t
scratched!”
Only the day before (in 1934), Dr. Levi Noble had been working in the
mountains overlooking the valley on the east rim. Through his field
glasses he saw a formation that looked like a natural bridge. When he
returned to Shoshone he phoned Harry Gower, Pacific Borax Co. official
at Furnace Creek of his discovery and suggested that Gower investigate.
Since Furnace Creek Inn wanted such attractions for its guests, Gower
went immediately and almost within rifle shot of a road used since the
Seventies, he found the bridge.
That too is Death Valley—land of continual surprise.
Death Valley is the hottest spot in North America. The U.S. Army, in a
test of clothing suitable for hot weather made some startling
discoveries. According to records, on one day in every seven years the
temperature reaches 180 on the valley floor. But five feet above ground
where official temperatures are recorded the thermometer drops 55
degrees to 125.
The highest temperature ever recorded was 134 at Furnace Creek
Ranch—only two degrees below the world’s record in Morocco. In 1913, the
week of July 7-14, the temperature never got below 127. Official
recording differs little from that of Arabia, India, and lower
California, but the duration is longer.
Left in the sun, water in a pail of ordinary size will evaporate in an
hour. Bodies decompose two or three hours after rigor mortis begins but
some have been found in certain areas at higher altitudes dried like
leather. A rattlesnake dropped into a bucket and set in the sun will die
in 20 minutes.
The evaporation of salt from the body is rapid and many prospectors
swallow a mouthful of common salt before going out into a killing sun.
One of the pitiable features of death on the desert is that bodies are
found with fingers worn to the bone from frantic digging and often
beneath the cadaver is water at two feet.
There is also legendary weather for outside consumption. Told to see Joe
Ryan as a source of dependable information, a tourist approached Joe and
asked what kind of temperature one would encounter in the valley.
“Heat is always exaggerated,” said Joe. “Of course it gets a little warm
now and then. Hottest I ever saw was in August when I crossed the valley
with Mike Lane. I was walking ahead when I heard Mike coughing. I looked
around. Seemed to be choking and I went back. Mike held out his palm and
in it was a gold nugget and Mike was madder’n hell. ‘My teeth melted,’
Mike wailed. ‘I’m going to kill that dentist. He told me they would
stand heat up to 500 degrees.’”
I met an engaging liar at Bradbury Well one day. He was gloriously drunk
and was telling the group about him that he was a great grand-son of the
fabulous Paul Bunyan.
“Of course,” he said, “Gramp was a mighty man, but he was dumb at that.
One time I saw him put a handful of pebbles in his mouth and blow ’em
one at a time at a flock of wild geese flying a mile high. He got every
goose, but how did he end up? Not so good. He straddled the Pacific
ocean one day and prowled around in China, and saw a cross-eyed
pigeon-toed midget with buck teeth. Worse, she had a temper that would
melt pig-iron.
“Gramp went nuts over her. What happened? He married her. She had some
trained fleas. If Gramp got sassy, she put fleas in his ears and ants in
his pants and stood by, laughing at him, while he scratched himself to
death. Hell of an end for Gramp, wasn’t it?”
In the late fall, winter, and early spring perfect days are the rule and
if you are among those who like uncharted trails, do not hurry. Then
when night comes you will climb a moonbeam and play among the stars. You
will learn too, that life goes on away from box scores, radio puns, and
girls with a flair for Veuve Cliquot.