TERRESTRIAL DEPOSITS OF OWENS VALLEY 717 



used by the streams in time of flood. Their unusual abundance 

 in the canyons is doubtless due to the bowlders having been sorted 

 out in the process of canyon-cutting, the finer material being carried 

 on and the coarse left. 



The whole surface of the bajada considered, the average diameter 

 of the bowlders is perhaps about 2 ft. but those 8 ft. in diameter 

 are by no means uncommon. The largest seen are a mile west of 

 Lone Pine, 6 miles from the mountains, and at the Cerro Gordo 

 power shanty, on Lone Pine Creek, 1^ miles from the mountains. 



Fig. 7. — The canyon of Lone Pine Creek in the Sierra bajada. Bowlders appear 

 almost as large as the two-story house. 



The one west of Lone Pine is 10X20X30 ft. above ground. The 

 size of the one at the shanty is shown in Fig. 5, the man being 6 ft. 

 tall. With these exceptional bowlders are thousands of others as 

 large as 10 ft. in diameter, as can be seen from Fig. 7. The size 

 and distribution of this coarse material may be seen further in 

 Figs. 6 and 7. Fine material in the bajada is shown in Fig. 8. 



STRUCTURE 



Owing to the scarcity of good exposures, the structure of the 

 materials of the Sierra bajada is not readily determined. The 

 only satisfactory exposure is near the mountains on Lone Pine 

 Creek (Fig. 9). Because the canyon walls never stand in vertical 

 bases, but slump down readily to gentle slopes, they show the 



