EPOD - a service of USRA
The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory
captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The
community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and
relevant links.
Death Valley’s Zabriskie Point
March 31, 2020
Deathvly513c_26feb20 (003)
Photographer: Ray Boren
Summary Author: Ray Boren
In morning light, the creamy golden-yellows and chocolate browns of
Zabriskie Point’s sculpted badlands seem to glow, as in this
photograph, taken on February 26, 2020, in Death Valley National
Park on the California-Nevada border. The vast park’s playas and
the Furnace Creek oasis lie just beyond erosional formations like
Manly Beacon, prominent here, while ridges and peaks of the
Panamint Mountains rise to the west.
The startling terrain of today’s Zabriskie Point is being carved mostly
from Furnace Creek Formation mudstones, composed of fine silts,
clays and volcanic ashfalls deposited as sediments in prehistoric lakes
some three to five million years ago, as well as ancient lava flows.
Rainfall here — the driest and hottest locale in North America, as
well as the lowest (-282 feet/-86 m below sea level at Badwater
Basin) — can be periodic but intense, so when storms drench the
vegetation-sparse northern Mojave Desert landscape, the moisture
doesn’t soak into the ground but rather gathers and careens in flash
floods down slopes, rills and gullies, eroding the soft mudstones.
Zabriskie Point is named for Christian B. Zabriskie (1864-1936),
who was vice president of the Pacific Coast Borax Co. and managed
operations in Death Valley during the transition from borax mining in
the area to tourism. The palm-fringed Inn at Death Valley (formerly
Furnace Creek Inn) opened nearby in 1927. Death Valley was declared a
national monument by U.S. President Herbert Hoover in early 1933,
and was expanded and re-designated a national park by the U.S. Congress
in 1994, with more acreage added in 2019. It’s the largest national
park in the United States outside of Alaska, encompassing 3,372,402
acres (1,364,762.67 hectares).
Photo Details: Camera: NIKON D3200; Exposure Time: 0.0020s (1/500);
Aperture: ƒ/11.0; ISO equivalent: 220; Focal Length (35mm): 45.
* Zabriskie Point, California Coordinates: 36.4201, -116.8122
Related EPODs
Death Valley’s Zabriskie Point Dust and Isla de La Palma,
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Lights Over Svalbard Gornergletscher and the Matterhorn Archive
- McMurdo Dry Valleys
Climatology Links
* Aerosols: Tiny Particles, Big Impact
* JetStream - An Online School for Weather
* Climate History
* National Centers for Environmental Information
* Global Climate Animations
* NOAA Climate Analysis Branch
* Vital Climate Graphics
-
Earth Science Picture of the Day is a service of the Universities
Space Research Association.
https://epod.usra.edu
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