| Tecopa Lake Beds | |
|---|---|
| Stratigraphic range: Pleistocene | |
| Type | Geologic formation |
| Lithology | |
| Primary | Mudstone |
| Location | |
| Region | Mojave Desert, California |
| Country | United States |
| Type section | |
| Named for | Lake Tecopa (prehistoric) |
The Tecopa Lake Beds is a Blancan Pleistocene geologic formation in the Mojave Desert in eastern California. It is in the Tecopa area, east of Death Valley, in southeastern Inyo and northeastern San Bernardino County. [1]
The Lake Tecopa lake beds are the dry lake remnant of the formerly huge Pleistocene age Lake Tecopa, in the present day Amargosa River basin. It preserves fossils of the Quaternary period in the Cenozoic Era. [2]
Among the fossils found in the Tecopa Lake Beds is Capricamelus gettyi , a camelid. [3]
The Amargosa River is an intermittent waterway, 185 miles (298 km) long, in southern Nevada and eastern California in the United States. It drains a high desert region, the Amargosa Valley in the Amargosa Desert northwest of Las Vegas, into the Mojave Desert, and finally into Death Valley where it disappears into the ground aquifer. Except for a small portion of its route in the Amargosa Canyon in California and a small portion at Beatty, Nevada, the river flows above ground only after a rare rainstorm washes the region. A 26-mile (42 km) stretch of the river between Shoshone and Dumont Dunes is protected as a National Wild and Scenic River. At the south end of Tecopa Valley the Amargosa River Natural Area protects the habitat.
Rainbow Basin is a geological formation in the Calico Peaks range, located approximately 8 miles (13 km) north of Barstow in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California.
Hemiauchenia is a genus of laminoid camelids that evolved in North America in the Miocene period about 10 million years ago. This genus diversified and expanded into to South America in the Late Pliocene approximately 3 to 2 million years ago, as part of the Great American Biotic Interchange. The genus became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene. The monophyly of the genus has been considered questionable, with phylogenetic analyses finding the genus to paraphyletic or polyphyletic, with some species suggested to be more closely related to living lamines than to other Hemiaucenia species.
Lake Manix is a former lake fed by the Mojave River in the Mojave Desert. It lies within San Bernardino County, California. Located close to Barstow, this lake had the shape of a cloverleaf and covered four basins named Coyote, Cady/Manix, Troy and Afton. It covered a surface area of 236 square kilometres (91 sq mi) and reached an altitude of 543 metres (1,781 ft) at highstands, although poorly recognizable shorelines have been found at altitudes of 547–558 metres (1,795–1,831 ft). The lake was fed by increased runoff during the Pleistocene and overflowed into the Lake Mojave basin and from there to Lake Manly in Death Valley, or less likely into the Bristol Lake basin and from there to the Colorado River.
Paleontology in Nevada refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Nevada. Nevada has a rich fossil record of plants and animal life spanning the past 650 million years of time. The earliest fossils from the state are from Esmeralda County, and are Late Proterozoic in age and represent stromatolite reefs of cyanobacteria, amongst these reefs were some of the oldest known shells in the fossil record, the Cloudina-fauna. Much of the Proterozoic and Paleozoic fossil story of Nevada is that of a warm, shallow, tropical sea, with a few exceptions towards the Late Paleozoic. As such many fossils across the state are those of marine animals, such as trilobites, brachiopods, bryozoans, honeycomb corals, archaeocyaths, and horn corals.
The Camp Rice Formation is a geologic formation in west Texas and southern New Mexico. It preserves fossils of the Pliocene-Pleistocene. These include the distinctive Tonuco Mountain Local Fauna.
The Alamosa Formation is a geologic formation in Colorado. It preserves fossils. The formation was deposited by Lake Alamosa, a paleolake that existed from the Pliocene to the middle Pleistocene.
The Ely Springs Dolomite is an Ordovician period geologic formation in the Southwestern United States.
The Wood Canyon Formation is a geologic formation in the northern Mojave Desert of Inyo County, California and Nye County and Clark County, Nevada.
The Saline Valley Formation is a geologic formation in the Mojave Desert, in Inyo County, California.
The Zabriskie Quartzite is a Cambrian Period geologic formation of the northern Mojave Desert, in Inyo County, California and Nye County, Nevada.
The Dove Spring Formation is a geologic formation in the western Mojave Desert of California. It preserves fossils dating back to the Miocene epoch of the Neogene period.
The Coso Formation is a geologic formation in the Coso Range of the Mojave Desert, in Inyo County, California.
The Temblor Formation is a geologic formation in California. It preserves fossils dating back from the Late Oligocene to the Middle Miocene of the Neogene period. It is notable for the famous Sharktooth Hill deposit.
The Brawley Formation is a geologic formation in the Colorado Desert of southern California, located in northwestern Imperial County and eastern San Diego County.
The Manix Formation is a geologic formation in California. This formation dates to the Pleistocene Epoch and is known to preserve fossils. Specimens of the extinct camelid, Camelops have been uncovered from the Rancholabrean units of this formation of both the species C. hesternus and C. minidokae.
The San Benito Gravels is a Quaternary Epoch geologic formation in California.
The Palm Spring Formation is a Pleistocene Epoch geologic formation in the eastern Colorado Desert of Imperial County and San Diego County County, Southern California.
The Turlock Lake Formation is an Early Pleistocene geologic formation in the Sierra Nevada foothills in Sacramento County, California. Cities in/over the formation's area include Citrus Heights, Carmichael, and Roseville.
Lake Tecopa is a former lake in Inyo County, southern California. It developed during the Miocene and the Pleistocene within a tectonic basin close to the border with Nevada. Fed by the Amargosa River and some neighbouring washes, it eventually culminated to a surface area of 235 square kilometres (91 sq mi) around 186,000 years ago and left sediments. Afterwards, the Amargosa River cut a gorge out of the lake and into Death Valley with its Lake Manly, draining the lake. The present-day towns of Shoshone, California and Tecopa, California lie within the basin of the former lake.
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