National Park Death Valley
Death Valley - US National Park, covering an area of 13,518 km2. The national park contains 3 huge valleys: Salina, Panamint and the Death Valley. Here is the driest climate of all US national parks.
Before the formation of the national park, they were mainly engaged in gold mining. The first Europeans visited here in 1849 when they were looking for a short road to the gold mines in California. They wandered here for almost a month and lost their fellow traveler, in the end they decided to name this place of Death Valley. At the end of the 19th century, villages arose here, the population of which was engaged in gold mining. But gold reserves ran out and the settlers fled, only one brought income here - the extraction of the drill mineral, which was used to make soap and not only. A cart with ore was transported by 18 mules and 2 horses. In 1993, it was decided to form a national monument of the Death Valley here, a year later it was transformed into a national park.
The landscapes of Death Valley Park are very ancient and began to form almost 2 billion years ago. Once there was a warm shallow sea, as sea deposits speak. But due to the movements of the earth's crust, a crevice appeared and almost all the water went into the Pacific Ocean. Later, all because of the same movements, the cows began to grow here, which blocked the channel to the ocean.
About 9,000 years ago, the Indian tribe of Nevares Spring lived here, which was engaged in hunting and gathering. Then in the Death Valley, one could still observe the lakes Panamint and Menley, and the climate was better and an abundance of birds was observed. About five thousand years ago, the Mesquite-Flat culture settled these places. 2000 years ago, the Saratoga-Spring Indians came to these places, the climate was then approximately like today - a dry and waterless desert.
Peak Telescope is the highest point in the park, whose height is 3368 meters. In general, there are 5 mountain ranges in the Death Valley that block the path of moist air. The air masses are swollen from the mountains strongly warm up and moisture evaporates in them, only dry air masses reach the ground from behind, climatologists called this phenomenon a "rain shadow". Therefore, this territory is the driest in North America, in a year no more than 50 mm of precipitation falls here, in the mountains the amount of precipitation reaches 400 mm. When the rain masses pass all the same mountains, they usually cause heavy showers that form seasonal lakes.
In Death Valley, animals adapted to the dry climate. From the indigenous inhabitants you can meet snow sheep, coyotes, three-toothed larrei. More than 90% of the park is considered wild and completely undead.
The park is known for its inexplicable phenomenon - moving stones in the dried Lake Reistrek-Playa in the Death Valley. Traces following them speak of the movement of stones. The boulders move themselves without the outside help of people, but for a long time no man followed them on camera. The boulders hit the bottom of the lake with a hill, the height of which is 260 meters, and the weight of individual stones reaches a hundred kilograms. The trail following them has a length of a couple of tens of meters. The most mysterious thing is that the stones move once every few years, and sometimes roll over. Scientists believe that their movement of stones requires the fulfillment of several conditions: a small layer of clay with a layer of ice and strong winds so that they can turn the stone over. But there is no clear theory explaining such spontaneous behavior of stones. After all, the stones move in different directions, and some stones located nearby stand still. In addition, strong winds rolled stones from one shore of a dried lake to another, but the stones were randomly scattered.
