Geology and water resources of Owens Valley, California

Owens Lake dune fields: Composition, sources of sand, and transport pathways

“…The relative proportions of quartz, plagioclase, and K-feldspar in the sands from the Owens River and Vermillion Canyon and Cottonwood Canyon washes indicate that they are derived from a granodiorite source rock, which is the predominant granitic rock type in the Sierra Nevada and also forms the core of the Coso Range (e.g. Hollett et al, 1991;Jayko, 2009). The sand contains a high percentage (N50%) of plagioclase and K-feldspar, indicating that it has not been exposed to significant chemical weathering from soil-forming processes and is mineralogically very immature.…”

Last glacial maximum and Holocene lake levels of Owens Lake, eastern California, USA

“…The valley has a drainage area of $8450 km 2 bounded by the crests of the Sierra Nevada Range to the west, White-Inyo Mountains to the east, and the Coso Range to the south and east. The northern extent of the watershed reaches north of Bishop near Long Valley, Adobe Valley and occasionally Mono basin during extreme pluvial times (Reheis et al, 2002), but presently is limited by a drainage divide that separates Mono basin and the Volcanic Tableland to the north (Hollett et al, 1991) (Fig. 1).…”

“…The highest identified shorelines without numerical age control within Owens Valley are located at an altitude of $1180 m in the southern margin of Owens Lake basin (e.g., Hollett et al, 1991;Beanland and Clark, 1994). During the latest Pleistocene, at sill altitudes between $1160 and 1145 m, pluvial Owens Lake filled the southern $90 km of the valley north to about the location of Independence, covering more than $700 km 2 (Smith and Street-Perrott, 1983;Orme and Orme, 2000) (Fig.…”

“…Major water diversions in Owens Valley began in 1921 AD with the construction of the Owens River-Los Angeles aqueduct that transports Owens River water more than 320 km to the south for distribution (Hollett et al, 1991). Owens Lake first began depositing salts onto the lake floor in 1921 AD because of these diversions, and by around 1931 AD, Owens Lake had desiccated and become a playa .…”

Water sources and nitrogen relations of grasses and shrubs in phreatophytic communities of the Great Basin Desert

“…This likely inhibits decomposition and N mineralization at the end of the summer. Increasingly, the importance of pulses of N availability following rainfall events has been demonstrated in a number of semi-arid ecosystems (Chesson et al, 2004;Huxman et al, 2004;Newman et al, 2006;Schaeffer and Evans, 2005;Schwinning and Sala, 2004). In Owens Valley, the responses of common species to N addition have been evaluated in manipulative experiments in the high salinity lake playas of Owens and Mono Lakes (Donovan and Richards, 2000;Drenovsky and Richards, 2003Richards, 2005, 2006;.…”