I would like to share some of my experiences and trip information (like
pictures) to people I know on the WWW, so I have made this WWW page.
Since not everyone can or has been everywhere, it might help broaden
what they know about the world they live in. :-)
The pictures on this page can be gone to via the links that I put on
the page. Each picture is roughly 100KB (at 50% jpeg compression) and
are all best viewed under true color, but I viewed them using only
256 colors and the dithering seems to work extremely well. The
pictures are also on the "big" side, so you might have to increase
your resolution to view them, or shrink them to get a good view of
them (they look more fantastic if you can display them at their
full size).
I scanned these photos using my brother's flatbed scanner. I had
to choose the pictures carefully since I only have so much
space on my account for storage. I have slightly over 1.5 MBs
of pictures linked to this page.
One of the major features of Mono Lake is its tufa. The tufa that
everyone regularly sees is the Limestone Tufa which is caused by
limestone being created and deposited at places at the bottom of
the lake around objects that they can stick to. Most of the tufa
is created around springs at the bottom of the lake whose chemicals
react with the lake's akaline waters to create the limestone. The
fly larvae is supposed to have some impact on the creation of tufa
as well. I have fogotten how Sand Tufa is created, but it is formed
beneath the lake's bed and can't be seen under normal conditions
unless it is uncovered (as it has been when the water dropped from
the Los Angeles Aqueduct taking the water the lake needed to stay at
a constant level). There is also another type of Tufa which I didn't
see (except inside the museum), called Ice Age Tufa, which looked like
a bunch of opaque crystals pointing in odd directions. [Picture: Limestone Tufa poking through the
surface of Mono Lake (15.5 KB)] [Picture: Limestone Tufa on the uncovered lake
bed of Mono Lake (97.5 KB)] [Picture: Sand Tufa (66.5 KB)] [Picture: Sand Tufa (60 KB)]
While at Mono Lake, I was able to visit the fissure at Black Point.
It was created when the entire area was under the waters of an ancient
sea. The fissure was created from the lava cooling rapidly, causing
the crack to form. At some points the fissure is wide, but there
is a long portion where you could just hop over the top of the fissure
to the opposite side. It's quite deep too. [Picture: One location at the Black Point
Fissure (140 KB)]
Mono Lake is now being protected by the government because Los
Angeles's Water District was draining the lake dry for their
own needs. Now they are required to assure that the lake will
rise to a certain minimum level, and will not fall below that
level. Because Mono Lake has alkaline water of about pH 10 and
about 3 times the saltiness of the ocean, the Los Angeles Aqueduct
takes the water from the rivers and streams that feed Mono Lake, and
the water evaporates from the lake since there are no outlet streams
or rivers. [Resource: Mono Lake's WWW page]
Another lake that doesn't exist anymore because of the over draining
of lake sources is Owens Lake, south of Lone Pine, California.
The sediments from the bottom of Owens Lake's bed are stirred from
winds and give Lone Pine one of the worst air qualities in the
entire United States. I think Owens Lake has even been renamed
to Owens Dry Lake by some since it just doesn't get any or enough
water to be anything but a lake bed.
Rainbow Falls is another sight to see. It's on the middle fork of
the San Joaquin River and owes its existance to a particular type
of lava flow. Rainbow Falls was created by the river shifting from
one position to another, and then back again. When the river
shifted back to its original position, it fell into its previous
river bed. Through erosion, the waterfall backed up from its
original position to its current position, where it has stabalized
because of the volcanic rock that is resistant to the erosive
forces of the river. The volcanic rock is plated horizontally
allowing the river to eat underneath the cliff face, while not harming
the position of the falls. [Picture: Rainbow Falls (80 KB)] [Picture: Bottom of Rainbow Falls and a
rainbow in the lower left corner (91.5 KB)]
In the Inyo National Forest which surrounds Devils Postpile is Reds
Meadow Campground. In the campground they had some "hot" showers
which took the water from some natural hot springs. I took two
showers (not in the same day) and that water was hot! (Not unbearable,
just close to it.) This is a reminder that the Mammoth Lakes area
is an actively volcanic area with plenty of hot springs. There is
even a fissure that could have been caused by earthquakes, or by
rapidly cooling lava, or both (there isn't a consensus on how it
was created). [Picture: Mammoth Lake's Fissure (140 KB)]