Power of the Earth

Death Valley is a marvelous exhibit of the forces that shape our planet: it’s clash of tectonic plates that have lifted sea floors to towering heights, the extremes of temperature from the heat of the valley floor to the freezing snow on the mountaintops, and the flash floods that flip cars and tear the earth apart.

By visiting Death Valley, one begins to understand the depth of geologic time. The erosion that has carved the canyons happens slowly (except during flood events) due to little rain, the collected water at Badwater melted from glaciers in the mountains of Nevada 15,000 years ago, and the changing climate turned a massive lake (Lake Manly) into a desert valley that is one of the harshest on the planet. In human time, it all happens slowly, but in geologic time, it’s a blink of an eye.

 

Crossing Devils Golf Course - 1926

The Death Valley saltpan is one of the largest protected saltpans in North America. Recurring floods continue to deposit salt and other minerals on the valley floor. The unrelenting sun evaporates the water, leaving crystallized salts that are shaped by winds and rain into the jagged, piercing formations of Devils Golf Course.

 
Men and three old cars crossing very rocky landscape. Men and three old cars crossing very rocky landscape.

Left image
Credit: UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Scotty's Castle in the Snow - 1929

Death Valley is known as being one of the hottest places on Earth. However, as the photograph shows, Death Valley is really a land of extremes. The clock tower at Scotty's Castle was surrounded by snow during a very rare snowstorm that dropped 18 inches during the construction of the castle in 1929.

 
 
A clock tower with snow surrounding it. A clock tower with snow surrounding it.

Left image
Credit: Images of America: Death Valley by Robert Palazzo 2008 Arcadia Publishing

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Mustard Canyon West Entrance - 1934

Mustard Canyon is a narrow canyon cut into the light-colored, claylike lake deposits of the Furnace Creek Formation. Lake Manly was a lake that filled Death Valley for two extended periods of time. The longest one existed from about 186,000 years to 120,000 years ago. The shorter from 35,000 to 10,000 years ago, corresponding with glaciation at higher latitudes and elevations.

 
An old car drives on dirt road into dried mud canyon. An old car drives on dirt road into dried mud canyon.

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Credit: Photographer: Burton Frasher; Courtesy HJG Frashers Fotos Collection

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Automobile Trapped in Grotto Canyon - ca. 1935

In the desert heat of Death Valley, it’s hard to remember that the erosion is the result of wind and water. Winter rainfall in the mountains surrounding Death Valley is a regular occurrence. Even if the rain doesn’t reach the valley floor, flash floods have the potential to destroy roads, structures, and vehicles. Water falling on the high peaks and ridges is not easily absorbed by the dry and compact desert soils and it rushes down the canyons as if they were concrete culverts.

 
A car is stuck in floodwaters with man on dry land. A car is stuck in floodwaters with man on dry land.

Left image
Credit: Universtiy of Southern California, Libraries. California Historical Society

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Blasting Open Salt Pools - 1935

The salt pan of Death Valley is the dried-up bed of Lake Manly, a 600’ deep lake that existed about 150,000 years ago. As the water evaporated after the last Ice Age (10,000 to 15,000 years ago), salts and other minerals that had been deposited in the lake, were concentrated and left as a thick layer of salt on the valley floor. Exploratory drilling by the Pacific Coast Borax Company discovered that the salt deposits are as much as 4,000 feet deep in the Devils Golf Course area.

Occasionally, as the salt formations in the salt pan shift during flooding events, small aquamarine pools open naturally. Tourists were attracted to this phenomenon but the pools wouldn’t appear on cue. Entrepreneurs blasted open holes and created their own pools so tourists could enjoy them. To help restore natural processes, such activities are no longer permitted.

 
A blast of water and rock rises from flatland with mountains in background. A blast of water and rock rises from flatland with mountains in background.

Left image
Credit: Death Valley National Park Museum #48431

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Ubehebe Crater Postcard - 1941

A Timbisha creation story tells of people’s emergence on Earth at Ubehebe Crater when Coyote, who carried the people, put down his basket and fell asleep. The people climbed out and scattered around the valley and mountains.

Ubehebe Crater, known to the Timbisha as “Tem-pin-tta- Wo’sah”, is a maar volcano, created about 2,100 years ago when rising basaltic magma hit ground water and flashed the water to steam. The resulting explosion dropped a cinder and ash blanket 150 feet deep across an area of about six square miles.

The dramatic colors in the alluvial cliffs of the crater are likely due to oxidation of minerals by percolating hot ground water just before the explosion.

This postcard is one of 21 color-tinted linen postcards by Frasher Fotos, mailed as a complete set from the Death Valley post office on March 21, 1941.

 
Colorized postcard of rocky crater with pool at bottom. Colorized postcard of rocky crater with pool at bottom.

Left image
Credit: Photographer: Burton Frasher; Courtesy HJG Frashers Fotos Collection

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Badwater in the Snow - 1962

On January 4th and 5th of 1974, during a strong La Niña, traces of snow fell on the valley floor. Only four times has snow ever been recorded at Death Valley’s lowest elevations.

Normally, the white substance visible in this part of the valley is sodium chloride, or table salt. The source of Badwater’s salts is Death Valley’s 9,000 square mile drainage system. Rain at higher elevations flows and dissolves rocks carrying the finer materials into Death Valley to form temporary lakes. As the water evaporates, minerals concentrate until only the salts remain. After thousands of years, enough salts have washed in to produce multiple layers of salt crust. Besides Sodium Chloride, other evaporative minerals found here include calcite, gypsum, and borax.

 
Sign with pool and hillside behind covered in snow. Sign with pool and hillside behind covered in snow.

Left image
Credit: Photographer: Marian Peck; Photos from the Marian Peck Collection, courtesy David Woodruff

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Zabriskie Point in the Snow - 1974

Snow is a very rare occurrence at the low elevations of Death Valley. At Furnace Creek Ranch (190 feet below sea level), records indicate only four years since 1900 that snow fell – 1922, 1949, 1962, and 1974. Only the 1922 snow event was measurable, with half an inch recorded at the old Greenland Ranch on January 29. Zabriskie Point (823 feet above sea level) has a greater chance of measurable snow, but it is still extremely rare.

 
Rock wall and mountains covered with snow Rock wall and mountains covered with snow

Left image
Credit: Photographer: Marian Peck; Photos from the Marian Peck Collection, courtesy David Woodruff

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Flooding at Furnace Creek Junction - 2004

On the night of August 15, 2004, heavy rainfall over the Black and Funeral Mountains caused intense flooding, particularly along Highway 190 and the Furnace Creek Wash. One vehicle was pushed off the road and flipped near the junction of Highway 190 and Dante’s View Road, where the two branches of the Furnace Creek Wash come together. At Zabriskie Point, two people died in their car when they couldn’t outrun the wall of water, and over a dozen cars washed out, some completely buried in mud. Further down the wash, eight cars parked in the lot near the Furnace Creek Inn were washed several hundred feet away. High water marks indicate that the water was roughly eight feet deep at this point.

 
Rushing water covers road with buildings and mountains in background. Rushing water covers road with buildings and mountains in background.

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Credit: NPS Death Valley Archives

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Zabriskie Point Bathrooms After the Flood - 2004

The flooding through the Furnace Creek Wash in 2004 was the latest in a long history of violent gullywashers that tore through the landscape. The badlands around Zabriskie Point were formed when fine silt and volcanic ash washed into the ancient Lake Manly, creating a thick deposit of clay and sandstone. Seismic activity tilted the lakebed’s deposits upward and periodic rainstorms and the resulting floods eroded the soft rocks into the corrugated patterns we see today.

 
Concrete buildings in mud with mountains in background Concrete buildings in mud with mountains in background

Left image
Credit: Photographer: Marli Bryant Miller; University of Oregon

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Scotty's Castle Pool Flooded - 2015

In October of 2015, a year’s worth of rain - a half-inch of rain in one day and 2 ¾ inches of rain the next - fell on the steep slopes of Grapevine Canyon above Scotty’s Castle. A flash flood descended upon the castle at 3,200 cubic feet per second. Visitors were evacuated from nearby campgrounds, and power poles and metal dumpsters floated out of Grapevine Canyon.

There was widespread damage, including to the old garage which was converted into the visitor center, and the historic pool was filled with mud and water. Heavy equipment was required to remove the mud and water as part of the multi-year restoration effort.

 
Large swimming pool filled with mud. Large swimming pool filled with mud.

Left image
Credit: Death Valley National Park Museum

Right image
Credit: NPS/Ted Barone

 

Mushroom Rock - 1941

Featured by the photographer Burton Frasher in his 1941 postcard series, Mushroom Rock is a pillar of rock molded by erosion. Exactly how the erosion happened and the feature formed is a subject of debate. Some scientists claim that the smooth bottom portion was sculpted by blowing sand, leaving the rougher upper portion relatively untouched because wind can lift sand only about 4 to 5 feet from the ground. Others think that the rock’s weathering was brought on by the crystallization of salt.

Unfortunately, this once iconic location was heavily damaged by visitors who climbed on and defaced it. This prompted the Park Service to remove the signs and parking spaces near the rock, and today most people drive by without realizing the formation is there.

 
A large rock outcropping shaped like a mushroom next to a road. A large rock outcropping shaped like a mushroom next to a road.

Left image
Credit: Photographer: Burton Frasher; Courtesy HJG Frashers Fotos Collection

Right image
Credit: NPS/Elyscia Letterman

Last updated: January 18, 2024

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Mailing Address:

P.O. Box 579
Death Valley, CA 92328

Phone:

760 786-3200

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