I found a small black phoebe dead outside my classroom door this morning. My door is inside the building so I suspect it was trapped all weekend. ☹️
I put on gloves and bagged and disposed of it.
The sunset drive through Panamint Valley was spectacular. Low clouds allowed sunlight to peak under, lighting up the pandemic range, and all of the beautiful sedimentary rock layers.
We finally made it to Death Valley, and to our camp in stovepipe wells for a lovely evening. Except for @phaneritic.bsky.social who helped out in an urgent situation with a drive to Pahrump that night.
The pinnacles are made of tufa- a calcium carbonate material that forms when spring water rises into a lake. There is a chemical reaction between ions in the waters and the calcium carbonate forms and deposits, eventually creating large mounds.
These formed when the valley was under water.
Next was the drive to Stove Pipe Wells via Trona, Panamint valley and over Townes Pass.
The mining town of Trona sits on the edge of Searles lake and mines brine from the lake to produce rare salts and minerals. Here you can see the white salt surface of the lake and some of the processing pipes.
Next, we drove over Tehachapi pass and down into the Mojave desert. Differences in air pressure create continuous winds over the pass and so 1000’s of wind turbines have been established to generate electricity.
As we did send over to hatch past for the Mojave, the road makes a turn to the East along the trace of the Garlock fault. Because the rocks are softer along the fall zone, they erode creating a linear valley here which the highway department took advantage of.
Our next stop, was an outcrop at red rock canyon. The rocks here are exposed along the trace of the Garlock fault and show faults and jointing from the stress The fault has created.
