DEVILS HOLE

As you can see, Devils Hole is a hole in the ground:

As you probably cannot see (but you can imagine) there is water at the bottom of that hole.  The water is so clear that the divers in the workshop mentioned its uncanny clarity several times.  No wonder we can't see it.

That rock shelf in this next photo is under water.  Hard to believe.

The sign tells all about the Devils Hole pupfish and how this was the last remnant of a Pleistocene (last ice age) lake in this valley, the last place fish could survive when it all dried up about 10,000 years ago, and now these fish are their own unique species (until the next ice age, which could be sooner than you might think).

I have a policy of not posting recognizable photos of individuals on these pages, I think this next shot is in that category.  

Of course Devils Hole has a context.  In the distance you can see the many discharge areas of Ash Meadows, a National Wildlife refuge with more indigenous, unique species than any other comparable area in North America.  It is the isolation of individuals springs and their communities that allows this, just as it is the isolation of mountain ranges in Nevada that allows them to sport many indigenous and unique species of plants and animals.

We will visit some of these discharge areas next, our first stop will be the Crystal Spring and reservoir.  The reservoir is visible from the hillslope above Devils Hole:

The facts of Devils Hole's very existence, its uncanily clear waters, and its unique fish is already interesting, but from a scientific point of view, the walls of the cave that is Devils Hole have become a major contribution to the science of world climate change.  The walls of the cave are coated with calcium carbonate, with a few trace metals, and these have allowed carbon-14 and uranium-series dating of the walls, and the O-18/O-16 ratios indicate for those same dates whether or not the Pacific ocean was warmer or cooler at the time the water was evaporated into clouds that then rained on the Spring Range, picked up calcium carbonate, and eventually deposited it on the walls of this cave.  

The fissure's opening about 60,000 years ago stopped the deposition of calcite in the main cave, but divers went to a forward cave and completed the record: now we have a self-dated indicator of past climates going back a half-million years!  The results were compared, favorably, with ocean core and Siberian ice core data, the other two lines of evidence for past climates.  Several minor ice ages were recorded in Devils Hole that were not in these other records.  That creates somewhat of a mystery, and if it were not for mysteries, science would be boring, right?

1.    Carpenter Canyon, lower portion

2.    Carpenter Canyon, middle portion

3.    Carpenter Canyon, upper portion

4.    Devils Hole (this page)

5.    Ash Meadows, Crystal Springs and Lakes

6.    Ash Meadows, Point of Rocks

7.    Stewart Valley and back to Pahrump Valley


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