Misplaced Pages

#446553

93-762: Devils Hole is a geologic formation located in a detached unit of Death Valley National Park and surrounded by the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge , in Nye County, Nevada , in the Southwestern United States . Devils Hole is habitat for the only naturally occurring population of the endangered Devils Hole pupfish ( Cyprinodon diabolis ). The 40 acres (16 ha) unit is part of the Ash Meadows complex , an area of desert uplands and spring-fed oases that

186-603: A national monument in and around Death Valley on February 11, 1933, setting aside almost two million acres (8,100 km ) of southeastern California and small parts of Nevada. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) developed infrastructure in Death Valley National Monument during the Great Depression and on into the early 1940s. The CCC built barracks, graded 500 miles (800 km) of roads, installed water and telephone lines, and

279-409: A subduction zone formed off the coast. The subduction uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes . Later the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods , with lakes, such as Lake Manly . Death Valley is the fifth-largest American national park and the largest in

372-545: A 'wine glass canyon.' Sediment is deposited on a small and steep alluvial fan. At 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point, Badwater Basin on Death Valley's floor is the second-lowest depression in the Western Hemisphere (behind Laguna del Carbón in Argentina ), while Mount Whitney , only 85 miles (137 km) to the west, rises to 14,505 feet (4,421 m) and is the tallest mountain in

465-484: A depth of some 500 feet (150 m), without visualizing the bottom of the cavern. On March 20, 2012, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in Oaxaca, Mexico, some 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away and centered roughly 12 miles (19 km) below the surface, caused an undulating 4 feet (1.2 m) rise and fall of the cavern waters, as appreciated by researchers working at Devil's Hole at the time. This provided further evidence that

558-421: A depth record by diving the world's deepest sinkhole, Mexico's 1,080-foot (330 m) deep, Zacatón , a fresh water cenote . In the book, Diving into Darkness (a story about Dave Shaw and Don Shirley), the author comments: "Exley's status in the sport is almost impossible to overstate". Exley began diving in 1965 at the age of 16. That same year he entered his first cave and was hooked on cave diving for

651-619: A four-day expedition to take water and calcite core samples. The IMAX footage was included in the 2020 film Ancient Caves and extra footage was used to create the video documentary Exploring Devils Hole . There had been similar studies in Devil's Hole, but these are no longer permitted due to the endangered status of the Devils Hole pupfish . Cleaning and disinfection of diving equipment , climbing gear, cameras, etc. using hot water and Steramine followed by at least 30 days of air-drying

744-523: A short series of prospecting mines failed to yield evidence of significant ore (these mines now dot the entire area and are a significant hazard to anyone who enters them). The boom towns which sprang up around these mines flourished during the first decade of the 1900s, but soon declined after the Panic of 1907 . The first documented tourist facilities in Death Valley were a set of tent houses built in

837-554: A total of 76 buildings. Trails in the Panamint Range were built to points of scenic interest, and an adobe village, laundry and trading post were constructed for the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe . Five campgrounds, restrooms, an airplane landing field and picnic facilities were also built. The creation of the monument resulted in a temporary closing of the lands to prospecting and mining. However, Death Valley

930-584: Is a national park of the United States that straddles the California – Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada . The park boundaries include Death Valley , the northern section of Panamint Valley , the southern section of Eureka Valley and most of Saline Valley . The park occupies an interface zone between the arid Great Basin and Mojave deserts, protecting the northwest corner of

1023-603: Is a separate cave system called Devils Hole Cave (#2). It was first explored underwater to a depth of 70 feet (21 m) by divers from the Southwestern Speleological Society in February 1961. It had been described as being shaped like a boot with fallen rock restriction at the 50-foot (15 m) level leading to a narrow pool of 93 °F (34 °C) water. Since no sunlight reaches the water, algae cannot grow and no fish species are found. On

SECTION 10

#1732771779447

1116-457: Is available, an abundance of vegetation is usually present. These zones and the adjacent desert support a variety of wildlife species , including 51 species of native mammals , 307 species of birds , 36 species of reptiles , 3 species of amphibians , and 2 species of native fish . Small mammals are more numerous than large mammals, such as bighorn sheep , coyotes , bobcats , kit foxes , cougars , and mule deer . Mule deer are present in

1209-590: Is being withdrawn. The highest range within the park is the Panamint Range, with Telescope Peak being its highest point at 11,049 feet (3,368 m). The Death Valley region is a transitional zone in the northernmost part of the Mojave Desert and consists of five mountain ranges removed from the Pacific Ocean. Three of these are significant barriers: the Sierra Nevada , the Argus Range , and

1302-542: Is known about the history of the oldest exposed rocks in the area due to extensive metamorphism (alteration of rock by heat and pressure). Radiometric dating gives an age of 1,700 million years for the metamorphism during the Proterozoic . About 1,400 million years ago a mass of granite now in the Panamint Range intruded this complex. Uplift later exposed these rocks to nearly 500 million years of erosion. The Proterozoic sedimentary formations of

1395-504: Is required by the National Park Service to prevent contamination of the underwater ecosystem . On September 19, 2022, a seiche reaching 4 feet (1.2 metres) occurred at Devils Hole after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit western Mexico , about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometres) away. Seiches were also observed in the cave after powerful earthquakes in 2012, 2018 and 2019. Located 650 feet (200 m) north of Devils Hole

1488-519: Is so frequently the hottest spot in the United States that many tabulations of the highest daily temperatures in the country omit Death Valley as a matter of course. On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (57 °C) at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek ) in Death Valley. This temperature stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded at

1581-442: Is the coldest month, with an average high of 66 °F (19 °C) and an average low of 41 °F (5 °C). The record low is 15 °F (−9.4 °C). There are an average of 197.3 days annually with highs of 90 °F (32.2 °C) or higher and 146.9 days annually with highs of 100 °F (37.8 °C) or higher. Freezing temperatures of 32 °F (0 °C) or lower occur on an average of 8.6 days annually. Several of

1674-551: The Ediacara fauna and trilobites , the evolution of the latter being part of the Cambrian Explosion of life. The sandy mudflats gave way about 550 million years ago to a carbonate platform (similar to the one around the present-day Bahamas ), which lasted for the next 300 million years of Paleozoic time (refer to the middle of the timescale image ). Death Valley's position was then within ten or twenty degrees of

1767-648: The Nevares Spring People , were hunters and gatherers who arrived in the area perhaps 9,000 years ago (7000 BC) when there were still small lakes in Death Valley and neighboring Panamint Valley. A much milder climate persisted at that time, and large game animals were still plentiful. By 5,000 years ago (3000 BC) the Mesquite Flat People displaced the Nevares Spring People. Around 2,000 years ago

1860-636: The Old Spanish Trail . Called the Bennett-Arcane Party , they were unable to find a pass out of the valley for weeks; they were able to find fresh water at various springs in the area, but were forced to eat several of their oxen to survive. They used the wood of their wagons to cook the meat and make jerky. The place where they did this is today referred to as "Burnt Wagons Camp" and is located near Stovepipe Wells. After abandoning their wagons, they eventually were able to hike out of

1953-478: The Owens River . The large lake that covered much of Death Valley's floor, which geologists call Lake Manly , started to dry up 10,500 years ago. Salt pans and playas were created as ice age glaciers retreated, thus drastically reducing the lakes' water source. Only faint shorelines are left. Habitat varies from salt pan at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level to the sub-alpine conditions found on

SECTION 20

#1732771779447

2046-526: The Pacific plate along the San Andreas Fault (west of the region), is responsible for the lateral movement. Igneous activity associated with this stretching occurred from 12 million to 4 million years ago. Sedimentation is concentrated in valleys (basins) from material eroded from adjacent ranges. The amount of sediment deposited has roughly kept up with this subsidence, resulting in

2139-554: The Pahrump Group were deposited on these basement rocks. This occurred following uplift and erosion of any earlier sediments from the Proterozoic basement rocks. The Pahrump is composed of arkose conglomerate (quartz clasts in a concrete-like matrix) and mudstone in its lower part, followed by dolomite from carbonate banks topped by algal mats as stromatolites , and finished with basin-filling sediment derived from

2232-544: The Saratoga Spring People moved into the area, which by then was probably already a hot, dry desert. This culture was more advanced at hunting and gathering and was skillful at handcrafts. They also left mysterious stone patterns in the valley. One thousand years ago, the nomadic Timbisha (formerly called Shoshone and also known as Panamint or Koso) moved into the area and hunted game and gathered mesquite beans along with pinyon pine nuts. Because of

2325-519: The contiguous United States . This topographic relief is the greatest elevation gradient in the contiguous United States and is the terminus point of the Great Basin 's southwestern drainage. Although the extreme lack of water in the Great Basin makes this distinction of little current practical use, it does mean that in wetter times the lake that once filled Death Valley ( Lake Manly ) was

2418-603: The contiguous United States . It is also larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, and nearly as large as Puerto Rico . In 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association . There are two major valleys in the park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley . Both of these valleys were formed within the last few million years and both are bounded by north–south-trending mountain ranges . These and adjacent valleys follow

2511-528: The 1920s where Stovepipe Wells is now located. People flocked to resorts built around natural springs thought to have curative and restorative properties. In 1927, Pacific Coast Borax turned the crew quarters of its Furnace Creek Ranch into a resort, creating the Furnace Creek Inn and resort. The spring at Furnace Creek was harnessed to develop the resort, and as the water was diverted, the surrounding marshes and wetlands started to shrink. Soon

2604-427: The 1980s, each repeatedly attempting to break the depth records of the other. Exley died, aged 45, on April 6, 1994, while attempting to descend to a depth of over 1,000 feet (300 m) in a freshwater cenote , or sinkhole, called Zacatón in the state of Tamaulipas , Mexico. He made the dive as part of a dual dive with Jim Bowden , but Bowden aborted his descent early when his gas supply ran low. Exley's body

2697-549: The Black Mountains is so fast that the alluvial fans (fan-shaped deposits at the mouth of canyons) there are small and steep compared to the huge alluvial fans coming off the Panamint Range . Fast uplift of a mountain range in an arid environment often does not allow its canyons enough time to cut a classic V-shape all the way down to the stream bed. Instead, a V-shape ends at a slot canyon halfway down, forming

2790-667: The Devil's Hole cave system was connected not only to the Death Valley Regional Groundwater Flow System, but possibly to even further-reaching underground water systems. The 1991 USGS dive team described the Devil's Hole as a "skylight" into the water table. A team of paleoclimatologists from the University of Innsbruck have been collecting and dating calcite mineral deposits here since 2010. In March 2017, underwater cinematographer Jonathan Bird received permission to assist scientists in

2883-514: The Furnace Creek Formation is the primary source of borate minerals gathered from Death Valley's playas. Other visitors stayed to prospect for and mine deposits of copper , gold , lead , and silver . These sporadic mining ventures were hampered by their remote location and the harsh desert environment. In December 1903, two men from Ballarat were prospecting for silver. One was an out-of-work Irish miner named Jack Keane and

Devils Hole - Misplaced Pages Continue

2976-494: The Infinity Room of Devil's Hole, and the cavern system itself, has a depth of at least 1,247 feet (380 m) from the surface. A subsequent USGS exploration into Devil's Hole in 1991 by Alan Riggs, Paul DeLoach, and Sheck Exley entered what they found out to be a narrow tube rather than an 'Infinity Room' at 315 feet (96 m), descending to a depth of 436 feet (133 m). The team reported being able to see down to

3069-583: The Mojave Desert and its diverse environment of salt-flats , sand dunes , badlands , valleys, canyons and mountains. Death Valley is the largest national park in the contiguous United States , as well as the hottest, driest and lowest of all the national parks in the United States. It contains Badwater Basin , the second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere and lowest in North America at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. More than 93% of

3162-557: The Paleozoic equator . Thick beds of carbonate-rich sediments were periodically interrupted by periods of emergence. Although details of geography varied during this immense interval of time, a north-northeastern coastline trend generally ran from Arizona up through Utah . The resulting eight formations and one group are 20,000 feet (6 km) thick and underlay much of the Cottonwood, Funeral, Grapevine, and Panamint ranges. In

3255-477: The Panamint Range were on top of rocks that would become the Black Mountains and the Cottonwood Mountains. Lateral and vertical transport of these blocks was accomplished by movement on normal faults . Right-lateral movement along strike-slip faults that run parallel to and at the base of the ranges also helped to develop the area. Torsional forces, probably associated with northwesterly movement of

3348-509: The Panamint Range. Air masses tend to lose moisture as they are forced up over mountain ranges, in what climatologists call a rainshadow effect . The exaggerated rain shadow effect for the Death Valley area makes it North America 's driest spot, receiving about 1.5 inches (38 mm) of rainfall annually at Badwater, and some years fail to register any measurable rainfall. Annual average precipitation varies from 1.92 inches (49 mm) overall below sea level to over 15 inches (380 mm) in

3441-591: The above, including possible glacial till from the hypothesized Snowball Earth glaciation. The very youngest rocks in the Pahrump Group are basaltic lava flows. A rift opened and subsequently flooded the region as part of the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia in the Neoproterozoic (by about 755 million years ago) and the creation of the Pacific Ocean . A shoreline similar to

3534-485: The area from as early as 7000 BC, most recently the Timbisha around 1000 AD who migrated between winter camps in the valleys and summer grounds in the mountains. A group of European-Americans, lost in the valley in 1849 while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California , gave this valley its grim name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during

3627-763: The area from the Colorado River via a long-since dried-up system of rivers and lakes (see Lake Manly ). They now live in two separate populations: one in Salt Creek and another in Cottonball Marsh. Death Valley is one of the hottest and driest places in North America, yet it is home to over 1,000 species of plants ; 23 of which, including the very rare rock lady ( Holmgrenanthe ), are not found anywhere else. Sheck Exley For purposes of rescue during cave diving, Exley helped standardize

3720-402: The area that comprises the park has experienced at least four major periods of extensive volcanism , three or four periods of major sedimentation , and several intervals of major tectonic deformation where the crust has been reshaped. Two periods of glaciation (a series of ice ages) have also had effects on the area, although no glaciers ever existed in the ranges now in the park. Little

3813-714: The area were also the easiest to collect and the most profitable: evaporite deposits such as salts, borate , and talc . Borax was found by Rosie and Aaron Winters near The Ranch at Death Valley (then called Greenland) in 1881. Later that same year, the Eagle Borax Works became Death Valley's first commercial borax operation. William Tell Coleman built the Harmony Borax Works plant and began to process ore in late 1883 or early 1884, continuing until 1888. This mining and smelting company produced borax to make soap and for industrial uses. The end product

Devils Hole - Misplaced Pages Continue

3906-476: The area, except for some possibly Jurassic-age volcanic rocks (see the top of the timescale image ). Basin and Range -associated stretching of large parts of crust below southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico started around 16 million years ago and the region is still spreading. This stretching began to affect the Death and Panamint valleys area by 3 million years ago. Before this, rocks now in

3999-494: The chamber featuring a strong current. The hole, later termed the ojo de agua , is 315 feet (96 m) below the surface and just large enough for a diver with equipment to fit through. In 1965, Paul Giancontieri, a teenager who had jumped the fence with friends to go SCUBA diving in the hole, did not come back up. Another, David Rose, went down to find him, but did not come back up either. Later efforts by five divers to find their bodies were unsuccessful. On June 20, 1965, during

4092-406: The diver instead descends through Acree's Chamber, the first notable landmark is a rocky shelf termed the "lower ledge", around 100 feet (30 m) below the entrance to the chamber. The bottom of Acree's Chamber lies around 260 feet (79 m) below the surface, but is not flat. Instead, a portion of the chamber floor descends below this lower shelf; a gradual funnel leads to a hole in the bottom of

4185-502: The early-to-mid- Mesozoic the western edge of the North American continent was pushed against the oceanic plate under the Pacific Ocean, creating a subduction zone. A subduction zone is a type of contact between different crustal plates where heavier crust slides below lighter crust. Erupting volcanoes and uplifting mountains were created as a result, and the coastline was pushed to the west. The Sierran Arc started to form to

4278-550: The entire population of a vertebrate species". The pupfish are considered critically endangered by the IUCN . The pupfish has been described as the world's rarest fish, with a population of 263 as of 2022. Genetic information indicates that the pupfish species is as old as the Hole itself, which opened to the surface about 60,000 years ago. The pupfish have been protected since being declared an endangered species in 1967. Conflicts of

4371-437: The general trend of Basin and Range topography with one modification: there are parallel strike-slip faults that perpendicularly bound the central extent of Death Valley. The result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and more subsidence there. Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the valley floor are both occurring. The uplift on

4464-481: The higher mountains that surround the valley. When rain does arrive it often does so in intense storms that cause flash floods which remodel the landscape and sometimes create very shallow ephemeral lakes. The hot, dry climate makes it difficult for soil to form. Mass wasting , the down-slope movement of loose rock, is therefore the dominant erosive force in mountainous areas, resulting in "skeletonized" ranges (mountains with very little soil on them). Sand dunes in

4557-460: The larger Death Valley springs derive their water from a regional aquifer , which extends as far east as southern Nevada and Utah . Much of the water in this aquifer has been there for many thousands of years, since the Pleistocene ice ages , when the climate was cooler and wetter. Today's drier climate does not provide enough precipitation to recharge the aquifer at the rate at which water

4650-558: The last stop for water flowing in the region, meaning the water there was saturated in dissolved materials. Thus, the salt pans in Death Valley are among the largest in the world and are rich in minerals, such as borax and various salts and hydrates . The largest salt pan in the park extends 40 miles (64 km) from the Ashford Mill Site to the Salt Creek Hills, covering some 200 square miles (520 km ) of

4743-414: The late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax , which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams . The valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism expanded in the 1920s when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek . Death Valley National Monument

SECTION 50

#1732771779447

4836-488: The latter four dune fields are accessible only via unpaved roads. Prevailing winds in the winter come from the north, and prevailing winds in the summer come from the south. Thus, the overall position of the dune fields remains more or less fixed. There are rare exceptions to the dry nature of the area. In 2005, an unusually wet winter created a 'lake' in the Badwater Basin and led to the greatest wildflower season in

4929-508: The local Chamber of Commerce estimates that 6,000 people are moving to the city every month. Between 1985 and 1995, the population of the Las Vegas Valley increased from 550,700 to 1,138,800. In 1977, parts of Death Valley were used by director George Lucas as a filming location for Star Wars , providing the setting for the fictional planet Tatooine . The park has a diverse and complex geologic history. Since its formation,

5022-400: The mountain ridges where they harvested pine nuts before moving back to the valley bottom for winter. The California Gold Rush brought the first people of European descent known to visit the immediate area. In December 1849 two groups of California Gold Country -bound travelers with perhaps 100 wagons total stumbled into Death Valley after getting lost on what they thought was a shortcut off

5115-529: The national monument. The public outcry that ensued led to greater protection for all national park and monument areas in the United States. In 1976, Congress passed the Mining in the Parks Act, which closed Death Valley National Monument to the filing of new mining claims, banned open-pit mining and required the National Park Service to examine the validity of tens of thousands of pre-1976 mining claims. Mining

5208-444: The northwest from heat and pressure generated from subduction, and compressive forces caused thrust faults to develop. A long period of uplift and erosion was concurrent with and followed the above events, creating a major unconformity, which is a large gap in the geologic record. Sediments worn off the Death Valley region were carried both east and west by wind and water. No Jurassic- to Eocene -aged sedimentary formations exist in

5301-580: The other was a one-eyed Basque butcher named Domingo Etcharren. Quite by accident, Keane discovered an immense ledge of free-milling gold by the duo's work site and named the claim the Keane Wonder Mine . This started a minor and short-lived gold rush into the area. The Keane Wonder Mine, along with mines at Rhyolite , Skidoo and Harrisburg , were the only ones to extract enough metal ore to make them worthwhile. Outright shams such as Leadfield also occurred, but most ventures quickly ended after

5394-556: The ownership and use of the groundwater around Devils Hole caused litigation in the 1980s. The litigation triggered further protections of the pupfish. Since the late 1990s, the pupfish population has substantially decreased. The reasons for the decrease are unknown, but is possibly due to a microscopic non-indigenous diving beetle that is consuming pupfish eggs. 36°25′31″N 116°17′29″W  /  36.425312°N 116.291458°W  / 36.425312; -116.291458 Death Valley National Park Death Valley National Park

5487-471: The park is a designated wilderness area . The park is home to many species of plants and animals which have adapted to the harsh desert environment including creosote bush , Joshua tree , bighorn sheep , coyote , and the endangered Death Valley pupfish , a survivor from much wetter times. UNESCO included Death Valley as the principal feature of its Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve in 1984. A series of Native American groups inhabited

5580-560: The park's history. In October 2015, a "1000 year flood event" with over three inches of rain caused major damage in Death Valley National Park. A similar widespread storm in August 2022 damaged pavement and deposited debris on nearly every road, trapping 1,000 residents and visitors overnight. Four Native American cultures are known to have lived in the area during the last 10,000 years. The first known group,

5673-669: The park, and some of the highest in North America, are located in the Eureka Valley about 50 miles (80 km) to the north of Stovepipe Wells, while the Panamint Valley dunes and the Saline Valley dunes are located west and northwest of the town, respectively. The Ibex dune field is near the seldom-visited Ibex Hill in the southernmost part of the park, just south of the Saratoga Springs marshland. All

SECTION 60

#1732771779447

5766-431: The park, while famous, are not nearly as widespread as their fame or the dryness of the area may suggest. The Mesquite Flat dune field is the most easily accessible from the paved road just east of Stovepipe Wells in the north-central part of the valley and is primarily made of quartz sand. Another dune field is just 10 miles (16 km) to the north but is instead mostly composed of travertine sand. The highest dunes in

5859-401: The park. Many of the larger cities and towns within the boundary of the regional groundwater flow system that the park and its plants and animals rely upon are experiencing some of the fastest growth rates of any place in the United States. Notable examples within a 100-mile (160 km) radius of Death Valley National Park include Las Vegas and Pahrump, Nevada . In the case of Las Vegas,

5952-571: The pinyon/juniper associations of the Grapevine, Cottonwood, and Panamint ranges. Bighorn sheep are a rare species of mountain-dwelling sheep that exist in isolated bands in the Sierra and in Death Valley. These are highly adaptable animals and can eat almost any plant. They have no known predators, but humans and burros compete for habitat. The ancestors of the Death Valley pupfish swam to

6045-534: The present Atlantic Ocean margin of the United States lay to the east. An algal mat -covered carbonate bank was deposited, forming the Noonday Dolomite. Subsidence of the region occurred as the continental crust thinned and the newly formed Pacific widened, forming the Ibex Formation. An angular unconformity (an uneven gap in the geologic record) followed. A true ocean basin developed to

6138-639: The rest of his life. To finance this passion, Exley worked as a mathematics teacher at Suwannee High School in Live Oak, Florida . In spring 1973, Exley served as an aquanaut during an eight-day mission aboard the Hydrolab underwater habitat in the Bahamas . Exley was the first in the world to log over 1,000 cave dives (at the age of 23); in 29 years of cave diving, he made over 4000 dives. Exley had an unusual resistance to nitrogen narcosis , and

6231-506: The retention of more or less the same valley floor elevation over time. Pleistocene ice ages started 2 million years ago, and melt from alpine glaciers on the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains fed a series of lakes that filled Death and Panamint valleys and surrounding basins (see the top of the timescale image ). The lake that filled Death Valley was the last of a chain of lakes fed by the Amargosa and Mojave Rivers , and possibly also

6324-481: The second dive of a rescue and then body recovery mission, Jim Houtz with his dive partner dropped a weighted depth line to a depth of 932 feet (284 m) from the start of this opening, without hitting the bottom of the chamber below. Due to the strong current, the small size of the entrance, and the unknown depth of the cavern below, which Houtz termed the "Infinity Room", Jim and his partner chose not to explore this Infinity Room. This mission did, however, confirm that

6417-586: The shallow shelf can have dissolved oxygen levels as high as 6.0–7.0 ppm in June and July. Devils Hole branches into caverns at least 130 m (430 ft) deep, whose bottom has never been mapped. According to geologists , the caves were formed over 500,000 years ago. The pool has frequently experienced seiche activity due to far away earthquakes in Japan , Indonesia , Mexico , and Chile , which have been likened to extremely small scale tsunamis . Below

6510-434: The summit of Telescope Peak, which rises to 11,049 feet (3,368 m). Vegetation zones include creosote bush , desert holly , and mesquite at the lower elevations and sage up through shadscale , blackbrush , Joshua tree , pinyon - juniper , to limber pine and bristlecone pine woodlands. The salt pan is devoid of vegetation, and the rest of the valley floor and lower slopes have sparse cover, although where water

6603-523: The surface of the Earth. (A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136 °F) recorded in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate.) Daily summer temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) or greater are common, as well as below freezing nightly temperatures in the winter. July is the hottest month, with an average high of 117 °F (47 °C) and an average low of 91 °F (33 °C). December

6696-421: The surface pool, Devils Hole descends approximately 160 feet (50 m) through what is termed the "main chamber" before reaching a narrow opening referred to as the 'funnel'. Through this opening lies a much larger chamber of the cavern system known as Acree's Chasm. Acree's Chasm is approximately 300 feet (91 m) in length, 40 feet (12 m) in width, and has a bottom approximately 260 feet (80 m) below

6789-411: The surface, the cave openings are connected to Devils Hole by an access road and covered with a locked metal grate. Below ground, a passable deepwater connection to Devils Hole has been theorized but remains undiscovered. Devils Hole is the only natural habitat of the Devils Hole pupfish , which survives despite the hot, oxygen-poor water. Devils Hole "may be the smallest habitat in the world containing

6882-457: The surface. Immediately after passing the funnel into Acree's Chamber, a narrow side tube can be found to a diver's left. This side tube proceeds approximately 90 feet (27 m) upward to a chamber with an air pocket, named Brown's Room. The tube leading to Brown's Room has at least 2 offshoots, the higher of which leads to a dead-end filled with a small air pocket, and the lower of which joins with additional tubes descending from Brown's Room. If

6975-471: The usage of the "octopus", a redundant second stage diving regulator that can be used as a backup in the event the diver's primary second stage fails, or alternatively, to allow the diver and their buddy to have simultaneous access to the diver's gas if the buddy has an out-of-gas emergency . The octopus is now considered an essential piece of equipment among virtually all scuba divers, whether caving or in open water. Exley died at age 45 while trying to set

7068-580: The valley floor. The best known playa in the park is the Racetrack , known for its moving rocks. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Death Valley National Park has a hot desert climate ( BWh ). The plant hardiness zone at Badwater Basin is 9b with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of 28.0 °F (−2.2 °C). Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in North America due to its lack of surface water and low relief. It

7161-488: The valley was a popular winter destination. Other facilities started off as private getaways but were later opened to the public. Most notable among these was Death Valley Ranch, better known as Scotty's Castle . This large ranch home built in the Spanish Revival style became a hotel in the late 1930s and, largely because of the fame of Death Valley Scotty , a tourist attraction. Death Valley Scotty, whose real name

7254-421: The valley. Just after leaving the valley, one of the women in the group turned and said, "Goodbye Death Valley," giving the valley its name. Included in the party was William Lewis Manly whose autobiographical book Death Valley in '49 detailed this trek and popularized the area (geologists later named the prehistoric lake that once filled the valley after him). The ores that are most famously associated with

7347-594: The wagon's image to promote the Boraxo brand of granular hand soap and the Death Valley Days radio and television programs. In 1914, the Death Valley Railroad was built to serve mining operations on the east side of the valley. Mining continued after the collapse of Coleman's empire, and by the late 1920s the area was the world's number one source of borax. Some four to six million years old,

7440-409: The water is a constant temperature of 33 °C (91 °F). The surface area of Devils Hole is about 22 m long by 3.5 m wide (72 ft long by 11.5 ft wide). Approximately 0.3 m (1.0 ft) deep on one end of Devils Hole is a small rock shelf of 3.5 by 5 m (11 by 16 ft). The dissolved oxygen of the water is 2.5–3.0 ppm up to around 22 m (72 ft) in depth, though

7533-411: The west, breaking all the earlier formations along a steep front. A wedge of clastic sediment then began to accumulate at the base of the two underwater precipices, starting the formation of opposing continental shelves . Three formations developed from sediment that accumulated on the wedge. The region's first known fossils of complex life are found in the resulting formations. Notable among these are

7626-468: The wide altitude differential between the valley bottom and the mountain ridges, especially on the west, the Timbisha practiced a vertical migration pattern. Their winter camps were located near water sources in the valley bottoms. As the spring and summer progressed and the weather warmed, grasses and other plant food sources ripened at progressively higher altitudes. November found them at the very top of

7719-420: Was Walter Scott, was a gold miner who pretended to be the owner of "his castle", which he claimed to have built with profits from his gold mine. Neither claim was true, but the real owner, Chicago millionaire Albert Mussey Johnson , encouraged the myth. When asked by reporters what his connection was to Walter Scott's castle, Johnson replied that he was Mr. Scott's banker. President Herbert Hoover proclaimed

7812-406: Was allowed to resume on a limited basis in 1980 with stricter environmental standards. The last mine in the park, Billie Mine, closed in 2005. In 1952 President Harry Truman added the Devils Hole to Death Valley National Monument; it is the only habitat of the Devils Hole pupfish . Death Valley National Monument was designated a biosphere reserve in 1984. On October 31, 1994, the monument

7905-400: Was also wrapped (deliberately) around Exley's tank valves. Bowden and other experts have theorized that Exley might have done this in anticipation of his own death to prevent any dangerous body recovery operations. The remipede L. exleyi , discovered by Australian cave divers Andrew Poole and Dave Warren in August 1993, was named in honor of Sheck Exley. The Sheck Exley Award is given by

7998-448: Was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994. The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology. The valley is actually a graben with the oldest rocks being extensively metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean . Additional sedimentation occurred until

8091-624: Was designated as a National Wildlife Refuge in 1984. President Harry Truman added Devils Hole to what was then Death Valley National Monument in 1952. Devils Hole is a geothermal pool within a limestone cavern in the Amargosa Desert in the Amargosa Valley of Nevada , east over the Amargosa Range and Funeral Mountains from Death Valley . It is at an elevation of 730 m (2,400 ft) above sea level and

8184-591: Was expanded by 1.3 million acres (5,300 km ) and re-designated as a national park , via congressional passage of the California Desert Protection Act (Public Law 103–433). Consequently, the elevated status for Death Valley made it the largest national park in the contiguous United States . On March 12, 2019, the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act added 35,292 acres (55 sq mi; 143 km ) to

8277-548: Was one of the few divers to survive a 400-foot (120 m) open-water dive on simple compressed air. In acting as a safety diver for two divers trying to set an air-only depth record in 1970, Exley reached 465 feet (142 m) in salt water, but could go no deeper due to narcosis and the start of blackout (the two record-depth attempting unconscious divers died just out of reach beneath him, and such air-depth records are no longer sought or recorded). During his diving career, he set numerous depth and cave penetration records. Exley

8370-485: Was quickly reopened to mining by Congressional action in June 1933. As improvements in mining technology allowed lower grades of ore to be processed, and new heavy equipment allowed greater amounts of rock to be moved, mining in Death Valley changed. Gone were the days of the "single-blanket, jackass prospector" long associated with the romantic west. Open pit and strip mines scarred the landscape as international mining corporations bought claims in highly visible areas of

8463-445: Was recovered when his support crew hauled up his unused decompression tanks. It was found that he had looped into the descent line, perhaps to sort out gas issues. His wrist-mounted dive computer read a maximum depth of 906 feet (276 m). The cause of Exley's death could not be determined. Team members concluded the causes "...could include stress of HPNS exacerbated by the narcotic effects of nitrogen at that depth". The line

8556-564: Was shipped out of the valley 165 miles (266 km) to the Mojave railhead in 10-ton-capacity wagons pulled by " twenty-mule teams " that were actually teams of 18 mules and two horses each. The teams averaged two miles (3.2 km) an hour and required about 30 days to complete a round trip. The trade name 20-Mule Team Borax was established by Francis Marion Smith 's Pacific Coast Borax Company after Smith acquired Coleman's borax holdings in 1890. A memorable advertising campaign used

8649-478: Was the first person in the history of technical SCUBA diving to dive below 800 feet (240 m), a feat only 20 people have performed as of 2021 . His carefully planned multistage decompressions from these dives, in open water (not in a decompression tank), sometimes required times of as much as 13.5 hours. However, he never suffered a classic case of decompression sickness in his career. Exley and German cave diver Jochen Hasenmayer became friends and rivals in

#446553