Golden Gate Photo - Great Basin National Park Gallery

Golden Gate Photo - Great Basin National Park Gallery
Fine Art Photography from Great Basin National Park in East-Central Nevada.

Great Basin National Park, on the east-central side of Nevada, was established in 1986 to protect what has been referred to as a superb example of a desert mountain island. It really should have been called Great Range National Park, as it covers much of the south Snake Range, which rises up to 8,000 feet (2,500 meters) above the Snake Basin to the east (in Utah) and the Spring Basin to the west. This is part of the Basin and Range Geomorphic Province, a series of generally north-south trending basins and ranges which extend from eastern California to the Wasatch Range in central Utah, and extend as far south as Death Valley, California and as far north as the southeastern corner of Oregon. Over the last 30 million years, the continental crust in this region has been stretching in an east-west direction. Roughly north-south faults at one or both margins of the ranges are pulling them apart, resulting in the dropping of the valleys and the rising of the ranges. Occasional earthquakes along these faults indicate that this is an ongoing process. The jagged peaks that line the top of the south Snake Range are composed mostly of the Prospect Mountain Quartzite. This quartzite began as beds of siltstone, sandstone, and conglomerate deposited during the Early Cambrian Period. Subsequently, these deposits were slightly metamorphosed about 160 million years ago (Jurassic Period) as granitic magma, now exposed in portions of the range, intruded and heated the overlying sediments. Low-angle faulting and uplift associated with the Sevier Orogeny and later Basin and Range faulting and tilting have brought these and other Paleozoic deposits to the top of the ranges.

	Wheeler Peak Wheeler Peak, at 13,063 feet (3,982 meters), is the highest point in the park. In this view from Wheeler Peak Overlook, you can see the bowl-shaped Glacial Cirque in front of the peak. The hummocky area illuminated by the sun at the base of the cirque is a patch of ice, the remnants of the only glacier between the Sierra Nevada in California and the Wasatch Range in Utah. The sheer cliffs of Wheeler Peak are composed of the highly weather-resistant Prospect Mountain Quartzite. Print No. A01NW-48-5
	Stella Lake Both Stella Lake and Lake Teresa (below) are tarn lakes, hollows that were scoured by glaciers during the Pleistocene ice ages. The moraine debris left behind helps contain the shallow lakes. Wheeler Peak is the highest point in the background. Print No. A01NW-48-1
	Lake Teresa Lake Teresa is the other tarn (or alpine) lake on the north side of Wheeler Peak. The angular cobbles and boulders in and around these lakes are part of the glacial moraine deposits. Print No. A01NW-48-4
	Lehman Caves The bedrock of Lehman Caves is slightly metamorphosed limestone (now a low-grade marble) of the Middle Cambrian Pole Canyon Limestone. The limestone (CaCO₃) dissolves when rainwater mixes with carbon dioxide to form carbonic acid. Dissolving the limestone through joints and faults over hundreds of thousands to millions of years created the cavern. At some point when the water drained out of the caves, due to uplifting of the mountains, and/or a permanent drop in the water table, water saturated with CaCO₃ dripped into the open space and deposited the mineral calcite. This forms the cave deposits including stalactites and stalagmites. Print No. A01NW-49-4
	Lehman Caves Shield Formation Once thought to be rare, but still very unusual, shields consist of 2 round to oval parallel plates with a thin separation between them. They grow at any angle from the floor, walls, or ceiling, and commonly have calcite draperies and other speleothems growing below them. How they are formed is still uncertain, but one idea involves the observation that shields tend to form in caves with highly-fractured limestone, like Lehman Caves. Water may enter the caves through these fractures under hydrostatic pressure and deposit calcite along the same trend, hence building the 2 parallel plates from the edges of the fracture out into the open cave. There are over 300 shields in Lehman Caves. Print No. A01NW-49-6
	Lehman Caves Flowstone Flowstone is often deposited in association with stalactites, stalagmites, and columns (stalactites and stalagmites that have fused together). The flowstone deposits are the result of thin films of water flowing over sloping surfaces. The calcite is deposited in successive thin coats. Print No. A01NW-49-8

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