DEATH VALLEY SEDIMENTS. 1<)[) 
not visited by the writer, but specimens collected by Mr. R. II. 
Chapman are reddish-brown conglomerates and conglomeratic sand- 
stones with rounded pebbles. The pebbles, which reach a maximum 
diameter of 2| inches, are limestone, quartzite, and schist derived 
from the Amargosa Range. They are probably members of the 
lake-bed series. 
The Tertiary lake beds are folded into open folds, usually with 
northwest axes. (See fig. 17.) Joints from 4 to 5 feet apart are 
developed. 
Older alluvium. — Hills of the older alluvium diversify the surface 
of Death Valley, at two places extend a considerable distance up the 
Amargosa Range, and form the north end of the Panamint Range. 
In the large sand area north of Salt Creek a few hillocks of slightly 
consolidated clay occur, and these probably indicate the former ex- 
tension of these deposits across the valley. 
The road from Daylight Spring to Stovepipe Wells passes through 
a desiccated ridge from 200 to 400 feet high, which trends northwest 
and southeast and is cut by antecedent drainage lines. Next to the 
Amargosa Range the hills are composed of slightly consolidated beds 
of angular or subangular bowlders and bands of gravel and sand. 
Cross-bedding and local unconformities are common. Well-developed 
joints form buttresses on the main cliffs, and large bowlders crown 
many of the high pinnacles. Within one-half mile of the western 
edge of the hills the sand beds are replaced along their strike by clay, 
and clay layers wedge in between the bowlder beds. At the western 
edge of the hills the base of the series is clay and the top bowlder beds. 
A section measured 2 miles south of east of Stovepipe Wells is as 
follows : 
Section in Death T alien near Stovepipe Wells. 
Feet. 
Angular bowlder beds, similar to those of the present alluvial slopes 150+ 
Clay and bowlder beds in equal development '. 110 
Salmon-pink clay beds, from 3 inches to 3 feet thick ; a few layers of an- 
gular bowlders interbedded 100 
At Triangle Spring fine-grained, dirty-brown cellular limestone 
is interbedded with the clays. The limestone shows desiccation crack-. 
Compact, fine-grained, light-colored limestone and caramel-brown 
mammillary gypsum also occur here. The beds exposed at Salt Creek 
include yellow, white, and green clays, with here and there a thin 
bed of white limestone. Brownish beds of angular bowlders consti- 
tute a considerable portion of the upper part of the section. The long 
ribbon of these deposits near the Grapevine Mountains northeast of 
Surveyors Well consists of tawny-yellow clays and thin beds of cel- 
lular limestone. At Grapevine Springs the deposits consist of lime- 
stones and fine clays. The clay contained crystal aggregates of sel- 
enite. The limestone is white or gray in color and is partly compact 
