Death Valley National Park is an American national park 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 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 the park is a designated wilderness area. The park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this 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.
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted for both its arid climate and the basin and range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin in Death Valley to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than 100 miles (160 km) away at the summit of Mount Whitney. The region spans several physiographic divisions, biomes, ecoregions, and deserts.
The Black Rock Desert is a semi-arid region of lava beds and playa, or alkali flats, situated in the Black Rock Desert–High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, a silt playa 100 miles (160 km) north of Reno, Nevada that encompasses more than 300,000 acres (120,000 ha) of land and contains more than 120 miles (200 km) of historic trails. It is in the northern Nevada section of the Great Basin with a lakebed that is a dry remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan.
The Mono–Inyo Craters are a volcanic chain of craters, domes and lava flows in Mono County, Eastern California. The chain stretches 25 miles (40 km) from the northwest shore of Mono Lake to the south of Mammoth Mountain. The Mono Lake Volcanic Field forms the northernmost part of the chain and consists of two volcanic islands in the lake and one cinder cone volcano on its northwest shore. Most of the Mono Craters, which make up the bulk of the northern part of the Mono–Inyo chain, are phreatic volcanoes that have since been either plugged or over-topped by rhyolite domes and lava flows. The Inyo volcanic chain form much of the southern part of the chain and consist of phreatic explosion pits, and rhyolitic lava flows and domes. The southernmost part of the chain consists of fumaroles and explosion pits on Mammoth Mountain and a set of cinder cones south of the mountain; the latter are called the Red Cones.
The Owens River is a river in eastern California in the United States, approximately 183 miles (295 km) long. It drains into and through the Owens Valley, an arid basin between the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and the western faces of the Inyo and White Mountains. The river terminates at the endorheic Owens Lake south of Lone Pine, at the bottom of a 2,600 sq mi (6,700 km2) watershed.
Amargosa Valley is an unincorporated town located on U.S. Route 95 in Nye County, in the U.S. state of Nevada.
Christian Brevoort Zabriskie was an American businessman and vice president of Pacific Coast Borax Company. Zabriskie Point on the northeasternmost flank of the Black Mountains east of Death Valley, located in Death Valley National Park is named after him.
Francis Marion Smith was an American miner, business magnate and civic builder in the Mojave Desert, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Oakland, California.
Ebbetts Pass, named after John Ebbetts, is a high mountain pass through the Sierra Nevada range in Alpine County, California. Ebbetts is the eastern of two passes in the area traversed by State Route 4. The western pass is the Pacific Grade Summit. The pass is registered as a California Historical Landmark. The Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650-mile (4,260 km) long National Scenic Trail crosses State Route 4 at Ebbetts Pass.
The Pacific Coast Borax Company (PCB) was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis Smith, the "Borax King".
The Amargosa Desert is located in Nye County in western Nevada, United States, along the California–Nevada border, comprising the northeastern portion of the geographic Amargosa Valley, north of the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.
The Black Mountains are a mountain range located in the southeastern part of Inyo County, California, within southeastern Death Valley National Park.
Mount Jefferson is the highest mountain in both the Toquima Range and Nye County in Nevada, United States. It is the sixth highest mountain in the state. As the high point of a range which is well separated from other ranges by low basins, Mount Jefferson has a high topographic prominence of 5,861 feet (1,786 m). This makes it the most prominent peak in Nye County and the third most prominent peak in Nevada. For similar reasons, it is also the highest mountain for over 90 miles in all directions. It is located about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of the county seat of Tonopah within the Alta Toquima Wilderness of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, near the smaller towns of Carvers and Round Mountain. Three distinct summits are located on a broad area of subalpine tundra: North Summit rises to 11,820 feet (3,603 m), Middle Summit to 11,692 feet (3,564 m), and South Summit to 11,949 feet (3,642 m). During the Pleistocene, alpine glaciers eroded several cirques east of the summit plateau.
Columbus was a borax mining boom town in Esmeralda County. Its remnants are located on the edge of the Columbus Salt Marsh.
Mount Tallac is a mountain peak southwest of Lake Tahoe, in El Dorado County, California. The peak lies within the Desolation Wilderness in the Eldorado National Forest. It is quite visible from State Routes 89 and 28, and U.S. Route 50. A "cross of snow" is clearly visible on the mountain's face during the winter, spring, and early summer months.
The Candelaria Hills are a mountain range in Mineral County, Nevada. The highest peak is Miller Mountain which was the location of "Borax" Smith's board-and-batten cabin where he lived when he discovered a rich borax deposit at nearby Teel's Marsh.
Teel's Marsh is a playa in Nevada, United States. It was the site of "Borax" Smith's first borax works at Marietta, Nevada in 1872, and became the start of his operations that soon became the largest borax operation in the world.
Columbus Marsh is a playa in Nevada, United States. William Troup discovered cottonball borax at the site in 1870 or 1871. Joseph Mosheimer and Emile K. Stevenot, who operated one of the borax concentrating plants at Columbus, hired Francis Marion Smith to cut wood for their plant on nearby Miller Mountain in the Candelaria Hills. Smith subsequently discovered borax himself at Teel's Marsh, where he had sufficient financial success to expand and acquire the borax works at Columbus himself in 1880.
Fortification Hill is a prominence adjacent to Lake Mead in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area; it is located at the northwest terminus region of the Black Mountains (Arizona), and specifically the north region of the Black Mountains. It is near a southern section of Lake Mead, and just northeast of Hoover Dam. It can easily be seen eastward across Las Vegas Bay or from the two northern mountain terminuses of Eldorado Mountains (Nevada), or the Black Mountains (Arizona).
Borax is a ghost town and railroad siding in Clark County, Nevada, United States located along the Union Pacific Railroad east of Interstate 15.
