Death Valley

by Juergen Weiss

Title

Death Valley

Artist

Juergen Weiss

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Photograph

Description

" Death Valley ", the hottest and most driest place in North America, is located east of the Sierra Mountains, around 120 miles west from Las Vegas.

Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of the lowest elevation in North America, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. This point is 84.6 miles (136.2 km) east-southeast of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m).

Death Valley's Furnace Creek holds the record for the highest reliably recorded air temperature in the world, 134 F (56.7 C) on July 10, 1913. This has been contested by other weather experts.

Located near the border of California and Nevada, in the Great Basin, east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Death Valley constitutes much of Death Valley National Park and is the principal feature of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve.

It is located mostly in Inyo County, California. It runs from north to south between the Amargosa Range on the east and the Panamint Range on the west; the Sylvania Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively.

It has an area of about 3,000 sq mi (7,800 km2). The highest point in Death Valley itself is Telescope Peak in the Panamint Range, which has an elevation of 11,043 feet (3,366 m).

Death Valley is one of the best geological examples of a basin and range configuration. It lies at the southern end of a geological trough known as Walker Lane, which runs north into Oregon. The valley is bisected by a right lateral strike slip fault system, represented by the Death Valley Fault and the Furnace Creek Fault.

The eastern end of the left lateral Garlock Fault intersects the Death Valley Fault. Furnace Creek and the Amargosa River flow through the valley but eventually disappear into the sands of the valley floor.

Death Valley also contains salt pans. According to current geological consensus, at various times during the middle of the Pleistocene era, inland lakes (collectively referred to as Lake Manly) formed in Death Valley. Lake Manly received water overflowing from a chain of other Pleistocene lakes, most of which are now also dry lakebeds.

As the area turned to desert, the water evaporated, leaving the abundance of evaporitic salts such as common sodium salts and borax, which were later exploited during the modern history of the region, primarily 1883 to 1907.

The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 134 F (56.7 C) on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek, which is the hottest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on earth. During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached 129 F (54 C) or above. Some meteorologists dispute the accuracy of the 1913 temperature measurement. (Resource Wikipedia).

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November 20th, 2009

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