Essay On Death Valley

Death Valley was discovered by a party of pioneers heading to California in 1849. Prior to their discovery the Timbisha Shoshone Indians had lived in the area for centuries. The first white settlers in the area where Andrew Laswell and Cal Mowery and where the first to use irrigation for crops in the area. Mining began in Death Valley after the discovery of silver and many boomtowns started to appear in the area. The mining lasted for about a century, but many of the mines did not produce high amount of precious metals and went out of business. In 1942 during World War Two the U.S. had ten thousand Japanese Americans relocated to part of the park for fear of spies. It can be visited in the park and is well preserved of all the camps that were created during the war.
“Today Death Valley national park is the largest of any national park in the …show more content…
It consists of canyons, mountains, sand dunes, and peaks. There are famous geological points to explore from Telescope Peak to the Ubehebe Crater. “These are just some of the things that faults created, like Ubehebe Crater which was a volcanic crater which is 600 ft. deep.” (Death Valley) “From an elevation of 1000 meters at the north end, the land slopes down steadily and for 70 miles the floor is below sea level, reaching a low point of -282 feet (-86 meters) at Badwater, the lowest point in the Western hemisphere.” (Death Valley National Park) Less than one percent of Death Valley’s desserts are sand dunes. Even though Death Valley is one of the hottest places, this does not stop life from thriving in different elevations throughout the park. “The range of live that live vary from including 51 species of native mammals, 307 species of birds, 36 species of reptiles, three species of amphibians, and five species and one subspecies of native fishes.” (Death Valley) The big horn sheep that live in the park are very adaptable to the hot climates and eat about any type of