Week 7 : Death Valley Salt Creek

DEATH VALLEY:  SALT CREEK

Jarrett Falasco

Salt Creek Death Valley 

Salt Creek is a small, short permanent stream with fluctuating water levels with the water originating from springs upstream. It would be useful to see how the local faults in the area play a role in manipulating the springs and how this may be related to the main trace of the Death Valley-Furnace Creek fault zone which lies just east. The creek runs about a mile long and has a shallow depression running in the center of the valley.  Most famously the creek is home of the isolated pupfish population which is a fish that only lives in this particular area.  It would be beneficial to take research on the Pupfish to gather a greater understanding of the area which includes remnants of the wetter Pleistocene climates.  The current creek consists of saltwater which was converted from a dried-up giant lake which took existed about 10,000 years ago.  This area should be filled with a number of geological clues and possible fossils that could provide an indication of the type of climate creatures that lived in the area.  A geological map would be useful in determining the size of the original giant lakes and their impact on today's local geology.

PUPFISH: SALT CREEK