Minden & Sierra Nevada Part 6

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Sierra Nevada Jan. 2015 Part 6

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Red Cinder Mountain: North Of Little Lake, CA

This prominent cinder cone is located along Hwy 395, just north of Little Lake. When molten lava erupted through a vent in the Earth's crust, it cooled quickly, forming a porous rock called "scoria." The scoria built up around the vent and formed the cone-shaped hill called Red Cinder Mountain. Since small pieces of porous (vesicular) scoria look like the ash pruduced in a coal furnace, scoria was called "cinders" and the volcanoes that erupt scoria were called "cinder cones." Scoria is used for a variety of commercial purposes. The most recent eruptions are estimated to be about 10,000 years ago. The massive lava (basalt) flows south of Red Cinder Mountain are estimated to be much older. In fact, the Upper Little Lake Ranch Basalt has been tentatively dated at about 130,000 years. It is interesting to note that the last major glacial period in North America (Wisconsin Glaciation) ended about 12,000 years ago. This region must have been quite spectacular with volcanic eruptions in the valleys, glaciers in the high Sierra Nevada, and numerous lakes and streams from the melting glaciers. Owens Lake to the North would have been full of water from the Owens River, long before it was diverted to provide water for Los Angeles. This was also about the time when the first humans walked across the natural land bridge from Asia to North America!

This aerial view is not from the moon! It was taken high over the Little Lake area of the Mojave Desert. The image shows a prominent cinder cone and lava (basalt) flows from fissures in the Earth's crust.

I scanned this image from a 35 mm Kodachrome Transparency that I took in 1988 flying over the Mojave Desert in a single engine plane. My destination was Saline Valley where the pilot (Kent Backart) landed on a dirt road. My goal was to locate devil's claw seed capsules (Proboscidea parviflora ssp. parviflora) which were introduced here by native Americans who undoudtedy brought them from Arizona. I actually found the seed pods within 100 meters of the plane, near the mouth of Hunter Canyon. After leaving Saline Valley we flew south over Death Valley (see following images).

Aerial view of Saline Valley on the east side of Inyo Range. We landed on a straight section of the small dirt road (white arrow), much to the surprise of several vehicles on this road!

Flying over Death Valley looking north toward Saline Valley. Beyond Saline Valley is the Inyo Range and the snow-covered Sierra Nevada.

A devil's claw seed capsule (Proboscidea parviflora ssp. parviflora) from Saline Valley. The long horns of the pods were used extensively in basketry by several tribes of Native Americans in Arizona. See the following link to Wayne's Word article about Devil's Claws.

See Wayne's Word Article About Devil's Claw Plant