So, Besides Fish, What's the Last Thing One Would Ever Expect to See in Death Valley National Park?

It's one thing to find that a number of fish species survive within the boundaries of Death Valley National Park, which preserves the hottest and driest desert in North America. But sure, springs will persist in many dry environments. But a permanent, year-round waterfall? Yes, there is one in Death Valley National Park.

When Death Valley was changed from a national monument to a national park in 1994, the boundaries were vastly expanded, and came to include a portion of the Darwin Plateau at the south end of the Inyo Mountains southeast of Owens Lake. Part of the reason this area was included was the presence of a permanent stream, and its importance as a wildlife area. And there was Darwin Falls as well.

The falls are a short walk up a canyon just upstream of the Panamint Springs Resort on Highway 190. Indeed the water at Darwin Falls isn't just for the wildlife. A pipeline runs the length of the canyon providing the precious liquid to the resort as well.

There is some excellent geology exposed in the canyon walls on the way to the falls. One example is this excellent exposure of a dike, an intrusion that cuts across the sedimentary layers. There are nice examples of jointing in the granitic rocks exposed a little farther upstream.

Then comes the unexpected thickets of vegetation and the sound of trickling water. The trees are so thick it is a little tricky getting a clear shot of the lower falls. The falls are about 20 feet high, pretty small by any standards, but we are talking about a desert environment here. I understand several other falls are present upstream for a total drop of 80 feet or so.

These pictures are from 2008. I've only made it to the falls the one time, but I'd like to get up there again, maybe when the sun hasn't practically set! Thanks to commenter "twoeightnine" for jogging my memory about this extraordinary place in Death Valley!

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The Answer to Sunday's Mystery Quiz...And Where I'm Headed Tomorrow

The answer is: Death Valley National Park!

I admit that I was trying to be a bit deceptive with my pictures. Many people have a stereotypical image of Death Valley that includes salt flats, sand dunes, and miners with their burros tramping over barren desert mountains. Those things are part of what Death Valley is, but there is so much more.

I mentioned in Sunday's post that Death Valley is possibly the most geological park in the entire National Park System. The reasons for saying this include what I pointed out before: "the park contains rocks from every major era, ranging in age from as much as 2.3 billion years ago, including perhaps the most complete Paleozoic sequence of rocks found anywhere (something like 20,000 feet of Paleozoic rocks, including formations from each period), rocks from the Mesozoic (including plutonic granitic rocks), and a sequence of early Cenozoic sediments known for their mammalian fossils. The youngest rocks in the park may be only a few hundred years old."

There are other superlatives that can be added: the lowest point in the western hemisphere, the hottest temperature ever recorded on planet Earth, the driest place in North America, and features like the mysterious sliding stones of Racetrack Playa, the strange "turtleback" faults and metamorphic core complexes, Lake Manly (the freshwater lake that filled Death Valley 600 feet deep during the ice ages), and four species of fish (!!) including possibly the most endangered vertebrate species on Earth, the Devils Hole Pupfish.

There's more: the Ubehebe Craters, classic maar volcanoes that may have exploded only a few centuries ago, the badlands topography of Zabriskie Point, the Badwater salt pan, evidence of previous Death Valley type grabens that formed 15-20 million years ago, Neogene tuff deposits recording a wave of rhyolite eruptions across the American West, and the iconic sand dune fields.

As I said before, the park is so extensive and intricate, one could explore it for years and always find new treasures. If you are curious, the top picture is a view towards northern Death Valley from the lower end of Titus Canyon. The road through Titus is an epic adventure where one drives not over, but through a mountain range. The second picture is from the deepest part of the canyon, where the walls rise 3,000 feet, providing a Grand Canyon kind of feeling.

The third picture is one of the unexpected pleasures of exploring Death Valley. In the newer part of the park on the western side of Panamint Valley there is a permanent spring system and a 20 foot high waterfall. Darwin Falls is only a mile of hiking, and is a pleasant contrast to the barren desert.

The last picture is Mosaic Canyon, a better known part of the park, but a place with strange secrets. The mosaics are breccias and conglomerates that have been plastered to the sides of the canyon, but structural geologists seek out the exquisite structures revealed in the yellowish Noonday Dolomite of latest Proterozoic age. Callan Bentley of Mountain Beltway recently posted some neat shots of the folds in the lower canyon.

So that's where I'm taking 25 or so students tomorrow. It's hard for me to think of another single park or region that offers so much geologic diversity in one place.

Of course, you may have a different opinion...is there a place in the world that has more geologic diversity than Death Valley? I would love to know what you think!

Aberrations of Nature: A Morality Play and New Meme

There's a new meme in town, started by Outside the Interzone concerning waterfalls we have visited. Like 100 places, it asks of us which waterfalls we have seen, in this case from a North American perspective. The list is as follows, and I'm even going to tell you which ones I have seen, but I have more to say at the end....

#10 Lower Calf Creek Falls, Escalante National Monument, Utah (A wonderful sight in the center of one of our country's most spectacular national monuments)

#9 Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (A simply spectacular sight from any angle; from the very brink is absolutely mesmerizing)

#8 Upper Whitewater Falls, in southwestern North Carolina (haven't been to NC yet

#7 Snoqualmie Falls, between Snoqualmie and Fall City, Washington (Nope, not yet)

#6 Havasu Falls, Supai Village, Havasupai Indian Reservation, Grand Canyon, Arizona (Not yet, it's on my bucket list)

#5 Shoshone Falls, Twin Falls, Idaho (A spectacular waterfall, but often "turned off" as the river is diverted for irrigation. I got to see it in pre-digital-photography days)

#4 Multnomah Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon (I visited this one as a child, but I was highly impressed at the time and still remember it well)

#3 Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park, California (One of many spectacular falls in one incredible place; if you follow my blog you know I spend a lot of time here)

#2 McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, Big Sur, California (This is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in existence, falling as it does right into the sea, which is one of only two in all of California. If you only follow one link on this post, check out this incredible view)

#1 Niagara Falls, Niagara, New York (nope, not yet, so I never know what anyone is saying when they say "it's twice as high as Niagra")

Waterfalls are an aberration of nature, a temporary interruption in the regular scheme of things, if we are to accept the models of the geomorphologists. Waterfalls don't get much respect from us geologists it seems, since a brief review of the relevant chapters of my textbook reveals little about waterfalls, except as decoration for the chapter cover photos. The chapters I looked at had literally no mention of waterfalls except as deviations from a graded condition.

"Graded"? Rivers adjust their channels in such a way as to remove irregularities by eroding "knickpoints" or depositing sediment within depressions. Following the dictates of physics and gravity, rivers are constantly approaching, but never quite achieving, a graded condition, in which no unusual areas of erosion or deposition exist. Waterfalls are the ultimate deviation, and rivers work furiously over time to remove them. As such, waterfalls truly are temporary, and we are privileged to see the ones that do exist.

This idea of approaching an "ideal" state sounds vaguely like a Victorian morality play in which we as humans seek, but never quite reach, some model of perfection. Scriptural passages speak of the inability of humans to reach a sin-free state without supernatural intervention or grace, and other passages talk of how the mountains will be laid low and the paths made straight. It sounds just like a river adjusting the channel it flows through....

Waterfalls ARE aberrations, and ultimately there is some kind of interesting explanation for why a particular waterfall exists. The river crosses a particularly hard exposure of rock, like a lava flow; glaciers have carved a deep gorge where tributary canyons cannot keep up; water falls off the edge of a plateau with a prominent caprock; a fault has lifted part of a river-course; a landslide has changed the canyon a river flows through.

Part of the waterfall meme allows that we can add one of our favorites; I offer four:

The first photo is Mealt Falls on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. It may be my favorite waterfall on the planet although I have only seen it once and from only one view point. Like McWay Falls at Big Sur, it essentially falls into the ocean. The seacliffs are composed of columnar-jointed basalt flows related to the splitting of Pangea and the opening of the Atlantic Ocean in late Mesozoic time.

The second photo is Akaka Falls on the Big Island of Hawaii. There are hundreds of incredible waterfalls on the Hawaiian Islands, but relatively few on the Big Island, and none as tall as this one, at 442 feet.

The third fall has no name that I have been able to find. I saw it near the town of Bellinzona in the Italian/Swiss Alps, and it left me breathless. It's also my favorite picture of a church!

The final photo is in no way an exciting or particularly beautiful waterfall, and it is only 20 feet tall. It's uniqueness is in the location: in the middle of the hottest, driest desert in the United States. It is called Darwin Falls, and can be found in a remote canyon leading into the Panamint Valley within Death Valley National Park. Somehow the waterfall feels all the more precious, and it is a vital permanent water supply for wildlife from miles around.

Have you got a favorite waterfall? Join the meme! If you feel that waterfalls were under-represented in the 100 places meme of a few months ago, you are also invited to make a contribution to this month's Accretionary Wedge Blog Carnival! Submissions due in a few days!