POINT OF ROCKS SPRING AREA IN ASH MEADOWS (with some speculations about how water gets to the Ash Meadows discharge system)

I was interested in the Point of Rocks springs area because it is the easternmost set of springs in the valley, almost up against the mountains that bound the valley to the east.  It is about the same distance from those mountains as Devils Hole is, and as the discharge areas in Stewart Valley, just to the south, are.  Speculation, informed by some field work and much inference, is that there is a splay of the Pahrump Valley Fault that runs through Stewart Valley and continues through this discharge area to Devils Hole.

Did I explain a splay on a fault?  Mother Nature's crows feet.  Just like a fracture in the skin on your face will peter out into two lesser fractures usually just a little off the direction of the primary one, making 'crows feet' on your face, so a fault will typically break into two lesser faults at its end, with a slightly different direction.

So my first picture is of the Devils Hole setting as seen from Point of Rocks:

The mountain straight ahead has Devils Hole at its base.  The mountain at the right defines the eastern boundary of this valley.

In the above photo, the vegetation that was kind enough to hold still while I leaned into it is evidence of a seep area under my feet.  There are several such areas, and either they become more plentiful as we look south from here, or their combined discharge supports a lot of vegetation, or --more likely--both:

So, what does the primary spring in this part of Ash Meadows look like?  Like a smaller version of Crystal Spring:

Its channel continues on, supporting much grass along its edges, and a tree a little farther away:

If we back up some more and look up, we see how near it is to the boundary mountains defining the eastern edge of this valley:

 

The photo above suggests I am standing in the shade of some trees, which is correct.  The stream supports much vegetation along its run southward.  

Although the fault theory is attractive for moving water from the Pahrump Valley into this discharge zone, there is another possibility, which is flow under the bounding mountains, allowing direct water movement from basin to basin away from the Spring Range where most regional water is recharged into the groundwater system.

Does this seem strange, water flow under mountains?  This is how it is thought that Amargosa valley waters from its deeper water-bearing strata feed the springs that in turn provide water to Death Valley.  To do so, they must flow under the rather massive Funeral Range.  Inyo County, California, and the National Park Service are, in fact, drilling wells on both sides of the Funeral Range to check out this assumed water flow path.  My point is that in this area, flow under mountains is generally accepted as a reasonable assumption, though not proven. In fact there are those who see evidence against it and invoke faults around these mountains instead.  Either way, water comes out and there is not enough recharge into the adjacent hills to account for it.

So what do these mountains look like and how far are they from the Spring Range? In the next photo, taken south of Point of Rocks, you can see Mount Charleston in the background to the right of the tree. That is quite a distance, but underground water, just like surface water in rivers, does go great distances (sometimes it is known and used for more than a thousand miles like the Ogallala Aquifer in the central US).

Farther south, with the aid of a slight enlargement, Mount Charleston is again visible, this time at the location of a gap in the small eastern- boundary mountain range.  Another mountain sits between the eastern-boundary mountains separating the Ash Meadows area from the Pahrump Valley, defining a small sub-basin that has surface drainage into the Ash meadows area.

Even farther south, there is a gap in the range marking the boundary between Ash meadows and the Pahrump valley.  This time the northern reach of the Spring Range is visible:

In just another minute, we leave the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge with its 24 unique-in-all-the-world plant and animal species.  It is a very interesting place to reverently visit and contemplate, in my opinion.  Check out the official site on the web at http://desertcomplex.fws.gov/ashmeadows/ .

The thing I like about this "exit photo" below is that it puts all the greenery you have been seeing on my last two pages in perspective: it is almost invisible from here.  If you look real careful you can see a hint of green about halfway between here and the background dark mountain at the foot of which sits Devils Hole.  That bit of green you almost have to imagine in this photo is what you have just seen up close in the photos above!  So when you come here, prepare to drive some good distances to see the more prominent discharge areas.  The roads are good, but not paved.

Our next stop is just south of this exit sign, over a slight rise and into an adjoining valley called Stewart through which a splay from the Pahrump Valley Fault runs, for sure.

1.    Carpenter Canyon, lower portion

2.    Carpenter Canyon, middle portion

3.    Carpenter Canyon, upper portion

4.    Devils Hole

5.    Ash Meadows, Crystal Springs and Lakes (this page)

6.    Ash Meadows, Point of Rocks

7.    Stewart Valley and back to Pahrump Valley


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