Week 7 - Igor's Field Trip in the Death Valley

Death Valley’s Cinder cone sliced by fault (M. Collier)

My first stop along my virtual field trip in Death Valley is the Split Cinder cone. I am curious to understand which method one could use to infer the spread of basaltic rock in a region of our cinder cone to build its geologic map. Indeed, given the explosiveness of the eruptions involved and the low fluidity of the mafic and intermediate lavas, how far would the resulting rock formations be observable? What do the many faulting processes in the Death Valley imply for how far this formation could be found from its crater of origin? Perhaps more much more extensive observations of rock outcrops and comparisons of their chemical signatures would be helpful.

Dry lakebed in Racetrack Playa, Death Valley (Atlas Obscura)

My next stop is the Racetrack Playa. On the outset, I want to understand the origins of the sediments int he lakebed. I would love to understand the composition of the fine-grained sediment that makes up the Racetrack Playa lake bed. I would compare this composition with that of the rocks forming the high mountains surrounding the lakebed. The result would allow me to confirm that the sediment is the result of the mountains’ weathering process.

 Multicolored rock of the Artist Drive Formation (Atlas Obscura)

My last stop is the Artist Drive Formation, a fascinating area on the face of the Black Mountains. It is said that it was formed following one of the Death Valley's most violently explosive volcanic periods. Which makes me curious to understand how, from the chemical composition of a rock formation, one can deduce that it was a result of ancient volcanic activity.