Week 7-Death Valley-Taylor Mills

Figure 1. Mosaic Canyon (USGS, 2016).

Upon my recent visit to Death Valley, I decided to first visit Mosaic Canyon.  Illustrated in Figure 1, the walls of Mosaic Canyon are curved and extraordinary.  These walls are made of smooth, polished marble as a result of periodic flash floods and running water.  However, I noticed that while the left side of the canyon's curves in Figure 1 consists of seemingly horizontal strata with visible cracks or
lines, the bottom right side seems to have endured folding.  This made me question how the canyon's walls have such different physical and geologic features/markings.  Though I understand that the flow of water and sediment through the canyon polished the canyon's walls, I really want to understand the visible cracks.  Are these lines the result of faulting even though its nearby rocks visually seem consistent and not displaced?  To answer this question, I would gather several rock samples, especially those on both sides of the cracks.  In doing so, I can compare the samples and determine any displacement that might've occurred as a result of faulting. 

Figure 2. Death Valley Dunes (USGS, 2016).

Figure 3. Sinuous Death Valley Dunes (USGS, 2016).

The next stop I made was to Death Valley Dunes.  Evident from the dunes' shapes, it is easy to determine the wind direction that shaped each dune.  Though the dunes' sands consist of tiny grains of quartz and feldspar, they are not pointy and crisp like I had expected them to be.  Unlike the dunes depicted in Figure 2 that are located within a different area of the valley, the dunes I visited as illustrated in Figure 3, are instead sinuous.  For this reason, I can't help but wonder why these dunes are shaped so differently.  To answer this question, I would view both a topographic map and aerial footage of the area to see what features may be contributing to said difference in dune shape.  For example, are there mountains in close proximity to the dunes in Figure 3 that weaken the winds and, in turn, its effect(s)?

Figure 4. Racetrack Playa (USGS, 2016).

Lastly, I decided to visit Racetrack Playa which, as depicted in Figure 4, is a basin that contains mysterious moving(sliding) rocks.  No one has ever witnessed the movement of these rocks, but they leave trails of evidence.  Like geologists, I wonder what causes these rocks to move.  I would like to gather several different kinds of information to gain some insight.  For starters, could a camera be set up to record surveillance footage of the rocks so that their movement can be caught on tape?  Nonetheless, I would like to examine their trails and the ground in which they're made.  In doing so, the depth of the trail and the vulnerability of the ground underneath would help in understanding the forces acting against the rocks.  Also, examining the rocks that have moved would provide insight into the amount and severity of erosion and deformation endured.