The Coso Range of eastern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

is located immediately south of

Owens Lake Owens Lake is a mostly dry lake in the Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo County, California. It is about south of Lone Pine, California. Unlike most dry lakes in the Basin and Range Province that have been dry for th ...

, east of the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

, and west of the

Argus Range The Argus Range is a mountain range located in Inyo County, California, southeast of the town of Darwin, California, Darwin. The range forms the western boundary of Panamint Valley, and the northwestern boundary of Searles Valley. The Coso Range i ...

. The southern part of the range lies in the restricted

Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake is a large military installation in California that supports the research, testing and evaluation programs of the United States Navy. It is part of Navy Region Southwest under Commander, Navy Installat ...

and the northern part of the range is designated as the

Coso Range Wilderness The Coso Range Wilderness is a protected wilderness area in California in the northern end of the Coso Range. The area was designated as wilderness by the California Desert Protection Act of 1994 The California Desert Protection Act of 1994 i ...

. The mountains include

Coso Peak Coso Peak is the highest summit in the Coso Range, a small mountain range east of the Sierra Nevada, in Inyo County in the U.S. state of California. The peak has an elevation of and a topographic prominence of , making it the 88th most promin ...

, at above sea level, as well as Silver Peak and Silver Mountain, both more than in height. The range is underlain principally by

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

granitic rocks that are partly veneered by upper

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

volcanic rocks of the Coso Volcanic Field. The volcanic units (in apparent decreasing age) include (1) widespread

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

ic flows, (2) dacitic flows and

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...

, and (3)

rhyolitic Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...

domes and flows and basaltic cones and flows. These volcanic rocks are encompassed by an oval-shaped zone of late Cenozoic ring faulting that measures about east to west and north to south and that defines a structural basin. Most of the Coso Range and a slice of the adjacent Sierra Nevada lie within this ring structure. The youngest volcanic rocks are

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

and, with associated active fumaroles, occupy a north-trending structural and topographic ridge about near the center of the basin. The ring structure and associated volcanic rocks suggest a large underlying magma chamber that has periodically erupted

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

to the surface during the past few million years.

Prehistory

Numerous rock art sites (the

Coso Rock Art District Coso Rock Art District is a rock art site containing over 100,000 Petroglyphs by Paleo-Indians and/or Native Americans. The district is located near the towns of China Lake and Ridgecrest, California. Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons were de ...

) are found in the range, left by the ancient Coso people. The prehistoric Coso inhabitants exported volcanic glass (Coso obsidian) and this highly valued toolstone has been found as far distant as the Channel Islands of California.Garfinkel 2007 Little Petroglyph Canyon and Renegade Canyon within the Range are open for guided tours through the

Maturango Museum Maturango Museum is located in Ridgecrest, California. The museum is best known for the guided tours of the Coso Rock Art District located on China Lake Naval Weapons Station. The museum offers exhibits and displays featuring both the natural an ...

Ridgecrest, California Ridgecrest is a city in Kern County, California, United States, along U.S. Route 395 in the Indian Wells Valley in northeastern Kern County, adjacent to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake (NAWS, or China Lake). It was incorporated as a ...

Notes

References

* California Road and Recreation Atlas. 2005, pg. 87 * C. Michael Hogan. 2008. ''Morro Creek'', ed. by A. Burnha

* Alan P. Garfinkel, 2007, Archaeology and Rock Art of the Eastern Sierra and Great Basin Frontier, Maturango Museum, Ridgecrest,California. * {{Authority control Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert Volcanoes of Inyo County, California Igneous petrology of California Mountain ranges of Inyo County, California Mesozoic magmatism Pliocene volcanism Pleistocene volcanism

Prehistory

See also

Notes

References