Death Valley

Death Valley

For my first visit in Death valley I explored BadWater from 1.7 billion years ago! I was curious to find that the overlaying younger rocks along with internal heat completely changed with Metamorphosis and crystalization till the original parentage structure was almost unrecognizable. I am curious to find the specific heat vs pressure ratio that is needed for this to occur along with how they still were able to discover the actual parentage from the gneiss.


Dante's View

For my next stop I visited Dante's view a large stretch of valleys stretched to the breaking point along with many mountaim ranges between. This is caused by the very active tectonic plates in Death Valley causing the stretching while tectonic plates formed the ridges and the lower parts sank in creating the Valley. I was curious to know that if the land was completely spread as far as can be creating faults and trenches does this affect the mountaim ranges as the land around them should be sinking how does this relate to the ranges as it very obvious they are eroding as is shown by the decay and yellow found in the valley.


Devil's Golf Course

Lastly on my trip I visited Devil's Golf course, this region at one point was filled with over 35 feet of water but since then has dried leaving feet of salt to grow into beautiful arrays as shown above. I am curious though that if the valley no longer recieves water as it once did how the underlying layers of mud can be flooded enough now to allow for salt uprising when the salt above ground should absorb any water and keep it separated enough for evaporation to occur which is said to be very quickly in this region.  I understand that the salt only grows at a slow rate of an inch over 35 years but as said with weathering I am interested to see the process take place because I feel that the rain wouldnt be enough to continue this process.