1.
Death Valley National Park
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Death Valley National Park is a national park in the United States. Straddling the border of California and Nevada, located east of the Sierra Nevada, the park protects the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and contains a diverse desert environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons, and mountains. It is the largest national park in the lower 48 states and has declared an International Biosphere Reserve. Approximately 91% of the park is a wilderness area. It is the hottest, driest and lowest of the parks in the United States. The second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere is in Badwater Basin, the park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include creosote bush, bighorn sheep, coyote, and the Death Valley pupfish, several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams, the valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism blossomed in the 1920s, when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells, Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994. The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology, the valley itself is actually a graben. The oldest rocks are metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean, additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. This uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes, later the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods, with lakes, in 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association. There are two valleys in the park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley. Both of these valleys were formed within the last few million years, the result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and more subsidence there. Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the floor are both occurring. The uplift on the Black Mountains is so fast that the fans there are small
Death Valley National Park
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Sand dunes in Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park
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Racetrack Playa, view from south edge of the playa towards The Grandstand
Death Valley National Park
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Sea Level sign seen on cliff (circled in red) at
Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park.
Death Valley National Park
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Badwater Basin elevation sign and scenery.
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
3.
Eastern California
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Eastern California is a region defined as either the strip to the east of the crest of the Sierra Nevada or as the easternmost counties of California in the United States. Most of Eastern California does not fit the stereotypes of California and is related in culture to southeastern Oregon, northwestern Nevada. Northeastern California is very populated and tends to be politically conservative. Historically, Northeastern California has had ties to Nevada, with the exact boundary between the two states in some dispute. Residents of portions of near Susanville, California, tried to break away from California in 1856, first by declaring themselves part of the Nataqua Territory, the two states further squabbled over ownership of Susanville in 1863. The town of Aurora, Nevada, was temporarily the county seat of both Mono County, California, and Esmeralda County, Nevada, finally, the line between the two states was settled by a survey in 1872. Indeed, the hottest and lowest area in North America lies in Eastern California, geologically, Eastern California is mostly part of the Basin and Range Province, marked by crustal extension, with horsts and grabens. Volcanism is also evident in this region
Eastern California
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Downtown San Bernardino, anchor of the largest metro area in East California and 12th in the United States.
4.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
Middle East
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The
Temple Mount in
Jerusalem
Middle East
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Map of the Middle East (green).
Middle East
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The
Kaaba, located in
Mecca,
Saudi Arabia
Middle East
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Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East. Here, Muslim men are
prostrating during prayer in a mosque.
5.
Badwater Basin
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Badwater Basin is an endorheic basin in Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, Inyo County, California, noted as the lowest point in North America, with an elevation of 282 ft below sea level. Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous 48 United States, is only 84.6 miles to the north west. The site itself consists of a small spring-fed pool of bad water next to the road in a sink, the pool does have animal and plant life, including pickleweed, aquatic insects, and the Badwater snail. Adjacent to the pool, where water is not always present at the surface, repeated freeze–thaw, the pool is not the lowest point of the basin, the lowest point is several miles to the west and varies in position, depending on rainfall and evaporation patterns. The salt flats are hazardous to traverse, and so the sign marking the low point is at the pool instead, the basin was considered the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere until the discovery of Laguna del Carbón in Argentina at −344 ft. At Badwater Basin, significant rainstorms flood the valley bottom periodically, newly formed lakes do not last long though, because the 1.9 in of average rainfall is overwhelmed by a 150 in annual evaporation rate. This is the greatest evaporation potential in the United States, meaning that a 12 ft lake could dry up in a single year, when the basin is flooded, some of the salt is dissolved, it is redeposited as clean crystals when the water evaporates. A popular site for tourists is the sign marking sea level on the cliff above the Badwater Basin, numerous evaporation cycles and a lack of outflow caused an increasing hypersalinity, typical for endorheic bodies of water. Over time, this hypersalinization, combined with sporadic rainfall and occasional aquifer intrusion, has resulted in periods of briny soup, or salty pools, on the lowest parts of Death Valleys floor. Salts began to crystallize, coating the surface with the thick crust, ranging from 3 to 60 in, Death Valley pupfish List of elevation extremes by country List of elevation extremes by region John McKinney, Californias Desert Parks, A Day Hikers Guide. Wilderness Press 2006, ISBN 0-89997-389-2, S. 54–55 Don J. Easterbrook, geological Society of America 2003, ISBN 94-592-0504-6, S. 63–64 Badwater Basin in the Encyclopædia Britannica
Badwater Basin
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Badwater Basin
Badwater Basin
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Badwater Basin elevation sign
Badwater Basin
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View of the Basins's
salt flats
Badwater Basin
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Crust of hexagonal shapes
6.
Mount Whitney
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Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of 14,505 feet. The west slope of the mountain is in Sequoia National Park, the east slope is in the Inyo National Forest in Inyo County. The summit of Whitney is on the Sierra Crest and the Great Basin Divide and it lies near many of the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada. The peak rises dramatically above the Owens Valley, sitting 10,778 feet or just over two miles above the town of Lone Pine 15 miles to the east, in the Owens Valley. It rises more gradually on the west side, lying only about 3,000 feet above the John Muir Trail at Guitar Lake, the mountain is partially dome-shaped, with its famously jagged ridges extending to the sides. Mount Whitney is above the line and has an alpine climate. Very few plants grow near the summit, one example is the Skypilot, the only animals are transient, such as the butterfly Parnassius phoebus and the gray-crowned rosy finch. The mountain is the highest point on the Great Basin Divide, waterways on the west side of the peak flow into Whitney Creek, which flows into the Kern River. The Kern River terminates in the Tulare Basin, during very wet years, water overflows from the Tulare Basin into the San Joaquin River which flows to the Pacific Ocean. From the east, water from Mount Whitney flows to Lone Pine Creek, which joins the Owens River, which in turn terminates at Owens Lake, the estimated elevation of the summit of Mount Whitney has changed over the years. The technology of elevation measurement has become refined and, more importantly. The peak was commonly said to be at 14,494 ft, an older plaque on the summit reads elevation 14,496.811 feet but this was estimated using the older vertical datum from 1929. Since then the shape of the Earth has been estimated more accurately, using a new vertical datum established in 1988 the benchmark is now estimated to be at 14,505 ft. The rise is caused by a fault system that runs along the eastern base of the Sierra. Thus, the granite that forms Mount Whitney is the same as the granite that forms the Alabama Hills, the raising of Whitney is due to the same geological forces that cause the Basin and Range Province, the crust of much of the intermontane west is slowly being stretched. The granite that forms Mount Whitney is part of the Sierra Nevada batholith, in Cretaceous time, masses of molten rock that originated from subduction rose underneath what is now Whitney and solidified underground to form large expanses of granite. In July 1864, the members of the California Geological Survey named the peak after Josiah Whitney, during the same expedition, geologist Clarence King attempted to climb Whitney from its west side, but stopped just short. In 1871, King returned to climb what he believed to be Whitney, upon learning of his mistake in 1873, King finally completed his own first ascent of Whitney, but did so a month too late to claim the first recorded ascent
Mount Whitney
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East Face close-up seen from the
Whitney Portal.
Mount Whitney
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Sky pilot blooming on ridge just below summit.
Mount Whitney
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Mount Whitney as seen from
Mount Langley
Mount Whitney
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The Smithsonian Hut Shelter on Whitney's summit.
7.
Contiguous United States
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The contiguous United States consists of the 48 adjoining U. S. states plus Washington, D. C. on the continent of North America. S. The greatest distance entirely within the 48 contiguous states is 2,802 miles, the greatest north-south line is 1,650 miles. Together, the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D. C. occupy an area of 3,119,884.69 square miles. Of this area,2,959,064.44 square miles is land, composing 83. 65% of U. S. land area, officially,160,820.25 square miles is water area, composing 62. 66% of the nations total water area. The contiguous United States would be placed 5th in the list of states and dependencies by area. The 2010 census population of area was 306,675,006, comprising 99. 33% of the nations population. While conterminous U. S. has the meaning of contiguous U. S. other terms commonly used to describe the 48 contiguous states have a greater degree of ambiguity. The term was in use prior to the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states of the United States, the District of Columbia is not always specifically mentioned as being part of CONUS. OCONUS is derived from CONUS with O for outside added, thus referring to Outside of Continental United States, the term Lower 48 is also used to refer to the conterminous United States. The National Geographic style guide recommends the use of contiguous or conterminous United States instead of lower 48 when the 48 states are meant, both Alaskans and Hawaiians have unique labels for the contiguous United States because of their own locations relative to them. Alaska became the 49th state of the United States on January 3,1959, Alaska is on the northwest end of the North American continent, but separated from the rest of the United States Pacific coast by the Canadian province of British Columbia. In Alaska, given the ambiguity surrounding the usage of continental, several other terms have been used over the years. Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States on August 21,1959 and it is the southernmost and so far, the latest state to join the Union. Not part of any continent, Hawaii is located in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,200 miles from North America, in Hawaii and overseas American territories, for instance, the terms the Mainland or U. S. Mainland are often used to refer to the continental United States, apart from off-shore US islands, a few continental portions of the contiguous US are accessible by road only by traveling through Canada. Point Roberts, Washington, Elm Point, Minnesota, and the Northwest Angle in Minnesota are three such places, alburgh, Vermont, is not directly connected by land, but is accessible by road via bridges from within Vermont and from from New York. The 48 contiguous United States are, Washington, D. C. is distinct from the state of Washington, extreme points of the United States Mainland Definition of continental Definition of contiguous Definition of coterminous and conterminous
Contiguous United States
–
This map shows the contiguous
United States and in insets at the lower left, the two states that are not contiguous
8.
Furnace Creek, California
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Furnace Creek is a census-designated place in Inyo County, California. The population was 24 at the 2010 census, down from 31 at the 2000 census, the elevation of the village is 190 feet below sea level. The visitor center, museum, and headquarters of the Death Valley National Park are located at Furnace Creek, the village is surrounded by a number of Park Service public campgrounds. Two of the Parks major tourist facilities, the Furnace Creek Inn, the Furnace Creek Golf Course attached to the Ranch claims to be the lowest in the world, at 214 feet below sea level. There are also a restaurant, cafe, store, and gas station in Furnace Creek village, the Furnace Creek Airport is located about 0.75 miles west of the park headquarters. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has an area of 31.5 square miles. Springs in the Amargosa Range created an oasis at Furnace Creek. From 1911 through 2006, Furnace Creek had a high temperature of 91.4 °F. During that time period, the hottest month was July with a daily high temperature of 116.5 °F. Furnace Creek has the distinction of holding the record for the highest recorded temperature in the world, some meteorologists dispute the accuracy of the 1913 temperature measurement. In addition, a temperature of 201 °F was recorded in Furnace Creek on July 15,1972. The Timbisha Native Americans inhabited what is now known as the Furnace Creek oasis for centuries, Greenland Ranch was established by the William Tell Coleman Borax Company in 1883. It was named after the green Alfalfa fields planted at the location, a Weather Station was established at the ranch in 1891. Greenland Ranch was renamed Furnace Creek Ranch in 1933, the Timbisha tribe currently live at their Death Valley Indian Community reservation here. The Timbisha people provided many of the artisans and builders to construct the original Fred Harvey Company resort buildings, the Indian Village and they were one of the first tribes to secure tribal status through the Bureau of Indian Affairs Federal Acknowledgment Process. Furnace Creek was formerly the center of Death Valley mining and operations for the Pacific Coast Borax Company, on the afternoon of July 10,1913, a temperature of 134 °F was recorded at Greenland Ranch. This temperature stands as the highest ambient air temperature recorded at the surface of the Earth. The 2010 United States Census reported that Furnace Creek had a population of 24, the population density was 0.8 people per square mile
Furnace Creek, California
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Entrance to Furnace Creek Ranch
Furnace Creek, California
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Furnace Creek in 1871
Furnace Creek, California
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Furnace Creek
oasis and the
Panamint Range, Death Valley, 2012
9.
Great Basin
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The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America. The region spans several physiographic divisions, biomes/ecoregions, and deserts, the term Great Basin is applied to hydrographic, biological, floristic, physiographic, topographic, and ethnographic geographic areas. The name was coined by John C. Frémont, who, based on information gleaned from Joseph R. Walker as well as his own travels, the hydrographic definition is the most commonly used, and is the only one with a definitive border. The other definitions yield not only different geographical boundaries of Great Basin regions, the Great Basin physiographic section is a geographic division of the Basin and Range Province defined by Nevin Fenneman in 1931. The United States Geological Survey adapted Fennemans scheme in their Physiographic division of the United States, the section is somewhat larger than the hydrographic definition. The culture area covers approximately 400,000 sq mi, or just less than twice the area of the hydrographic Great Basin, the hydrographic Great Basin is a 209,162 square miles area that drains internally. All precipitation in the region evaporates, sinks underground or flows into lakes, as observed by Frémont, creeks, streams, or rivers find no outlet to either the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. The region is bounded by the Wasatch Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges to the west, the south rim is less distinct. The Great Basin includes most of Nevada, half of Utah, substantial portions of Oregon and California and small areas of Idaho, Wyoming, the term Great Basin is slightly misleading, the region is actually made up of many small basins. The Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake, and the Humboldt Sink are a few of the drains in the Great Basin, the Salton Sink is another closed basin within the Great Basin. The Great Basin Divide separates the Great Basin from the watersheds draining to the Pacific Ocean, the southernmost portion of the Great Basin is the watershed area of the Laguna Salada. The Great Basins longest and largest river is the Bear River of 350 mi, Lake Tahoe, North Americas largest alpine lake, is part of the Great Basins central Lahontan subregion. The hydrographic Great Basin contains multiple deserts and ecoregions, each with its own set of flora. The ecological boundaries and divisions in the Great Basin are unclear, the Great Basin overlaps four different deserts, portions of the hot Mojave and Colorado Deserts to the south, and the cold Great Basin and Oregon High Deserts in the north. The deserts can be distinguished by their plants, the Joshua tree and creosote bush occur in the hot deserts, the cold deserts are generally higher than the hot, and have their precipitation spread throughout the year. The climate and flora of the Great Basin is strongly dependent on elevation, as the elevation increases, because of this, forests occur at higher elevations. Utah juniper/single-leaf pinyon and mountain mahogany form open pinyon-juniper woodland on the slopes of most ranges, stands of limber pine and Great Basin bristlecone pine can be found in some of the higher ranges
Great Basin
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The hydrographic Great Basin (magenta outline), distinguished from the
Great Basin Desert (black), and the
Basin and Range Geological Province (teal).
Great Basin
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Relief Map with Great Basin Overlay
Great Basin
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The
Tule Valley watershed and the
House Range (
Notch Peak) are part of the Great Basin's Great Salt Lake
hydrologic unit
Great Basin
–
Ecoregions as currently delineated by the Environmental Protection Agency and World Wildlife Fund
10.
Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
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The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Basin and Range Province. The vast majority of the lies in the state of California. The Sierra runs 400 miles north-to-south, and is approximately 70 miles across east-to-west, the Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, the character of the range is shaped by its geology and ecology. More than one hundred years ago during the Nevadan orogeny. The range started to uplift four M. A. ago, the uplift caused a wide range of elevations and climates in the Sierra Nevada, which are reflected by the presence of five life zones. Uplift continues due to faulting caused by forces, creating spectacular fault block escarpments along the eastern edge of the southern Sierra. The Sierra Nevada has a significant history, the California Gold Rush occurred in the western foothills from 1848 through 1855. Due to inaccessibility, the range was not fully explored until 1912, the Sierra Nevada lies in Central and Eastern California, with a very small but historically important spur extending into Nevada. West-to-east, the Sierra Nevadas elevation increases gradually from 1,000 feet in the Central Valley to an height of about 10,500 feet at its crest only 50–75 miles to the east. The east slope forms the steep Sierra Escarpment, unlike its surroundings, the range receives a substantial amount of snowfall and precipitation due to orographic lift. The Sierra Nevada stretches from the Susan River and Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south and it is bounded on the west by Californias Central Valley and on the east by the Basin and Range Province. The geographical boundary between the Sierra and the Cascades is virtually indistinguishable, with the Fredonyer Pass designation being traditional, physiographically, the Sierra is a section of the Cascade-Sierra Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division. The range is drained on its western slope by the Central Valley watershed, the northern third of the western Sierra is part of the Sacramento River watershed, and the middle third is drained by the San Joaquin River. The eastern slope watershed of the Sierra is much narrower, its rivers flow out into the endorheic Great Basin of eastern California and western Nevada. Although none of the eastern rivers reach the sea, many of the streams from Mono Lake southwards are diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct which provides water to Southern California, the height of the mountains in the Sierra Nevada increases gradually from north to south. Between Fredonyer Pass and Lake Tahoe, the range from 5,000 feet to more than 9,000 feet. The crest near Lake Tahoe is roughly 9,000 feet high, farther south, the highest peak in Yosemite National Park is Mount Lyell
Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
–
The Sierra's
Mills Creek cirque (center) is on the west side of the
Sierra Crest, south of
Mono Lake (top, blue).
Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
–
Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the range and the contiguous United States
Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
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The Sierra hosts many waterways, such as the
Tuolumne River.
Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
–
Mount Tallac above
Lake Tahoe
11.
Inyo County, California
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Inyo County is a county in the U. S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 18,546, Inyo County is on the east side of the Sierra Nevada and southeast of Yosemite National Park in Central California. It contains the Owens River Valley, it is flanked to the west by the Sierra Mountains and to the east by the White Mountains, Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the Contiguous United States, is on Inyo Countys western border. The Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, the lowest place in North America, is in eastern Inyo County. The two points are not visible from other, but both can be observed from the Panamint Range on the west side of Death Valley, above the Panamint Valley. It has the biggest elevation difference of all of the counties, with an area of 10,192 square miles, Inyo County is the second-largest county by area in California, after San Bernardino County. Almost one-half of that area is within Death Valley National Park, however, with a population density of 1.8 people per square mile, it has the lowest population density of any county in California. Present day Inyo county has been the homeland for thousands of years of the Mono tribe, Coso people, Timbisha. They spoke the Timbisha language and the Mono language with Mono traditional narratives, the descendants of these ancestors continue to live in their traditional homelands in the Owens River Valley and in Death Valley National Park. Inyo County was formed in 1866 from the territory of the unorganized Coso County created on April 4,1864 from parts of Mono and it acquired more territory from Mono County in 1870 and Kern County and San Bernardino County in 1872. For many years it has been believed that the county derived its name from the Mono tribe of Native Americans name for the mountains in its former homeland. The local Paiutes responded that that was the land of Inyo and they meant by this that those lands belonged to the Shoshone tribe headed by a man whose name was Inyo. Indian George, a fixture of many of the stories of early Death Valley days, was Inyos son, in order to provide water needs for the growing City of Los Angeles, water was diverted from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The Owens River Valley cultures and environments changed substantially, from the 1910s to 1930s the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchased much of the valley for water rights and control. In 1941 the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power extended the Los Angeles Aqueduct system further upriver into the Mono Basin, Inyo County is host to a number of natural superlatives. Among them are, Mount Whitney, with an elevation of 14,505 feet, is the highest point in the contiguous United States, the 12th highest peak in the U. S. and the 24th highest peak in North America. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 10,227 square miles. It is the second-largest county by area in California and the ninth-largest in the United States, Death Valley National Park Inyo National Forest Manzanar National Historic Site There are 22 official wilderness areas in Inyo County that are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System
Inyo County, California
–
Wildflowers blooming in Death Valley after an unusually wet winter
Inyo County, California
–
Mount Whitney (top) is less than 90 miles (140 km) away from
Badwater Basin in
Death Valley (bottom)
Inyo County, California
Inyo County, California
–
Owens Valley and the Sierra Escarpment.
12.
Amargosa Range
–
The Amargosa Range is a mountain range in Inyo County, California and Nye County, Nevada. The 110-mile range runs along most of the side of Californias Death Valley. The U-shaped Amargosa River flows clockwise around the perimeter of the range, the mountain range is named after the Amargosa River, so-named for the Spanish word for bitter because of the bitter taste of the water. In order from north to south, the Grapevine Mountains, the Funeral Mountains, many of Death Valley National Parks most well-known features, such as Zabriskie Point and Artists Drive are located in or are part of the Amargosa Range
Amargosa Range
13.
Panamint Range
–
The Panamint Range is a short rugged fault-block mountain range in the northern Mojave Desert, within Death Valley National Park in Inyo County, eastern California. The origin of the name is the Paiute word Panümünt, the range runs north-south for approximately 100 miles through Inyo County, forming the western wall of Death Valley and separating it from the Panamint Valley to the west. The range is part of the Basin and Range Province, at the end of the Great Basin. The highest peak in the range is Telescope Peak, with an elevation of 11,049 feet, dantes View east of Death Valley is another. The Panamint Mining District is on the side of the Panamint Range. Panamint City was a town in the district, formerly in the central section of the range. The historic mining community of Ballarat, also in the district, is now a ghost town, the Gold Hill Mining District was in the southwestern section of the range, at the northeast end of Butte Valley. The Wildrose Charcoal Kilns are ruins of charcoal kilns located near Wildrose Canyon in the northern range and they were built in 1877 by the Modock Consolidated Mining Company, to provide fuel for smelters near their lead and silver mines in the Argus Range
Panamint Range
–
Panamint Range looking toward Telescope Peak
Panamint Range
Panamint Range
–
Wildrose Charcoal Kilns.
14.
Sylvania Mountains
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The Sylvania Mountains are located in Inyo County, California and Esmeralda County, Nevada in the United States. The range trends in an east-west direction, north of the Last Chance Range at the end of Death Valley National Park. The Last Chance Range and Death Valley are to the south, Slate Ridge is to the southeast, the Sylvania Mountains Wilderness protects over 18,000 acres of the range in California. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management
Sylvania Mountains
15.
Owlshead Mountains
–
The Owlshead Mountains are located at the southern end of Death Valley National Park near the border of the Fort Irwin Military Reservation in San Bernardino County, California, USA. The range lies in the Mojave Desert, north of the Granite Mountains, the Greenwater Range is to the northeast, the Slate Range is west, and the Kingston Range east. The mean annual precipitation in the range is five inches or less, the Owlshead Mountains are arranged in a semi-circular pattern, with the Amargosa River lying to the north. The Owlshead Mountains are primarily known for the scenic canyons found within the range that are made up of Decomposed granite, visitation to these canyons is somewhat limited due to the remote location of the Owlshead Mountains and the long distances required to reach the canyons by hiking. Within the range there are three usually dry playa lake beds -- Owl Lake, Lost Lake, and Wingate Lake, topoZone, Owlshead Mountains interactive map and more Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert Epsom Salts Monorail
Owlshead Mountains
–
Death Valley landmarks
16.
Telescope Peak
–
Telescope Peak is the highest point within Death Valley National Park, in the U. S. state of California. It is also the highest point of the Panamint Range, from atop this desert mountain one can see for over one hundred miles in many directions, including west to Mount Whitney, and east to Charleston Peak. The mountain was named for the great distance visible from the summit, Telescope Peak is also notable for having one of the greatest vertical rises above local terrain of any mountain in the contiguous United States. Its summit rises 11,331 feet above the lowest point in Death Valley, Badwater Basin at −279 feet, in about 15 miles and this is comparable to the rises of other tall, but better known, U. S. peaks. It is even somewhat comparable to the rise of Mount Everest above its base on the Tibetan Plateau. However Everest rises much more, and much more steeply, above its base in Nepal. Since it is the point of a range surrounded by low basins, Telescope Peak also has a particularly high topographic prominence of 6,168 feet. A variety of trees can be found on the mountain, including single-leaf pinyon, limber pine, and, at the highest elevations, from Ridgecrest, California State Route 178 leads northeast into Death Valley National Park. The road turns to unpaved about 50 miles later as it loses its highway status and it winds up through Wildrose Canyon up to a parking lot where the trail for the summit starts. The section from the Charcoal Kilns can be rough and might only be suitable for 4-wheel-drive cars with high clearance, hiking Telescope Peak by the normal route involves a 14 miles round trip hike. The trail starts in the part of Death Valley National Park at Mahogany Flat campground. The trail slowly winds itself up to the summit 7 miles later at a gradient of roughly 8%. The standard route is maintained by the National Park Service, and this route leaves directly from the Mahogany Flat Campground, and travels approximately two miles to Arcane Meadows. From Arcane Meadows, the trail winds five more miles gradually up toward Telescope Peak and this route can also be used to access two nearby peaks, Bennett Peak and Rogers Peak, a traverse that adds on minimal extra mileage. An established, but more advanced, climbing route is from Shortys Well to the summit of Telescope Peak at 11,049 feet and this route is approximately 30 to 34 miles round trip and provides a net gain of elevation of approximately 11,311 feet. The route begins at the intersection of the West Side Road, for 6.5 miles, the route climbs out of the Badwater basin and into Hanaupah Canyon. Approximately 1.5 miles after reaching the end of the road, the trail leads directly to Hanaupah Spring, at the spring, the route then turns directly north onto a scree/talus slope. Although this slope may look difficult to ascend, this is the correct way, climbers should find the best route possible up the slope
Telescope Peak
–
Telescope Peak viewed from Devil's Golf Course, Death Valley, California.
Telescope Peak
–
Telescope Peak from the main trail.
Telescope Peak
–
Panamint Valley,
California, looking south. Telescope Peak is visible at left.
Telescope Peak
–
Wildrose Charcoal Kilns
17.
Geology of the Death Valley area
–
The oldest rocks in the area that now includes Death Valley National Park are extensively metamorphosed by intense heat and pressure and are at least 1700 million years old. These rocks were intruded by a mass of granite 1400 Ma, rifting thinned huge roughly linear parts of the supercontinent Rodinia enough to allow sea water to invade and divide its landmass into component continents separated by narrow straits. A passive margin developed on the edges of these new seas in the Death Valley region, carbonate banks formed on this part of the two margins only to be subsided as the continental crust thinned until it broke, giving birth to a new ocean basin. An accretion wedge of sediment then started to accumulate at the base of the submerged precipice. These sandy mudflats gave way about 550 Ma to a platform which lasted for the next 300 million years of Paleozoic time. Erosion over many millions of years created a relatively featureless plain, stretching of the crust under western North America started around 16 Ma and is thought to be caused by upwelling from the subducted spreading-zone of the Farallon Plate. This process continues into the present and is thought to be responsible for creating the Basin, by 2 to 3 million years ago this province had spread to the Death Valley area, ripping it apart and creating Death Valley, Panamint Valley and surrounding ranges. These valleys partially filled with sediment and, during colder periods during the current ice age, Lake Manly was the largest of these lakes, it filled Death Valley during each glacial period from 240,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago. By 10,500 years ago these lakes were increasingly cut off from glacial melt from the Sierra Nevada, starving them of water and concentrating salts, the desert environment seen today developed after these lakes dried up. Little is known about the history of the oldest exposed rocks in the due to extensive metamorphism. This somber, gray, almost featureless crystalline complex is composed of sedimentary and igneous rocks with large quantities of quartz. The original rocks were transformed to contorted schist and gneiss, making their original parentage almost unrecognizable, radiometric dating gives an age of 1700 million years for the metamorphism, placing it in the early part of the Proterozoic eon. A mass of granite now in the Panamint Mountains intruded this complex 1400 mya, pegmatic dikes and other widely spaced plutons of granite are also in the complex. Outcrops can be seen along the front of the Black Mountains in Death Valley and in the Talc, when the granite was being intruded, the west coast of North America ran through Eastern California and through an embayment that spread toward the Las Vegas Valley. This embayment, called the Amargosa aulacogen, had highlands north and south of it and was the result of a failed rift, many thousands of feet of sediment filled the slowly subsiding basin. Next, the metamorphosed Precambrian basement rocks were uplifted and a nearly 500-million-year-long gap in the geologic record, the Pahrump Group of formations were deposited from 1200 to 800 mya in the Amargosa aulacogen. This was after uplift-associated erosion removed whatever rocks covered the Proteozoic Complex, Pahrump is composed of, from oldest to youngest, Crystal Springs Formation, Beck Spring Dolomite, Kingston Peak Formation. Outcrops of this group can be seen in a metamorphosed belt that extends from the Panamint Mountains to the eastern part of the Kingston Range
Geology of the Death Valley area
–
The Death and Panamint valleys area from space. The elliptical depression to the left is the Searles Lake basin, the smaller linear valley is Panamint Valley and the larger one is Death Valley. The mountain range between Death and Panamint valleys is the Panamint Range and the Black Mountains bound the other side of Death Valley. (NASA image)
Geology of the Death Valley area
Geology of the Death Valley area
Geology of the Death Valley area
–
Death Valley 3D views
18.
Geology
–
Geology is an earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Geology can also refer generally to the study of the features of any terrestrial planet. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth by providing the evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life. Geology also plays a role in engineering and is a major academic discipline. The majority of data comes from research on solid Earth materials. These typically fall into one of two categories, rock and unconsolidated material, the majority of research in geology is associated with the study of rock, as rock provides the primary record of the majority of the geologic history of the Earth. There are three types of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The rock cycle is an important concept in geology which illustrates the relationships between three types of rock, and magma. When a rock crystallizes from melt, it is an igneous rock, the sedimentary rock can then be subsequently turned into a metamorphic rock due to heat and pressure and is then weathered, eroded, deposited, and lithified, ultimately becoming a sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock may also be re-eroded and redeposited, and metamorphic rock may also undergo additional metamorphism, all three types of rocks may be re-melted, when this happens, a new magma is formed, from which an igneous rock may once again crystallize. Geologists also study unlithified material which typically comes from more recent deposits and these materials are superficial deposits which lie above the bedrock. Because of this, the study of material is often known as Quaternary geology. This includes the study of sediment and soils, including studies in geomorphology, sedimentology and this theory is supported by several types of observations, including seafloor spreading, and the global distribution of mountain terrain and seismicity. This coupling between rigid plates moving on the surface of the Earth and the mantle is called plate tectonics. The development of plate tectonics provided a basis for many observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features could be explained as plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and volcanoes exist, were explained as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart. Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes were explained as convergent boundaries, where one plate subducts under another, transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas Fault system, resulted in widespread powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also provided a mechanism for Alfred Wegeners theory of continental drift and they also provided a driving force for crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology
Geology
–
On this diagram, subducting
slabs are in blue, and continental margins and a few plate boundaries are in red. The blue blob in the cutaway section is the seismically imaged
Farallon Plate, which is subducting beneath North America. The remnants of this plate on the Surface of the Earth are the
Juan de Fuca Plate and Explorer plate in the Northwestern USA / Southwestern Canada, and the
Cocos Plate on the west coast of Mexico.
Geology
–
This schematic diagram of the rock cycle shows the relationship between magma and sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rock
Geology
Geology
–
Geologic cross-section of
Kittatinny Mountain. This cross-section shows metamorphic rocks, overlain by younger sediments deposited after the metamorphic event. These rock units were later folded and faulted during the uplift of the mountain.
19.
Fault (geology)
–
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock, across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movement. Large faults within the Earths crust result from the action of tectonic forces. Energy release associated with movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. A fault plane is the plane that represents the surface of a fault. A fault trace or fault line is the intersection of a plane with the ground surface. A fault trace is also the line commonly plotted on maps to represent a fault. Since faults do not usually consist of a single, clean fracture, the two sides of a non-vertical fault are known as the hanging wall and footwall. By definition, the wall occurs above the fault plane. This terminology comes from mining, when working a tabular ore body, because of friction and the rigidity of rocks, they cannot glide or flow past each other easily, and occasionally all movement stops. A fault in ductile rocks can also release instantaneously when the rate is too great. The energy released by instantaneous strain-release causes earthquakes, a common phenomenon along transform boundaries, slip is defined as the relative movement of geological features present on either side of a fault plane, and is a displacement vector. A faults sense of slip is defined as the motion of the rock on each side of the fault with respect to the other side. In practice, it is only possible to find the slip direction of faults. Based on direction of slip, faults can be categorized as, strike-slip. Dip-slip, offset is predominantly vertical and/or perpendicular to the fault trace, oblique-slip, combining significant strike and dip slip. The fault surface is usually vertical and the footwall moves either left or right or laterally with very little vertical motion. Strike-slip faults with left-lateral motion are known as sinistral faults. Those with right-lateral motion are known as dextral faults
Fault (geology)
–
Large normal fault in
Triassic to
Lower Jurassic Blue Anchor Formation sediments near
Blue Anchor,
Somerset, UK, with several smaller normal faults in its hanging wall
Fault (geology)
–
A fault in the Grands Causses as seen from
Bédarieux,
France. The left side moved down relative to the right side
Fault (geology)
–
Microfault showing a
piercing point (the coin's diameter is 18 mm)
Fault (geology)
–
The Piqiang Fault, a northwest trending strike-slip fault in the
Taklamakan Desert south of the
Tien Shan Mountains, China (40.3°N, 77.7°E)
20.
Garlock Fault
–
The Garlock Fault is a left-lateral strike-slip fault running approximately northeast-southwest along the north margins of the Mojave Desert of Southern California. It runs for much of its length along the base of the Tehachapi Mountains. The Garlock Fault marks the boundary of the area known as the Mojave Block, as well as the southern ends of the Sierra Nevada. Stretching for 250 kilometers, it is the second-longest fault in California and is one of the most prominent geological features in the part of the state. The Garlock Fault runs from a junction with the San Andreas Fault in the Antelope Valley and it is named after the historic mining town of Garlock, founded in 1894 by Eugene Garlock and now a ghost town. In the case of the Garlock Fault, this means that the north of the fault is moving westward relative to the terrain south of the fault. The Garlock Fault moves at a rate of between 2 and 11 mm a year, with a slip of around 7 millimeters. While most of the fault is locked, certain segments have shown to move by aseismic creep. The most recent notable event was a magnitude 5.7 near the town of Mojave on July 11,1992 and it is thought to have been triggered by the Landers earthquake, just two weeks earlier. The last significant ruptures on the Garlock were thought to be in the years 1050 AD and 1500 AD, research has pinned the interval between significant ruptures on the Garlock as being anywhere between 200 and 3,000 years depending on the segment of the fault. The Garlock Fault constitutes one of the borders of the Mojave Desert, mountain ranges mark its western edge, and its trace is clearly visible on aerial images of the state. Relatively few communities lie directly along the Garlock, as it is situated in the desert, with Frazier Park, Tehachapi, Mojave. However, a rupture along the Garlock would probably be felt in most of the southern part of California. Southern California Earthquake Data Center, Faults in Southern California USGS Database, Garlock Fault
Garlock Fault
–
Perspective view of Garlock Fault
21.
Amargosa River
–
The Amargosa River is an intermittent waterway,185 miles long, in southern Nevada and eastern California in the United States. It drains a high desert region, the Amargosa Valley in the Amargosa Desert northwest of Las Vegas, into the Mojave Desert, and finally into Death Valley where it disappears into the ground aquifer. Except for a portion of its route in the Amargosa Canyon in California and a small portion at Beatty, Nevada. A 26-mile stretch of the river between Shoshone and Dumont Dunes is protected as a National Wild and Scenic River, at the south end of Tecopa Valley the Amargosa River Natural Area protects the habitat. Except during flash floods that occur after cloudbursts, most of the course of the Amargosa River is dry on the surface, the flow is generally underground except for stretches near Beatty and near Tecopa, California, in the Amargosa Canyon. In the canyon, the passes through the Amargosa River Natural Area. The river arises at about 1,200 feet above sea level in Nye County, Nevada, thirsty Canyon Wash enters at the rivers source, and when carrying water, the river flows from there southwest into Oasis Valley. Running parallel to U. S. Route 95 near the Bullfrog Hills to the west, another 3 miles or so downstream, the river flows through Beatty and turns south-southeast through the Amargosa Narrows into the Amargosa Desert. At this point, Bare Mountain lies to the left and the Grapevine, downstream of the Narrows, still flowing roughly parallel to Route 95, the river passes Big Dune, which is on the rivers left. Shortly thereafter it passes the town of Amargosa Valley on the left, leaves Nevada, in this stretch, it receives Forty Mile Wash from the left. Running roughly parallel to California Route 127, the passes through Death Valley Junction. Shortly thereafter it receives Carson Slough, which drains Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, soon the river passes between the Resting Spring Range to the left and the Greenwater Range to the right before reaching Shoshone. Below Shoshone, the continues roughly parallel to Route 127 to Tecopa. Turning west, the river crosses under Route 127 and enters Death Valley National Park between the end of the Amargosa Range on the right and the Avawatz Mountains on the left. In this stretch, the river runs parallel to Harry Wade Road and, further north, to California Route 178. The river receives Willow Creek from the right and ends in Badwater Basin, about 279 feet below sea level, disappearing into the ground, it feeds the aquifer that is the remnant of prehistoric Lake Manly. The United States Geological Survey monitors the flow of the Amargosa River at a station near the Old Spanish Trail Road,0.2 miles west of Tecopa. The average flow of the river at this station is 3.80 cubic feet per second and this is from a drainage area of 3,090 square miles, much of which is noncontributing and all of which represents about 60 percent of the total Amargosa River drainage basin
Amargosa River
–
Amargosa River at Tecopa, California
Amargosa River
–
Course map
Amargosa River
–
During very wet periods, the Amargosa River can flow at the surface in
Death Valley National Park.
22.
Salt pan (geology)
–
Natural salt pans or salt flats are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the Sun. They are found in deserts, and are natural formations, a salt pan forms by evaporation of a water pool such as a lake or pond. This happens in climates where the rate of water exceeds the rate of precipitation. If the water drain into the ground, it remains on the surface until it evaporates. Over thousands of years, the minerals accumulate on the surface and these minerals reflect the Suns rays and often appear as white areas. The crust of salt can conceal a quagmire of mud that can engulf a truck, the Qattara Depression in the eastern Sahara desert contains many such traps which served as strategic barriers during World War II. The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, where land speed records have been set, is a well-known salt pan in the arid regions of the western United States. The Etosha pan, in the Etosha National Park in Namibia, is another prominent example of a salt pan, the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is the largest salt pan in the world. It contains 50%-70% of the worlds lithium reserves, dry lake Pan Sabkha Salt evaporation pond Salt lake Sink Solonchak Briere, Peter R. Playa, playa lake, sabkha, Proposed definitions for old terms. Lowenstein, Tim K. Lawrence A. Hardie, criteria for the recognition of salt-pan evaporites
Salt pan (geology)
–
Salar de Uyuni in
Bolivia
Salt pan (geology)
–
Cono de Arita in
Salar de Arizaro,
Salta (
Argentina)
Salt pan (geology)
–
Devil's Golf Course,
Death Valley National Park, United States
23.
Pleistocene
–
The Pleistocene is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the worlds most recent period of repeated glaciations. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period, the Pleistocene is the first epoch of the Quaternary Period or sixth epoch of the Cenozoic Era. In the ICS timescale, the Pleistocene is divided into four stages or ages, all of these stages were defined in southern Europe. In addition to this subdivision, various regional subdivisions are often used. Charles Lyell introduced the term pleistocene in 1839 to describe strata in Sicily that had at least 70% of their molluscan fauna still living today and this distinguished it from the older Pliocene Epoch, which Lyell had originally thought to be the youngest fossil rock layer. The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.588 million to 11,700 years before present and it covers most of the latest period of repeated glaciation, up to and including the Younger Dryas cold spell. The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to about 9640 BC, the IUGS has yet to approve a type section, Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point, for the upper Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. The proposed section is the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core 75°06 N 42°18 W, the lower boundary of the Pleistocene Series is formally defined magnetostratigraphically as the base of the Matuyama chronozone, isotopic stage 103. Above this point there are notable extinctions of the calcareous nanofossils, Discoaster pentaradiatus, the Pleistocene covers the recent period of repeated glaciations. The name Plio-Pleistocene has, in the past, been used to mean the last ice age. The revised definition of the Quaternary, by pushing back the date of the Pleistocene to 2.58 Ma. Pleistocene climate was marked by repeated glacial cycles in which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places and it is estimated that, at maximum glacial extent, 30% of the Earths surface was covered by ice. In addition, a zone of permafrost stretched southward from the edge of the sheet, a few hundred kilometres in North America. The mean annual temperature at the edge of the ice was −6 °C, during interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions. The effects of glaciation were global, antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene as well as the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap, there were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania. The current decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas mountains. In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one, the Cordilleran ice sheet covered the North American northwest, the east was covered by the Laurentide
Pleistocene
–
The maximum extent of
glacial ice in the north polar area during the Pleistocene period.
Pleistocene
–
Ice ages as reflected in atmospheric CO 2, stored in bubbles from glacial ice of
Antarctica.
Pleistocene
–
Pleistocene of
Northern Spain showing
woolly mammoth,
cave lions eating a
reindeer,
tarpans, and
woolly rhinoceros.
Pleistocene
–
Pleistocene of
South America showing
Megatherium and two
Glyptodon.
24.
Lake Manly
–
Lake Manly is a former pluvial lake in Death Valley, California. The lake formerly covered much of Death Valley with an area of 1,600 square kilometres during the so-called Blackwelder stand. The lake received water mainly from the Amargosa River and at various points from the Mojave River, the lake and its substantial catchment favoured the spread of a number of aquatic species, the spread of some lizards, pupfish and springsnails was aided by its waters. A number of diatoms developed in the lake, which supported a substantial ecosystem. Lake Manly existed during different times in the geological past, after the drying of this lake a later lake stage occurred 35,000 -10,000 years ago during the Tioga/Wisconsin glaciation, this lake was smaller than the Blackwelder lake. During the Holocene, the disappeared, today only ephemeral lakes occur in Death Valley during strong floods. Lake Manly is one among many major lakes that formed in the Great Basin, Lake Manly collected the overflow from a number of lakes including Lake Tecopa, Mono Lake, Lake Owens, Searles Lake, Lake Panamint, Lake Mojave, Lake Dumont and Lake Manix. Not all of them existed or drained into Lake Manly simultaneously, the formation of Lake Manly was caused by decreasing temperatures and hence decreasing evaporation as well as increased precipitation during the ice ages. Other lake systems in the Great Basin expanded due to the causes as well. The lake was named in honour of William Lewis Manly, Manly in 1849 rescued white immigrants from Death Valley. The name Lake Rogers for a potential northern lake in Death Valley was derived from a compatriot of Manly, the name Lake Manly was coined in 1932, and is sometimes spelled as Manley, which is a misspelling. Other names for the lakes in Death Valley are Death Valley Pleistocene lakes and Death Valley Lake, the existence of a lake in Death Valley in the past was also considered during that time, although it was at first not universally accepted that it had been a large lake. The first evidence for it to have been a lake was described in 1924 by Levi F. Noble. Already before in 1890 did Grove Karl Gilbert assume a lake had existed in Death Valley, while the deposits were once attributed to a single lake stand, later evidence of various lake cycles going back to the Pliocene was found. The history of Lake Manly is not as well understood as that of Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville, more recently, the fact that Lake Manly formerly drained the area of Yucca Mountain, a proposed nuclear waste repository, has lead to renewed scientific interest. The Badwater Basin is the deepest point in North America, Death Valley started to form about 14 million years ago, and by the Pliocene it was well developed. The valley is kept deep by vertical faulting, which is faster here than anywhere else in the US, various types of rocks form the surface areas of Death Valley, some going back as far as the Precambrian. Thus, shorelines from the lake stands are often not at the same altitude in various parts of the basin
Lake Manly
–
Shoreline Butte showing strandlines from ancient Lake Manly.
Lake Manly
–
The Lake Manly system rendered as it appeared during its last maximum 22,000 years ago
25.
Borax
–
Soid Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. Powdered borax is white, consisting of colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water. Borax has a variety of uses. It is a component of many detergents, cosmetics, and enamel glazes, in artisanal gold mining, the borax method is sometimes used as a substitute for toxic mercury in the gold extraction process. Borax was reportedly used by miners in parts of the Philippines in the 1900s. The term borax is used for a number of closely related minerals or chemical compounds that differ in their water content. Commercially sold borax is partially dehydrated, Borax was first discovered in dry lake beds in Tibet and was imported via the Silk Road to the Arabian Peninsula in the 8th Century AD. However, it is formulated as Na2·8H2O, since borax contains the 2− ion. In this structure, there are two four-coordinate boron atoms and two boron atoms. Borax is also converted to boric acid and other borates. When borax is added to a flame, it produces a green color. Borax is not used for purpose in fireworks due to the overwhelming yellow color of sodium. Boric acid is used to color methanol flames a transparent green, the English word borax is Latinized, the Middle English form was boras, from Old French boras, bourras. That may have been from medieval Latin baurach, borac, borax, or maybe directly from the Arabic, along with Spanish borrax and Italian borrace, the Arabic was بورق bauraq/bwrk, a word also used for borax. Traditional Arabic dictionaries say that it derives from the verb to glisten, which is also written بورق bwrq, but it seems to actually derive from the Persian būrah. The word borax is found in Arabic būraq, meaning white, which is from Middle Persian bwrk, another name for borax is tincal, from Sanskrit. The word tincal /ˈtɪŋkəl/ tinkle, or tincar /ˈtɪŋkər/ tinker, refers to crude borax, before it is purified, as mined from deposits in Tibet, Persia. The word was adopted in the 17th century from Malay tingkal and from Urdu/Persian/Arabic تنکار tinkār/tankār and these all appear to be related to the Sanskrit टांकण ṭānkaṇa
Borax
–
Borax
Borax
–
Borax "cottonball"
Borax
–
Traction steam engine hauling borax, Death Valley, California, 1904.
Borax
–
Borax-based washing detergent.
26.
Subtropical
–
The subtropics are geographic and climate zones located roughly between the tropic circle of latitude at 23.5 latitude and temperate latitudes. Subtropical climates are characterized by warm to hot summers and cool to mild winters with infrequent frost. Subtropical climates can occur at elevations within the tropics, such as in the southern end of the Mexican Plateau and in Vietnam. Six climate classifications use the term to define the various temperature. A great portion of the deserts are located within the subtropics. Within savanna regimes in the subtropics, a wet season is seen annually during the summer, within Mediterranean climate regimes, the wet season occurs during the winter. Areas bordering warm oceans are prone to heavy rainfall from tropical cyclones. Plants such as palms, citrus, mango, lychee, the tropics have been historically defined as lying between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, located at 23. 45° north and south latitude respectively. The poleward fringe of the subtropics is located at approximately 40° north and south latitude respectively, northern fringes of the type can go further north due to moderating effects of ocean streams, like in parts of Southern Europe due to heat transported by the Gulf Stream. Several methods have used to define the subtropical climate. In the Trewartha climate classification, a subtropical region should have at least eight months with a temperature greater than 10 °C. According to the Troll-Paffen climate classification, there exists one large subtropical zone named the warm-temperate subtropical zone. According to the E. Neef climate classification, the zone is divided into two parts, Rainy winters of the west sides and Eastern subtropical climate. According to the Wilhelm Lauer & Peter Frankenberg climate classification, the zone is divided into three parts, high-continental, continental, and maritime. According to the Siegmund/Frankenberg climate classification, subtropical is one of six zones in the world. Heating of the earth near the equator leads to large amounts of upward motion and convection along the trough or Intertropical convergence zone. The upper-level divergence over the near-equatorial trough leads to air rising and moving away from the equator aloft, as the air moves towards the Mid-Latitudes, it cools and sinks, which leads to subsidence near the 30th parallel of both hemispheres. This circulation is known as the Hadley cell and leads to the formation of the subtropical ridge, many of the worlds deserts are caused by these climatological high-pressure areas, located within the subtropics
Subtropical
–
Tadrart Acacus desert, part of the Sahara, in western
Libya.
Subtropical
–
The subtropics and tropics
Subtropical
–
Hadley cells located on the Earth's atmospheric circulation.
Subtropical
–
Curitiba,
Brazil: Live oak with
araucarias.
27.
Hot desert climate
–
An area that features this climate usually experiences from 25 to 200 mm per year of precipitation and in some years may experience no precipitation at all. Averages may be even less such as in Arica, Chile, there are usually two or three variations of a desert climate, a hot desert climate, a cold desert climate and, sometimes, a mild desert climate. To determine whether a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold is determined. If the areas precipitation is less than half the threshold. Hot desert climates are found under the subtropical ridge where there is largely unbroken sunshine for the whole year due to the stable descending air. These areas are located between 30 degrees south and 30 degrees north latitude, under the subtropical latitudes called the horse latitudes, hot desert climates are generally hot, sunny and dry year-round. Hot desert climates also reach similar latitudes in the Middle East, North Africa, hot desert climates usually feature hot, sometimes exceptionally hot, periods of the year. In many locations featuring a hot climate, maximum temperatures of over 40 °C are not uncommon in summer. The world absolute heat records, over 50 °C, are generally in the hot deserts, some desert locations consistently experience very high temperatures all year long, even during wintertime. These locations feature some of the highest annual average temperatures recorded on Earth and this last feature is seen in some parts of deserts of Africa and Arabia. During colder periods of the year, night-time temperatures can drop to freezing or below due to the radiation loss under the clear skies. However, very rarely do temperatures drop far below freezing, only one region in Europe has a hot desert climate, Province of Almeria, Province of Alicante and Province of Murcia in South Eastern Spain. Cold desert climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though summers typically are not quite as hot as summers in hot desert climates, unlike hot desert climates, cold desert climates tend to feature cold winters with rare snow. Cold desert climates are found at higher altitudes than hot desert climates. A cold desert climate is found in temperate zones, usually in the rain shadow of high mountains. A classic example of this is the Patagonian Desert in Argentina bounded by the Andes to its west, in the case of Central Asia, mountains restrict precipitation from the monsoon. The Gobi desert in Mongolia is an example of this. Though hot in summer, it shares the cold winters of the rest of Central Asia
Hot desert climate
–
Namib Desert, Namibia
Hot desert climate
–
A dusting of snow in the Atacama Desert.
Hot desert climate
–
Cold deserts do get the occasional blanket of snow, such as
Snake Valley, Utah and Nevada
28.
Greenhouse effect
–
The greenhouse effect is the process by which radiation from a planets atmosphere warms the planets surface to a temperature above what it would be without its atmosphere. If a planets atmosphere contains radiatively active gases the atmosphere radiate energy in all directions. Part of this radiation is directed towards the surface, warming it, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere radiate energy, some of which is directed to the surface and lower atmosphere. The mechanism that produces this difference between the surface temperature and the effective temperature is due to the atmosphere and is known as the greenhouse effect. Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is critical to supporting life, human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have intensified the natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming. The mechanism is named after a faulty analogy with the effect of radiation passing through glass. The way a greenhouse retains heat is fundamentally different, as a works by reducing airflow. The existence of the effect was argued for by Joseph Fourier in 1824. The effect was more fully quantified by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, however, the term greenhouse was not used to refer to this effect by any of these scientists, the term was first used in this way by Nils Gustaf Ekholm in 1901. Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of ultraviolet, visible, of the total amount of solar energy available at the top of the atmosphere, about 26% is reflected to space by the atmosphere and clouds and 19% is absorbed by the atmosphere and clouds. Most of the energy is absorbed at the surface of Earth. Because the Earths surface is colder than the photosphere of the Sun, most of this thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, thereby warming it. In addition to the absorption of solar and thermal radiation, the atmosphere gains heat by sensible, the atmosphere radiates energy both upwards and downwards, the part radiated downwards is absorbed by the surface of Earth. This leads to an equilibrium temperature than if the atmosphere were absent. An ideal thermally conductive blackbody at the distance from the Sun as Earth would have a temperature of about 5.3 °C. However, because Earth reflects about 30% of the incoming sunlight, the surface temperature of this hypothetical planet is 33 °C below Earths actual surface temperature of approximately 14 °C. The basic mechanism can be qualified in a number of ways, the atmosphere near the surface is largely opaque to thermal radiation, and most heat loss from the surface is by sensible heat and latent heat transport. Radiative energy losses become increasingly important higher in the atmosphere, largely because of the concentration of water vapor
Greenhouse effect
–
A modern
Greenhouse in
RHS Wisley
Greenhouse effect
–
A representation of the exchanges of energy between the source (the
Sun), the Earth's surface, the
Earth's atmosphere, and the ultimate sink
outer space. The ability of the atmosphere to capture and recycle energy emitted by the Earth surface is the defining characteristic of the greenhouse effect.
29.
Convection oven
–
A convection oven is an oven that has fans to circulate air around food. The earliest use of a fan in a domestic oven dates from dates by the Malleable Iron Range Company. A convection oven has a fan with a heating element around, a small fan circulates the air in the cooking chamber. Convection ovens may include radiant heat sources at the top and bottom of the oven, on the other hand, some ovens have all the heating elements placed in an outside enclosure and hidden from the food. A convection oven allows a reduction in cooking temperature compared to a conventional oven and this comparison will vary, depending on factors including, for example, how much food is being cooked at once or if airflow is being restricted by using an oversized baking tray. Product testing has not demonstrated that convection cooking within a toaster oven results in notable advantages to toasting or baking, another form of a convection oven is called an impingement oven. This type of oven is used to cook pizzas in restaurants. Impingement ovens have a flow rate of hot air from both above and below the food. The air flow is directed onto food that passes through the oven on a conveyor belt. Impingement ovens can achieve a higher heat transfer than a conventional oven. There are convection microwave ovens which combine a convection oven with an oven to cook food with the speed of a microwave oven
Convection oven
–
A convection oven at a
Hungry Howie's store in
Auburn, Alabama
30.
Virga
–
In meteorology, virga is an observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates or sublimates before reaching the ground. A shaft of precipitation which does not evaporate before reaching the ground is a precipitation shaft and it is very common in the desert and in temperate climates. In North America, it is seen in the Western United States. It is also common in the Middle East, Australia. Virga can cause varying effects, because as rain is changed from liquid to vapor form. Precipitation falling into these cooling down drafts may eventually reach the ground, in some instances, these pockets of colder air can descend rapidly, creating a wet or dry microburst which can be extremely hazardous to aviation. Conversely, precipitation evaporating at high altitude can compressionally heat as it falls and this fairly rare phenomenon, a heat burst, also tends to be of exceedingly dry air. The word is derived from Latin virga meaning twig or branch, sulfuric acid rain in the atmosphere of Venus evaporates before reaching the ground due to the high heat near the surface. Similarly, virga happens on gas giant planets such as Jupiter, in September 2008 NASAs Phoenix lander discovered a snow variety of virga falling from Martian clouds. Aviation safety Cavum Precipitation shaft Sun pillar National Science Digital Library - Virga Viewing the Vagaries and Verities of Virga Alistair B, fraser and Craig F. Bohren, Department of Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania,2 November 1992 and 25 January 1993
Virga
–
Nimbostratus virga
Virga
–
Virga falling from
Altocumulus
31.
Rain shadow
–
A rain shadow is a dry area on the leeward side of a mountainous area. The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems and cast a shadow of dryness behind them, wind and moist air is drawn by the prevailing winds towards the top of the mountains, where it condenses and precipitates before it crosses the top. The air, without much moisture left, advances behind the mountains creating a side called the rain shadow. The condition exists because warm moist air rises by orographic lifting to the top of a mountain range, as atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing altitude, the air has expanded and adiabatically cooled to the point that the air reaches its adiabatic dew point. At the adiabatic dew point, moisture condenses onto the mountain and it precipitates on the top, the air descends on the leeward side, but due to the precipitation it has lost much of its moisture. There are regular patterns of prevailing winds found in round the Earths equatorial region. The zone designated the trade winds is the zone between about 30° N and 30° S, blowing predominantly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere, the strongest westerly winds in the middle latitudes can come in the Roaring Forties between 30 and 50 degrees latitude. The Dasht-i-Lut in Iran is in the shadow of the Elburz. The Ordos Desert is rain shadowed by mountain chains including the Kara-naryn-ula, the Sheitenula, and the Yin Mountains, which link on to the south end of the Great Khingan Mountains. The Thar desert is bounded and rain shadowed by the Aravalli ranges to the south-east, the Himalaya to the northeast, Eastern Side of Sahyadri ranges on Deccan e. g. Northern Karnataka & Solapur, Beed, Osmanabad and Vidharba Plateau of India. The central region of Myanmar is in the shadow of the Arakan Mountains and is almost semi-arid with only 750 millimetres of rain as against as much as 5.5 metres on the Rakhine State coast. The High Peaks of Mount Lebanon rain-shadow the northern parts of the Beqaa Valley, the Judean Desert, the Dead Sea and the western slopes of the Moab Mountains on the opposite side are rain-shadowed by the Judean Hills. The Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest non-polar desert on Earth because it is blocked from moisture on both sides, Cuyo and Eastern Patagonia is rain shadowed from the prevailing westerly winds by the Andes range and is arid. The Argentinian wine region of Cuyo and Northern Patagonia is almost completely dependent on irrigation, on the largest scale, the entirety of the North American Interior Plains are shielded from the prevailing Westerlies carrying moist Pacific weather by the North American Cordillera. More pronounced effects are observed, however, in valley regions within the Cordillera. Most rainshadows in the western United States are due to the Sierra Nevada, champlain Valley in upstate New York. It is protected by the Adirondack Mountains, hawaii also has rain shadows, with some areas being desert. Orographic lifting produces the worlds second-highest annual precipitation record,12.7 meters, on the island of Kauai, the entire island of Kahoolawe lies in the rain shadow of Mauis East Maui Volcano
Rain shadow
–
An example of a rain shadow.
Rain shadow
–
The
Tibetan Plateau (top), perhaps the best example of a rain shadow. Rain does not make it past the
Himalayas, leading to an arid climate on the leeward side of the
mountain range.
Rain shadow
–
The
Agasthiyamalai hills cut off
Tirunelveli (
India) from the
monsoons, creating a rainshadow region
32.
Oman
–
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is an Arab country on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast, the Madha and Musandam exclaves are surrounded by the UAE on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman forming Musandams coastal boundaries. From the late 17th century, the Omani Sultanate was an empire, vying with Portugal and Britain for influence in the Persian Gulf. At its peak in the 19th century, Omani influence or control extended across the Strait of Hormuz to modern-day Iran and Pakistan, as its power declined in the 20th century, the sultanate came under the influence of the United Kingdom. Historically, Muscat was the trading port of the Persian Gulf region. Muscat was also among the most important trading ports of the Indian Ocean, the Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said has been the hereditary leader of the country since 1970. Sultan Qaboos is the current ruler in the Middle East. Oman has modest oil reserves, ranking 25th globally, nevertheless, in 2010 the UNDP ranked Oman as the most improved nation in the world in terms of development during the preceding 40 years. A significant portion of its economy is tourism and trade of fish, dates and this sets it apart from its neighbors solely oil-dependent economies. Oman is categorized as an economy and ranks as the 74th most peaceful country in the world according to the Global Peace Index. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates place the Arabian Nubian Complex at 106,000 years old and this supports the proposition that early human populations moved from Africa into Arabia during the Late Pleistocene. Dereaze, located in the city of Ibri, is the oldest known settlement in the area. Archaeological remains have been discovered here from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, findings have included stone implements, animal bones, shells and fire hearths, with the latter dating back to 7615 BC as the oldest signs of human settlement in the area. Other discoveries include hand-molded pottery bearing distinguishing pre-Bronze Age marks, heavy flint implements, pointed tools, sumerian tablets refer to a country called Magan or Makan, a name believed to refer to Omans ancient copper mines. Mazoon, another used for the region, is derived from the word muzn. The present-day name of the country, Oman, is believed to originate from the Arab tribes who migrated to its territory from the Uman region of Yemen. Many such tribes settled in Oman, making a living by fishing, herding or stock breeding, from the 6th century BC to the arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD, Oman was controlled and/or influenced by three Persian dynasties, the Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids. A few scholars believe that in the 6th century BC, the Achaemenids exerted a strong degree of control over the Omani peninsula, Central Oman has its own indigenous so-called Late Iron Age cultural assemblage, the Samad al-Shan
Oman
–
A grave at
Al Ayn, Oman, a World Heritage site.
Oman
–
Flag
Oman
–
The
Sultan's Palace in
Zanzibar, which was once Oman's capital and residence of its Sultans.
Oman
–
The coast of
Sur, Oman.
33.
Ephemeral lake
–
A lake is an area of variable size filled with water, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land, apart from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, and therefore are distinct from lagoons, Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams, which are usually flowing. Most lakes are fed and drained by rivers and streams, natural lakes are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers, in some parts of the world there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them. The word lake comes from Middle English lake, from Old English lacu, from Proto-Germanic *lakō, cognates include Dutch laak, Middle Low German lāke as in, de, Moorlake, de, Wolfslake, de, Butterlake, German Lache, and Icelandic lækur. Also related are the English words leak and leach, none of these definitions completely excludes ponds and all are difficult to measure. For this reason, simple size-based definitions are used to separate ponds. One definition of lake is a body of water of 2 hectares or more in area, however, others have defined lakes as waterbodies of 5 hectares and above, or 8 hectares and above. Charles Elton, one of the founders of ecology, regarded lakes as waterbodies of 40 hectares or more. The term lake is used to describe a feature such as Lake Eyre. In common usage, many bear names ending with the word pond. One textbook illustrates this point with the following, In Newfoundland, for example, almost every lake is called a pond, whereas in Wisconsin, the majority of lakes on Earth are fresh water, and most lie in the Northern Hemisphere at higher latitudes. Canada, with a drainage system has an estimated 31,752 lakes larger than 3 square kilometres and an unknown total number of lakes. Finland has 187,888 lakes 500 square metres or larger, most lakes have at least one natural outflow in the form of a river or stream, which maintain a lakes average level by allowing the drainage of excess water. Some lakes do not have an outflow and lose water solely by evaporation or underground seepage or both. Many lakes are artificial and are constructed for power generation, aesthetic purposes, recreational purposes, industrial use. Globally, lakes are greatly outnumbered by ponds, of an estimated 304 million standing water bodies worldwide, 91% are 1 hectare or less in area
Ephemeral lake
–
Oeschinen Lake in the
Swiss Alps
Ephemeral lake
–
Lake Tahoe on the border of
California and
Nevada
Ephemeral lake
–
The
Caspian Sea is either the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea.
Ephemeral lake
–
The
Seven Rila Lakes are a group of glacial lakes in the
Bulgarian Rila mountains.
34.
Precipitation
–
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
Precipitation
–
A thunderstorm with heavy precipitation
Precipitation
–
Long-term mean precipitation by month
Precipitation
–
Late-summer
rainstorm in
Denmark
Precipitation
–
Lenticular cloud forming due to mountains over Wyoming
35.
Sunshine duration
–
It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, and thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period. Sunshine duration is usually expressed in hours per year, or in hours per day, the first measure indicates the general sunniness of a location compared with other places, while the latter allows for comparison of sunshine in various seasons in the same location. Another often-used measure is percentage ratio of recorded bright sunshine duration, an important use of sunshine duration data is to characterize the climate of sites, especially of health resorts. This also takes account the psychological effect of strong solar light on human well-being. It is often used to promote tourist destinations, if the Sun were to be above the horizon 50% of the time for a standard year consisting of 8,760 hours, apparent maximal daytime duration would be 4,380 hours for any point on Earth. However, there are physical and astronomical effects that change that picture, namely, atmospheric refraction allows the Sun to be still visible even when it physically sets below the horizon. For that reason, average daytime is longest in polar areas, places on the Arctic Circle have the longest total annual daytime,4,647 hours, while the North Pole receives 4,575. Because of elliptic nature of the Earths orbit, the Southern Hemisphere is not symmetrical, the Equator has a total daytime of 4,422 hours per year. Given the theoretical maximum of daytime duration for a given location, bright sunshine hours represent the total hours when the sunlight is stronger than a specified threshold, as opposed to just visible hours. Visible sunshine, for example, occurs around sunrise and sunset, measurement is performed by instruments called sunshine recorders. For the specific purpose of sunshine duration recording, Campbell–Stokes recorders are used, when the intensity exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the tape burns. The total length of the trace is proportional to the number of bright hours. Another type of recorder is the Jordan sunshine recorder, newer, electronic recorders have more stable sensitivity than that of the paper tape. In 2003, the duration was finally defined as the period during which direct solar irradiance exceeds a threshold value of 120 W/m². The sky is clear in these regions, and fair weather is virtually perpetual, the descending branch of the Hadley cell and the long-term lack of atmospheric disturbances helps to explain the seemingly endless supply of sunny, cloud-free days in the deserts. Low clouding conditions are associated with rainfall shortage, as seen in these dry regions. In the belt encompassing northern Chad and the Tibesti Mountains, northern Sudan, southern Libya, some places in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula receive 3, 600–3,800 hours of bright sunshine annually. The largest sun-baked region in the world is North Africa, the sunniest month in the world is December in Eastern Antarctica, with almost 23 hours of bright sun daily
Sunshine duration
–
Campbell–Stokes recorder measures sunshine
36.
Darwin Falls
–
Darwin Falls is a waterfall located on the western edge of Death Valley National Park near the settlement of Panamint Springs, California. There are several falls, but they are divided into the upper and lower with a small grotto in between. At a combined 80 feet, it is the highest waterfall in the park, the canyon is walled by dramatic plutonic rock. Darwin Creek is one of the four streams in three million-acre Death Valley National Park. Darwin Falls and Creek are fed by the Darwin Wash, which is in turn fed by the volcanic tableland of the Darwin Bench between the Inyo Mountains and the Argus Range. The small, narrow valley where the creek and falls are located features a collection of riparian greenery in the vast desert and is home to indigenous fauna such as quail. The falls themselves support several small fern gullys, Darwin Falls is accessible to the public. The falls are located in a small, narrow valley near Panamint Valley, access to the trail to Darwin Falls is a dirt road located on the south side of State Route 190, approximately ¼ mile west of Panamint Springs. The lower falls, which are 20 feet tall are reached with a hike up Darwin Canyon that is 1 mile long each way. While the trailhead is accessible with a 2WD vehicle, there is an option to drive farther with a 4WD vehicle to a spot farther along the path around the canyon. The upper falls are viewable with moderate climbing, a photo progression of the approach to the falls Adventure Hikes and Canyoneering in the Southwest, Hike G9, Darwin Falls, Death Valley —. Todds Desert Hiking Guide, Darwin Falls
Darwin Falls
–
Parking at the main trail head for the canyon.
Darwin Falls
–
The view of Darwin Canyon from the trail head.
Darwin Falls
–
On the approach down Darwin Canyon, the dry soil develops into a moist mud path which begins to reveal water.
37.
Landsat 5
–
Landsat 5 was a low Earth orbit satellite launched on March 1,1984 to collect imagery of the surface of Earth. A continuation of the Landsat Program, Landsat 5 was jointly managed by the U. S. Geological Survey, data from Landsat 5 was collected and distributed from the USGSs Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science. After 29 years in space, Landsat 5 was officially decommissioned on June 5,2013, near the end of its mission, Landsat 5s use was hampered by equipment failures, and it was largely superseded by Landsat 7 and Landsat 8. Mission scientists anticipated the satellite will re-enter Earths atmosphere and disintegrate around 2034, Landsat 5 had a maximum transmission bandwidth of 85 Mbit/s. It was deployed at an altitude of 705.3 km, the satellite was an identical copy of Landsat 4 and was originally intended as a backup. Therefore, Landsat 5 carried the instruments, including the Thematic Mapper. The Multi-Spectral Scanner was powered down in 1995, but reactivated again in 2012, Landsat 5 was launched by NASA from Vandenberg Air Force Base on March 1,1984. Landsat 5 recorded many significant events and it was the first satellite to capture the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986. Landsat 5 also documented deforestation occurring in regions, and captured the devastating 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia. On November 26,2005, the solar array drive on Landsat 5 began exhibiting unusual behavior. The solar array drive maintains the proper pointing angle between the array and the Sun. The rotation of the array drive became sporadic, and the solar array was not able to provide the power needed to charge the batteries. Maintaining power to the batteries is critical to proper operation of the spacecraft. The primary solar array drive failed under similar circumstances in January 2006, as a result of this situation, imaging operations were suspended. After a month-long investigation in December 2005 and testing in January 2006, on December 18,2009, the transmitter on Landsat 5 experienced technical difficulties. Data downlink was restored on January 7,2010 after a test successfully managed to retrieve a picture over North America and this test exercised the only remaining Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier. The remaining TWTA is in fact the primary TWTA that was in operation when Landsat 5 launched in 1984, after several issues in late 1986 and 1987, the primary TWTA was turned off and the secondary redundant TWTA was used. The USGS Flight Operations Team applied lessons learned while operating the redundant TWTA to the primary TWTA for its first successful transmission in over 22 years
Landsat 5
–
Artist's rendering of Landsat 5.
38.
Dry lake
–
A dry lake is an ephemeral lakebed, or a remnant of an endorheic lake. Such flats consist of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts, alternative names for the dry lake include alkali flat, alkali sink and playa. A playa lake may cover an area, but it is never deep. Most water in it evaporates, leaving a layer of salt on the surface and these salt covered stretches are called saltpans. The surface of a dry lake is dry, hard and rough during the dry season. Dry lakes are small, round depressions in the surface of the landscape. If its basin is primarily salt, then a dry lake is called a salt pan, pan, hardpan, another dry lake type is the mudflat. Hardpan is the dry terminus of an internally drained basin in a dry climate, the Spanish word playa literally means beach. Dry lakes are known by name in some parts of Mexico. This term is used on the Llano Estacado and other parts of the Southern High Plains. In South America, the term for a dry lake is salar or salina. Pan is the used in most of South Africa. These may include the small round pans, typical of the Chrissiesmeer area, to the extensive pans of the Northern Cape province. It is also used in Australia, distinguished are salt pans and clay pans. In Arabic, a flat is called a sabkha or shott. In Central Asia, a similar cracked mud salt flat is known as a takyr, in Iran salt flats are called kavir. A playa lake is formed when water from rain or other sources, like intersection with a table, flows into a dry depression in the landscape. If the total annual evaporation rate exceeds the annual inflow
Dry lake
–
Namak Lake,
Qom Province,
Iran
Dry lake
–
The
Chott el Djerid in
Tunisia
Dry lake
–
Salt harvesting in
Salar de Uyuni,
Bolivia, the world's largest salt flat
Dry lake
–
Sailing stone in
Racetrack Playa
39.
Lake Badwater
–
Badwater Basin is an endorheic basin in Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, Inyo County, California, noted as the lowest point in North America, with an elevation of 282 ft below sea level. Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous 48 United States, is only 84.6 miles to the north west. The site itself consists of a small spring-fed pool of bad water next to the road in a sink, the pool does have animal and plant life, including pickleweed, aquatic insects, and the Badwater snail. Adjacent to the pool, where water is not always present at the surface, repeated freeze–thaw, the pool is not the lowest point of the basin, the lowest point is several miles to the west and varies in position, depending on rainfall and evaporation patterns. The salt flats are hazardous to traverse, and so the sign marking the low point is at the pool instead, the basin was considered the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere until the discovery of Laguna del Carbón in Argentina at −344 ft. At Badwater Basin, significant rainstorms flood the valley bottom periodically, newly formed lakes do not last long though, because the 1.9 in of average rainfall is overwhelmed by a 150 in annual evaporation rate. This is the greatest evaporation potential in the United States, meaning that a 12 ft lake could dry up in a single year, when the basin is flooded, some of the salt is dissolved, it is redeposited as clean crystals when the water evaporates. A popular site for tourists is the sign marking sea level on the cliff above the Badwater Basin, numerous evaporation cycles and a lack of outflow caused an increasing hypersalinity, typical for endorheic bodies of water. Over time, this hypersalinization, combined with sporadic rainfall and occasional aquifer intrusion, has resulted in periods of briny soup, or salty pools, on the lowest parts of Death Valleys floor. Salts began to crystallize, coating the surface with the thick crust, ranging from 3 to 60 in, Death Valley pupfish List of elevation extremes by country List of elevation extremes by region John McKinney, Californias Desert Parks, A Day Hikers Guide. Wilderness Press 2006, ISBN 0-89997-389-2, S. 54–55 Don J. Easterbrook, geological Society of America 2003, ISBN 94-592-0504-6, S. 63–64 Badwater Basin in the Encyclopædia Britannica
Lake Badwater
–
Badwater Basin
Lake Badwater
–
Badwater Basin elevation sign
Lake Badwater
–
View of the Basins's
salt flats
Lake Badwater
–
Crust of hexagonal shapes
40.
Alluvial fan
–
An alluvial fan is a fan- or cone-shaped deposit of sediment crossed and built up by streams. If a fan is built up by debris flows it is called a debris cone or colluvial fan. These flows come from a point source at the apex of the fan. Fans are typically found where a canyon draining from mountainous terrain emerges out onto a flatter plain, a convergence of neighboring alluvial fans into a single apron of deposits against a slope is called a bajada, or compound alluvial fan. As a streams gradient decreases, it drops coarse-grained material and this reduces the capacity of the channel and forces it to change direction and gradually build up a slightly mounded or shallow conical fan shape. The deposits are poorly sorted. There will be iso-transport energy lines forming concentric arcs about the point at the apex of the fan. Thus the material will tend to be deposited equally about these lines, Alluvial fans are often found in desert areas subject to periodic flash floods from nearby thunderstorms in local hills. The typical watercourse in an arid climate has a large, funnel-shaped basin at the top, leading to a narrow defile, multiple braided streams are usually present and active during water flows. Phreatophytes are plants that are concentrated at the base of alluvial fans. They have long tap roots 30 to 50 feet to water that has seeped through the fan and hit an impermeable layer, sometimes collecting in springs. These stands of shrubs cling to the soil at their bases, Alluvial fans also develop in wetter climates. Along the upper Koshi tributaries, tectonic forces elevate the Himalayas several millimeters annually, uplift is approximately in equilibrium with erosion, so the river annually carries some 100 million cubic meters of sediment as it exits the mountains. Deposition of this magnitude over millions of years is more than sufficient to account for the megafan, despite overpopulation on the plains, this bhabar zone is highly malarial and has remained largely uninhabited. In North America, streams flowing into Californias Central Valley have deposited smaller, such as that of the Kings River flowing out of the Sierra Nevada creates a low divide, turning the south end of the San Joaquin Valley into an endorheic basin without a connection to the ocean. Alluvial fans are subject to flooding and can be more dangerous than the upstream canyons that feed them. Their slightly convex perpendicular surfaces cause water to spread widely until there is no zone of refuge, if the gradient is steep, active transport of materials down the fan creates a moving substrate that is inhospitable to travel on foot or wheels. But as the gradient diminishes downslope, water comes down from above faster than it can flow away downstream, in the case of the Koshi River, the huge sediment load and megafans slightly convex transverse surface conspire against engineering efforts to contain peak flows inside manmade embankments
Alluvial fan
–
A vast (60 km long) alluvial fan blossoms across the desolate
landscape between the
Kunlun and
Altun mountain ranges that form the southern border of the
Taklamakan Desert in
Xinjiang. The left side is the active part of the fan, and appears blue from
water flowing in the many small
streams
Alluvial fan
–
Alluvial fan in
Death Valley
Alluvial fan
–
Alluvial fan above
Lake Louise,
Alberta, Canada.
Alluvial fan
–
Ground-level view of a large alluvial fan in
Death Valley
41.
Flash flood
–
A flash flood is a rapid flooding of geomorphic low-lying areas, washes, rivers, dry lakes and basins. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a thunderstorm, hurricane, tropical storm. Flash floods may occur after the collapse of an ice or debris dam, or a human structure such as a man-made dam. Flash floods are distinguished from regular floods by a timescale of less than six hours, the water that is temporarily available is often used by foliage with rapid germination and short growth cycles, and by specially adapted animal life. Flash floods can occur under several types of conditions, Flash flooding occurs when it rains rapidly on saturated soil or dry soil that has poor absorption ability. The runoff collects in gullies and streams and, as they join to form larger volumes, often forms a fast flowing front of water, in areas on or near volcanoes, flash floods have also occurred after eruptions, when glaciers have been melted by the intense heat. Flash floods are known to occur in the highest mountain ranges of the United States and are common in the arid plains of the Southwestern United States. Flash flooding can also be caused by extensive rainfall released by hurricanes and other tropical storms, human activities can also cause flash floods to occur. When dams fail, a quantity of water can be released. Many people tend to underestimate the dangers of flash floods, what makes flash floods most dangerous is their sudden nature and fast-moving water. A vehicle provides little to no protection against being swept away, it may make people overconfident, more than half of the fatalities attributed to flash floods are people swept away in vehicles when trying to cross flooded intersections. As little as 2 feet of water is enough to carry away most SUV-sized vehicles. The U. S. National Weather Service reported in 2005 that, using a national 30-year average, more people die yearly in floods,127 on average, than by lightning, tornadoes, in deserts, flash floods can be particularly deadly for several reasons. First, storms in arid regions are infrequent, but they can deliver an enormous amount of water in a short time. Second, these rains often fall on poorly absorbent and often clay-like soil, in fact, in some areas, desert roads frequently cross dry river and creek beds without bridges. From the drivers perspective, there may be clear weather, when a river unexpectedly forms ahead of or around the vehicle in a matter of seconds. Finally, the lack of rain to clear water channels may cause flash floods in deserts to be headed by large amounts of debris, such as rocks, branches. 1889, Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania, U. S. more than 2,200 people dead 1903, Heppner Flood of 1903, Oregon, United States,247 dead, 25% of the city 1938, Los Angeles Flood of 1938, California, U. S. S
Flash flood
–
Driving through a flash-flooded road
Flash flood
–
Nepal Monsoon
Flash flood
–
A flash flood after a thunderstorm in the
Gobi, Mongolia
42.
Braided stream
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Not to be confused with the River Braid, Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Braided streams occur in rivers with high slope and/or large sediment load, braided channels are also typical of environments that dramatically decrease channel depth, and consequently channel velocity, such as river deltas, alluvial fans and peneplains. Braided rivers, as distinct from meandering rivers, occur when a level of sediment load or slope is reached whilst a steep gradient is also maintained. A threshold slope was experimentally determined to be 0.016 for a 0.15 cu ft/s stream with poorly sorted coarse sand. Any slope over this threshold created a stream, while any slope under the threshold created a meandering stream or— for very low slopes—a straight channel. Also important to development is the proportion of suspended load sediment to bed load. The channels and braid bars are highly mobile, with the river layout often changing significantly during flood events. Channels move sideways via differential velocity, On the outside of a curve, deeper, swift water picks up sediment, the braided channels may flow within an area defined by relatively stable banks or may occupy an entire valley floor. The Rakaia River in Canterbury, New Zealand has cut a channel 100 metres wide into the surrounding plains, extensive braided river systems are found in Alaska, Canada, New Zealands South Island, and the Himalayas, which all contain young, rapidly eroding mountains. The enormous Brahmaputra-Jamuna River in Asia is an example of a braided river. Braided river systems are present in Africa, for example in the Touat Valley, a notable example of a large braided stream in the contiguous United States is the Platte River in central and western Nebraska. The sediment of the arid Great Plains is augmented by the presence of the nearby Sandhills region north of the river, a portion of the lower Yellow River takes a braided form. Others have interpreted the depositional environment for this unit as a tidal delta, ait Anabranch Lagoon Shoal Hibbert, Barry, Brown, Kerry, eds
Braided stream
–
The
Waimakariri River is braided over most of its course.
Braided stream
–
The
White River in the
U.S. state of
Washington transports a large sediment load from the
Emmons Glacier of
Mount Rainier, a young, rapidly eroding volcano.
Braided stream
–
Rakaia River, South Island, New Zealand
Braided stream
–
Tanana River, Fairbanks, Alaska, United States
43.
Quaternary glaciation
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During this period, ice sheets expanded, notably from out of Antarctica and Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets occurred elsewhere. It affected oceans, flooding, and biological communities, the ice sheets themselves, by raising the albedo, affect a major feedback on climate cooling. The Quaternary glaciation was the first ice age to be demonstrated in geology and this was done over the 1700s and 1800s CE. Over the last century, extensive field observations have provided evidence that continental glaciers covered large parts of Europe, North America, even before the theory of worldwide glaciation was generally accepted, many observers recognized that more than a single advance and retreat of the ice had occurred. Since then other, earlier ice ages have been identified, the Quaternary glaciation is the last of five known glaciations during Earths history. The other four are the Huronian glaciation, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan glaciation, over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. The entire Quaternary Period, starting 2.58 Ma, is referred to as an ice age because at least one permanent large ice sheet—the Antarctic ice sheet—has existed continuously, there is uncertainty over how much of Greenland was covered by ice during the previous and earlier interglacials. During the colder episodes—referred to as glacial ice sheets at least 4 km thick at their maximum also existed in Europe, North America. The shorter and warmer intervals between glacials are referred to as interglacials, currently, Earth is in an interglacial period, which marked the beginning of the Holocene epoch. The current interglacial began between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, which caused the ice sheets from the last glacial period to begin to disappear. Remnants of these last glaciers, now occupying about 10% of the land surface, still exist in Greenland, Antarctica. During the glacial periods, the present hydrologic system was completely interrupted throughout large areas of the world and was modified in others. Due to the volume of ice on land, sea level was approximately 120 meters lower than present, extensive evidence now shows that a number of periods of growth and retreat of continental glaciers occurred during the ice age, called glacials and interglacials. The interglacial periods of climate are represented by buried soil profiles, peat beds. No completely satisfactory theory has been proposed to account for Earths history of glaciation, the cause of glaciation may be related to several simultaneous factors, such as astronomical cycles, atmospheric composition, plate tectonics, and ocean currents. The role of Earths orbital changes in controlling climate was first advanced by James Croll in the late 19th century, later, Milutin Milanković, a Serbian geophysicist, elaborated on the theory and calculated these irregularities in Earths orbit could cause the climatic cycles known as Milankovitch cycles. They are the result of the behavior of several types of cyclical changes in Earths orbital properties. Changes in the eccentricity of Earth occur on a cycle of about 100,000 years
Quaternary glaciation
–
Northern Hemisphere glaciation during the
Last Glacial Maximum. The creation of 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) thick ice sheets equate to a global sea level drop of about 120 m (390 ft).
44.
Pupfish
–
Pupfish are a group of small killifish belonging to ten genera of the family Cyprinodontidae of ray-finned fish. Pupfish are especially noted for being found in extreme and isolated situations and they are primarily found in North America, South America, and the Caribbean region, but Aphanius species are from southwestern Asia, northern Africa, and southern Europe. As of August 2006,120 nominal species and 9 subspecies were known, the common name is said to derive from the mating habits of the males, whose activities vaguely resemble puppies at play. In spite of their name, the cyprinodontids are not closely related to Cyprinidae, however, they are now generally assigned to the order Cyprinodontiformes. Several forms occur in the records of the Oligocene and Miocene beds of Europe. Most pupfish are inhabitants of fresh and brackish waters, Aphanius Cualac Cubanichthys Cyprinodon Floridichthys Garmanella Jordanella Megupsilon Orestias Yssolebias List of fish families
Pupfish
–
Pupfish
45.
Timbisha
–
The Timbisha are a Native American tribe federally recognized as the Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. They are known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and are located in south central California, as of the 2010 Census the population of the Village was 24. The older members still speak the language, also called Timbisha. The Timbisha have lived in the Death Valley region of North America for over a thousand years, in 1933 President Herbert Hoover created Death Valley National Monument, an action that subsumed the tribes homeland within park boundaries. Despite their long-time presence in the region, the failed to provide a homeland for the Timbisha people. Thereafter tribal members survived within monument boundaries, although their status was challenged by monument officials. They also lived in the Great Basin Saline Valley and northern Mojave Desert Panamint Valley areas of present-day southeastern California, estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber put the combined 1770 population of the Timbisha and he estimated the population of the Timbisha and Chemehuevi in 1910 as 500. With the help of the California Indian Legal Services, Timbisha Shoshone members led by Pauline Esteves, the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe was recognized by the US government in 1982. In this effort, they were one of the first tribes to secure tribal status through the Bureau of Indian Affairs Federal Acknowledgment Process, the tribes reservation, the Death Valley Indian Community, was established in 1982. Located within Death Valley National Park at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, Inyo County, in 1990 it was 40 acres in size and had a population of 199 tribal member residents. After much tribal effort, federal politics, and mutual compromise, currently the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe consists of around 300 members, usually 50 of whom live at the Death Valley Indian Community at Furnace Creek within Death Valley National Park. Many members spend the summers at Lone Pine in the Owens Valley to the west, the Timbisha have been known as the California Shoshoni, Death Valley Shoshone, Panamint Shoshone or simply Panamint. Julian Steward distinguished Death Valley Shoshone from the Kawaiisu in southern Death Valley, harold Driver recorded two Panamint subgroups in Death Valley, the ohya and the tumbica in 1937. The tribe never hyphenates its name, both the California Desert Protection Act and the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act spell their name correctly. Indian Village, California Timbisha language Hinton, Leanne, handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11, Great Basin. A Native American Encyclopedia, History, Culture, and Peoples, thomas, David Hurst, Lorann S. A. Pendleton, and Stephen C. Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11, Great Basin, a Tripartite State of Affairs, The Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, the National Park Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1934–1994, American Indian Culture and Research Journal,22, 117-136)
Timbisha
–
Death Valley Indian Community, looking west toward the village from a hill one mile away across highway 190
46.
Native Americans in the United States
–
In the United States, Native Americans are people descended from the Pre-Columbian indigenous population of the land within the countrys modern boundaries. These peoples were composed of distinct tribes, bands, and ethnic groups. Most Native American groups had historically preserved their histories by oral traditions and artwork, at the time of first contact, the indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the proto-industrial and mostly Christian immigrants. Some of the Northeastern and Southwestern cultures in particular were matrilineal, the majority of Indigenous American tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural lands for use of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had patriarchal cultures and had developed concepts of property rights with respect to land that were extremely different. Assimilation became a consistent policy through American administrations, during the 19th century, the ideology of manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Expansion of European-American populations to the west after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native American lands and this resulted in the ethnic cleansing of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches coming to be known as The Trail of Tears. As American expansion reached into the West, settler and miner migrants came into increasing conflict with the Great Basin, Great Plains and these were complex nomadic cultures based on horse culture and seasonal bison hunting. Over time, the United States forced a series of treaties and land cessions by the tribes, in 1924, Native Americans who were not already U. S. citizens were granted citizenship by Congress. Contemporary Native Americans have a relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes. The terms used to refer to Native Americans have at times been controversial, by comparison, the indigenous peoples of Canada are generally known as First Nations. It is not definitively known how or when the Native Americans first settled the Americas and these early inhabitants, called Paleoamericans, soon diversified into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes. The archaeological periods used are the classifications of archaeological periods and cultures established in Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips 1958 book Method and they divided the archaeological record in the Americas into five phases, see Archaeology of the Americas. The Clovis culture, a hunting culture, is primarily identified by use of fluted spear points. Artifacts from this culture were first excavated in 1932 near Clovis, the Clovis culture ranged over much of North America and also appeared in South America. The culture is identified by the distinctive Clovis point, a flaked flint spear-point with a notched flute, dating of Clovis materials has been by association with animal bones and by the use of carbon dating methods. Recent reexaminations of Clovis materials using improved carbon-dating methods produced results of 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon years B. P, other tribes have stories that recount migrations across long tracts of land and a great river, believed to be the Mississippi River. Genetic and linguistic data connect the people of this continent with ancient northeast Asians
Native Americans in the United States
–
Pushmataha
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States
–
Charles Eastman
Native Americans in the United States
–
Wilma Mankiller
47.
Red ochre
–
Ochre (/ˈoʊkər/ OH-kər, from Greek, ὠχρός, ōkhrós, or ocher, is a natural earth pigment containing hydrated iron oxide, which ranges in color from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the produced by this pigment. A variant of ochre containing an amount of hematite, or dehydrated iron oxide, has a reddish tint known as red ochre. Ochre is a family of pigments, which includes yellow ochre, red ochre, purple ochre, sienna. The major ingredient of all the ochres is iron oxide-hydroxide, known as limonite, which gives them a yellow color. Yellow ochre, FeO·nH 2O, is a hydrated iron hydroxide also called gold ochre Red ochre, Fe 2O3, takes its color from the mineral hematite. Purple ochre, is identical to red ochre chemically but of a different hue caused by different light diffraction properties associated with an average particle size. Brown ochre, also FeO, is a hydrated iron oxide. Sienna contains both limonite and an amount of manganese oxide, which makes it darker than ochre. Umber pigments contain a proportion of manganese which make them a dark brown. When natural sienna and umber pigments are heated, they are dehydrated and some of the limonite is transformed into hematite, giving them more reddish colors, called burnt sienna and burnt umber. Ochres are non-toxic, and can be used to make an oil paint that dries quickly, modern ochre pigments often are made using synthetic iron oxide. Pigments which use natural ochre pigments indicate it with the name PY-43 on the label, pieces of ochre engraved with abstract designs have been found at the site of the Blombos Cave in South Africa, dated to around 75,000 years ago. In Wales, the paleolithic burial called the Red Lady of Paviland from its coating of red ochre has been dated to around 33,000 years before present. Paintings of animals made with red and yellow ochre pigments have been found in sites at Pech Merle in France. The cave of Lascaux has an image of a horse colored with yellow estimated to be 17,300 years old. In Ancient Egypt, yellow was associated with gold, which was considered to be eternal, the skin and bones of the gods were believed to be made of gold. The Egyptians used yellow extensively in tomb painting, though occasionally they used orpiment
Red ochre
–
Ochre- pigment
Red ochre
–
Yellow ochre (Goldochre)- pigment
Red ochre
–
Limonite, a mineraloid containing iron hydroxide, is the main ingredient of all the ochre pigments.
Red ochre
–
Hematite is a more reddish variety of iron oxide, and is the main ingredient of red ochre. When limonite is roasted, it turns partially to the more reddish hematite and becomes red ochre or burnt sienna.
Death Valley travel guide from Wikivoyage
