#deathvalley — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #deathvalley, aggregated by home.social.
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A #botanist searches for the #seeds of the rare #DeathValleySage
April 2, 2026
"For more than 15 years, botanist Naomi Fraga of the #CaliforniaBotanicGarden has been trying to collect seeds from the rare Death Valley sage, for safekeeping in a vault of native California seeds. Each time, she's come home empty handed. But this year, with the desert in the midst of a big bloom, she's trying again.
" 'It's a little bit of a gamble,' she says. 'But, you know, the plant's having a really good year. I feel hopeful.' "
#SolarPunkSunday #California #RarePlants #SeedVaults #SeedSaving #RareSeeds #DesertBloom #DeathValley #SuperBloom #PlantPreservation
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Burro family (Equus africanus), Goler Wash, Death Valley NP, California April 2021 #burro #donkey #deathvalley #desert #wildanimal #animal #fauna #NP #golerwash
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This scarf is a gift for my uncle, inspired by quartz clusters we saw together backpacking in Cottonwood Canyon in Death Valley. From what I've been reading I think they were formed by intrusive igneous rock forming around xenoliths, and by cooling very slowly forming the incredible quartz crystals we saw, which looked like rings around the darker xenoliths in the weathered rock face we saw. I'm not trained as a geologist though and would love to find more information about the geology of Cottonwood Canyon from someone with some real expertise!
The wool is targhee roving I got at the nor cal ren faire. I spun it on my small cross arm spindle and wove it on a loom I've been borrowing from a friend. It's plain weave set at 8epi. It looked very open on the loom, but fulled into a wonderfully bouncy and dense fabric.
After fulling I scoured the fabric, then used rubber bands to do this shibori inspired dye process. After putting on the rubber bands I gave it a bath in tannins I extracted from an oak gall, then in a bath of cool water with just a tiny bit of dissolved ferrous sulfate. It was so exciting to see the fabric turn grey in a a matter of just a few minutes when I put it in the iron bath!
#handweaving
#weaving
#handspinning
#naturaldyes
#dyes
#textiles
#handwoven
#handspun
#tiedye
#shibori
#oakgalls
#ferroussulfate
#naturaldye
#targhee
#wool
#geology
#xenolith
#quartz
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Burro family (Equus africanus), Goler Wash, Death Valley NP, California April 2021 #burro #donkey #deathvalley #desert #wildanimal #animal #fauna #NP #golerwash
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Main Gate and other buildings, Barker Ranch, Goler Wash, Death Valley, California, April 2021. It was the location Charles Manson was captured after the murders #desert #outdoors #exploring #explore #BarkerRanch #DeathValley #manson #charlesmanson #offroad #abandoned #abandonedplaces
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Joanna Scanlan To Lead 5’s ‘Missed Call’; BritBox Heads To ‘Death Valley’; Blazing Griffin Hire – Global Briefs
#Casting #News #BBCStudios #BlazingGriffin #Channel5 #DeathValley #JoannaScanlan #MissedCallhttps://deadline.com/2025/09/joanna-scanlan-casting-5-missed-call-global-briefs-1236553187/
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Burro family (Equus africanus), Goler Wash, Death Valley NP, California April 2021 #burro #donkey #deathvalley #desert #wildanimal #animal #fauna #NP #golerwash
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Outer building, Barker Ranch, Death Valley, California April 2021 (The Ranch was a hangout for the Manson Family and he was caught there) #ranch #manson #charlesmanson #serialkiller #cult #deathvalley #abandoned #photography #blackandwhite #desert
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Ep. 11, #TransAmerica 9,000-mile #Overland #Roadtrip 🚙💨:
Cruise through Artists Drive in Death Valley, where the desert transforms into a painter’s palette of vibrant reds, pinks, purples, and greens! 🌄🎨 The Artists Palette Viewpoint is pure magic, especially in the golden glow of sunrise or sunset. But visiting in the heat of summer? Now that’s an adventure! ☀️🔥
#DeathValley #ArtistsPalette #RoadTripUSA #DesertVibes #TravelBloggers #travel #wanderlust #katrinakaif
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#Mudslides, 126-mph winds and feet of snow pummel #California amid #AtmosphericRiver
The biggest storm so far this winter blasted California with #flooding #downpours, #hurricane-force winds and feet of #snow in the mountains. Some of the worst damage occurred near the #BurnScars from January's deadly #fires.
By Brian Lada, AccuWeather meteorologist and senior content editor
Published Feb 14, 2025
"Mudslides, flooding downpours and feet of mountain snow were unleashed across California as the biggest storm so far this winter hit the state, including areas devastated by deadly #wildfires in January.
"Evacuations were ordered and roads were shut down near the burn scars of the #PalisadesFire and the #EatonFire due to the risk of mudslides, flash flooding and debris flows, including a stretch of the #PacificCoastHighway between #Malibu and #SantaMonica.
"A person with the Los Angeles Fire Department was swept away in a vehicle amid the flooding but managed to escape with only minor injuries, according to The Associated Press.
"Bulldozers were needed to clear feet of mud, rock and debris from some roads as the heavy rain ran off the charred mountainsides.
"'Over 10 inches of rain fell in some areas, including 10.87 at Manchester, on the coast west of #Sacramento, and 9.89 inches at Mining Ridge, 90 miles south of #SanJose,' AccuWeather Meteorologist and Digital Producer Jesse Ferrell said.
"Rain even fell in California's #DeathValley National Park, with 0.18 of an inch falling in the hottest place in North America. In an entire year, the remote park typically measures 2.20 inches of rain."
Read more:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/mudslides-126-mph-winds-and-feet-of-snow-pummel-california-amid-atmospheric-river/1745097#google_vignette
#ClimateCrisis #ClimateThreats #ClimateCatastrophe #ExtremeWeather #Polycrisis -
New Method Reveals Hidden Activity of Life Below Ground https://www.dri.edu/new-method-reveals-hidden-activity-of-life-below-ground/
Species-resolved, single-cell respiration rates reveal dominance of sulfate reduction in a deep continental subsurface ecosystem: Melody Lindsay et al. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2309636121
"deep wells in the #DeathValley regional flow system provide windows into #subsurface environments... one of them contains several key #microorganisms that are only found in the deepest South African #GoldMines"
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Skeptoid #21: Living Stones of Death Valley by Brian Dunning #deathvalley #theracetrack #racetrackplaya #movingrocks #SkeptoidPodcast #podcast #bot An examination of the mysterious stones that move by themselves across the desert floor.
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4021 -
Moving rocks of the Racetrack Playa
We all can comprehend how rocks break apart due to heat and frost action and fall due to gravity. But, for a long while, there was a popular mystery surrounding moderately-sized rocks moving across a dead flat surface in Death Valley leaving a trail behind them.
The famous location where this happens is Racetrack Playa (The Racetrack), a remote valley within Death Valley National Park, California. But it also occurs at the Little Bonnie Claire Playa in Nevada, both of which have similar geographical settings. The Racetrack playa collects water runoff but because there is no drainage outlet the water infiltrates and evaporates.
Landsat imagery with Racetrack playa in the center (white area).The heavy rocks along the playa have eroded from the surrounding mountains. But once on the very level plain, they seemingly slid across the mud-cracked surface of the dry lake bed without human intervention. The stones were thought to slide, sail, or wander by some mysterious natural means or through paranormal or mystical “energy”. I can’t remember when I first heard of them but it was when I was a kid in the late 70s, I think. The moving rocks were featured in many books on American mysteries. It was generally considered more likely to be an unobserved natural phenomenon rather than aliens or earth energies. However, Death Valley has many weird locations and associated stories, so the moving stones added to its reputation as a spooky place.
In 1948, USGS scientists who found the tracks speculated that wind was moving the rocks during wet periods. Yet, that couldn’t be the whole story. A fuller explanation for this movement began to solidify in the early-2000s.
Left: photo By Lgcharlot – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8514260;
Right: photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2080023The location is not that easy to access, requiring an off-road vehicle. No one had yet seen the rocks move, just the trails left behind. Technology like GPS and remote camera equipment was the key to discovering what was going on. Brian Dunning, a science writer, first noticed that sheets of thin ice were blown across the playa on a cold morning. He filmed a video showing the thin sheet of water moving rapidly across the surface with respect to a strong wind.
A team of academic researchers was later able to attach GPS units to some of the playa rocks. They also used time-lapse photography and installed weather instruments at the location. These measurements led to the conclusion that even a moderate breeze was able to move thin ice sheets over meltwater that buoyed the large rocks. They recorded movements of hundreds of meters in a few events that took place from December 2013 and January 2014.
Damage from foot traffic on the muddy playa.Their observations show that moving the rocks requires a rare combination of events. First, the playa fills with water, which must be deep enough to allow the formation of floating ice during cold winter nights but shallow enough to expose the rocks. As nighttime temperatures plummet, the pond freezes to form sheets of “windowpane” ice, which must be thin enough to move freely but thick enough to maintain strength. On sunny days, the ice begins to melt and break up into large floating panels, which light winds drive across the playa pool. The ice sheets shove rocks in front of them and the moving stones leave trails in the soft mud bed below the pool surface.
Why had no one seen the rocks move? Water on the playa is rare. And, visitors are prohibited from being there when the ground is wet because foot traffic would tear up the fragile surface. Additionally, the rocks often moved together so it was hard to tell they were moving at all even when you were right there watching. The ice masked the tracks that were revealed only when the surface dried out. The unique combination of a 0.5 in of water, ice formation, and stiff wind is also rare. For these reasons, other playas don’t typically exhibit moving rocks.
You can read the paper they published here: Sliding Rocks on Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park: First Observation of Rocks in Motion
Some people haven’t gotten the message that the question was solved. Or, they badly want to maintain the mystery because the answer is too mundane to them. That’s a terrible reason to pass on misinformation about the earth. It’s much more satisfying to accept that humans solved a curious puzzle through thinking and technology.
#DeathValley #movingRocks #RacetrackPlaya #sailingStones #TheRacetrack
https://sharonahill.com/?p=1114