Death Valley National Park in the United States is the driest national park located east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the US state of California, as well as in a small enclave in the state of Nevada. The park area is 13.518 sq. km, this includes the Salina Valley, most of the Panamint Valley, almost the entire Death Valley, as well as the territory of several mountain systems.
The park has a fairly dry and hot climate, and the area known as Badwater is home to the second deepest land point in the western hemisphere.
Nowadays, the process of further growth of the surrounding mountains and lowering of the valley bottom is under way. The rise of the Black Mountains is very fast. As a result of this rapid growth, so-called "goblet canyons" have formed in many places along the Black Mountains, rather than the classic V-shaped, converging at the point of the stream.
The highest place in the park is the Panamint ridge with Teleskop peak at a height of 3,368 meters above sea level. Death Valley USA is a transition zone from the northern Mojave Desert and 5 mountain ranges along the Pacific Ocean, three of which (Sierra Nevada, Argus and Panamint) are significant barriers.
Air currents, quickly descending from the mountains, as a result of the adiabatic process, become very hot and lose moisture, resulting in dry and hot air - this process is called "rain shadow" by climatologists. As a result of this process, Death Valley is considered the driest territory in North America, where the Badwater area receives an average of only 43 mm of rain per year, and in some years there is no rain at all.
Annual average rainfall ranges from 48 mm below sea level to 380 mm in the mountains surrounding the valley. When rain eventually comes, it often causes heavy flooding, which alters the structure of the landscape and at times creates very small ephemeral lakes.
At 86 meters below sea level, there is the second lowest point on the earth's surface in the Western Hemisphere (after Gran Bajo de San Julian in Argentina), and just 140 km away, Whitney Peak rises to 4,421 meters above level seas. This site is the last point in the drainage system of the Great Basin, because earlier, in wetter times, this place collected water from the entire region, forming the large ancient salt lake Menli, which eventually dried up to form a salt lake.
Thus, the salt lakes in Death Valley are considered one of the largest lakes in the world, rich in minerals such as borax, a variety of mineral salts and hydrates. The largest salt lake in the park stretches for 65 km, with a total area of 500 sq. km, covering the bottom of the valley.
Promotional video:
The second well-known salt lake is Reistrek. It is also famous for its strange moving stones. This is one of the most interesting and actually recorded natural phenomena. Among the sun-dried space are scattered boulders - seemingly the most common, ranging in size from a soccer ball to 500 kg boulders. Stones tend to change their location on their own, leaving visible traces of movement.
1913, July 10 - Death Valley in the Badwater region recorded a record high temperature of 57 ° C, and to this day, this thermal index remains the highest in North America. Daily daytime summer temperatures in excess of 50 ° C are common in the park, with temperatures occasionally dropping below 0 ° C on winter nights.
Several streams in the valley are fed by groundwater aquifers extending eastward to southern Utah and Nevada. Most of the water in these aquifers accumulated several millennia ago, during the ice ages of the Pleistocene, when the climate was milder and cooler. The modern dry climate makes it impossible to replenish the consumed water reserves in the horizons.
Incredible heat and dryness prevent soil formation. Landslides contribute to soil erosion, exposing large areas. Famous sand dunes can also be seen in the park, with one of the most famous quartz sand dune spots being the Stuvpipe Wells area in the north of Death Valley. Another similar place is located 16 km to the north, but the dunes there already consist of travertine sand.
Over the past 10 thousand years, 4 different cultures of the Indians lived on this territory. The first group, called Nevares Spring, were hunters and gatherers. They settled here about 9 thousand years ago, when there were still lakes in Death Valley - the remains of the huge primeval reservoirs of Menli and Panamint. In those days, the climate was much milder and the area was famous for its abundance of game.
5 thousand years ago, they were replaced by another similar culture - Mesquite Flat. About 2 thousand years ago, the Indians of Saratoga Spring appeared on this territory, who owned crafts and left mysterious stone samples in Death Valley. By that time, the valley had already become a hot, waterless desert, and according to experts, the last lake here dried up in 1000 years BC. e.
After another 1000 years, the nomadic Timbisha tribe moved to this territory, taking up hunting and collecting fruits. Due to the high difference in elevation between the bottom of the valley and the tops of the mountains, the tribe practiced vertical migration. Their winter camps were in the lower part of the valley, and in the spring and summer, as the grasses and other plants matured, they climbed higher and higher into the mountains. November found them on the tops of the mountains, where they gathered fruits and nuts, and then again descended into the valley for the winter. Several families of this tribe still live in the park in the village of Furnace Creek.
The California "gold rush" attracted the first settlers of the European race to these places. December 1849 - Two groups of prospectors with 100 wagons lost their way and entered the land of the valley, trying to find a shortcut to California. For several weeks they could not find a way out and were forced to eat several of their oxen in order to survive. But travelers were lucky to find sources of fresh water in the form of several streams. The wooden parts of the trailers were used for cooking, so the place near the sand dunes, where the unfortunate travelers stopped, is now called the "camp of the burnt trailer".
As a result, after losing one person and abandoning their carts, the exhausted people were able to get over the Wingate Pass mountain pass. Leaving the valley, one woman in the group turned around and exclaimed, "Farewell, Death Valley!" Thus giving it an eccentric modern name. One member of the group, William Levis Manley, wrote Death Valley at 49, describing his adventures and glorifying the area. And geologists eventually named a prehistoric lake at the bottom of the valley after him.
Soon, evaporite minerals began to be mined in the valley: salts, borates and talc. William Tell Coleman built a borax mining and processing facility there for soap and other industrial uses. The final product was transported in 10-ton carts, drawn by 18 mules and two horses, 265 km to the nearest railway station in Mojave.
Such a caravan could completely overcome the path in 30 days, on average moving at a speed of 3 km / h. 1890 - The 20-Mule Team Borax trademark was formed, and the memorable image of a carriage loaded with 20 mules was a great advertising success. By the 1920s, this territory came out on top in the world in terms of reserves and production of this mineral. In addition to borax, attempts were made there to extract copper, gold, lead and silver, but these sporadic attempts failed due to the remoteness of the territory and difficult climatic conditions.
The park's first registered tourist service was a series of tent houses that were built in the 1920s on the site of what is now the town of Stuvpipe Wells. People came here for the water springs located here, believing that their water has medicinal and strengthening properties. 1927 One of the borax companies transforms its official residence into the Furnace Creek Inn and resort.
The valley soon became a popular winter travel destination. Other tourist centers, initially used for private visits, were later opened to the public. One of the most significant centers was the Death Valley Ranch, better known as Scotty's Castle. This large Spanish ranchero-style house was made a hotel in the 1930s by the famous gold digger Walter Scott, better known as Death Valley Scotty.
1933 February - American President Herbert Hoover declared the area around Death Valley a national monument, setting aside about 8,000 sq. km of Southern California and adjacent areas of western Nevada. The requirements for mining corporations were tightened, banning open-type development in well-visible places of the national monument.
1976 - Congress signed an act banning the registration of new mining companies in the park, and as of 2003 the only active mining activity in the area was the Billie Mine. 1984 - the national monument was nominated for the status of a biosphere reserve under the auspices of UNESCO, and ten years later it was transformed into a National Park and expanded by 5300 sq. km, making it the largest park in the continental United States.
Despite its gloomy name, Death Valley National Park, USA, is home to many flora and fauna, evolutionarily adapted to the difficult life in the desert. Today, approximately 95% of the park is considered wild and undeveloped. There you can find yucca tree, creosote bush, mesquite tree, iron tree and many types of cacti.
In addition, a huge number of ephemeroids are known that exist for most of their life in the form of seeds, waiting for a fertile time. These amazing desert plants react incredibly quickly to rain and make the most of the water. They need very little time to hatch from seeds, grow and bloom; therefore the lifeless desert transforms almost overnight, becoming covered with fantastic picturesque color spots.
Perennial cacti also conserve their energy and only occasionally reveal beautiful flowers that appear simultaneously to ensure maximum pollination and seed production. Bright, like waxy flowers, they often bloom for just one night to fade the next morning in the burning sun.
Many representatives of the fauna switched to a night mode of activity, waiting out the heat of the day in underground burrows; in addition, reptiles and insects are protected from drying out by dense covers. Incredibly, such extremely harsh conditions are home to several species of fish, whose ancestors existed in Death Valley more than 30 thousand years ago.
Such curiosities include the small fish Cyprinodon salinus, one of the few surviving species that has survived from a time when the climate was more humid. Most of them live in small isolated populations, tied to a specific stream or individual water pit. Such water reservoirs in the middle of a dehydrated, cracked desert feed exclusively on groundwater, and the unpretentious fish living in them are adapted to huge temperature changes and significant changes in salt concentration.
E. Gurnakova