On-Site Images From The Cosos And Olancha

Inyo County, California

Click on the Images For larger Pictures

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. A view roughly southeast from State Route 190, several miles northeast of Olancha, to the the northern end of the Coso Mountains--a range primarily of volcanic origin, but tucked back in its recesses are the eroding remnants of an ancient lake which yield to vertebrate paleontologists a significant mammalian fauna roughly 4.5 to 3.0 million years old.

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. This is another look southeast from State Route 190, near the turnoff to the maintenance station along the southern fringes of Owens Lake, to the the northern end of the Coso Range, almost all of which presently lies within the Federally designated and protected Coso Range Wilderness: removing fossil remains from the wilderness region is of course verboten.

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. Here is a view southwestward to nondescript exposures of the 6.0 to 3.0 million-years-old Coso Formation (pale outcroppings in middleground) in the Coso Range Wilderness; somewhere out there amidst the pale brown sands and silts in the middleground, paleontologists recoverd the remains of an Agriotherium, a monstrous extinct bear, in sediments approximately 4.8 million years old.

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. A couple of paleontology enthusiasts stand in a dry wash along the northern flanks of the Coso Range. Sediments in wash at upper right consist of the Pliocene Coso Formation, a bone-bearing unit which has yielded several species of 4.8 to 3.0 million-year-old mammal remains. The view is back northwestward to the dramatic eastern front of the Sierra Nevada. Probably this area is now part of the Federally designated and protected Coso Range Wilderness. Picture was taken long before such a Federal designation.

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. This is a view southeast along the same wash shown in the image above. A dusting of snow caps the Coso Mountains. At upper left can be seen the greenish-brown badlands-forming exposures of the Upper Miocene to Middle Pliocene Coso Formation. That area is almost certainly now within the Coso Range Wilderness; picture taken long before such a Federal designation.

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. A paleontology enthusiast explores the Coso Formation badlands, Coso Mountains, Inyo County, California. The Coso Formation yields to vertebrate paleontologists California's best-preserved Blancan Stage mammalian fauna--that is, the fossils are roughly 4.8 to 3.0 million years old. Almost all of the fossiliferous Coso Formation exposures now lie within the Coso Range Wilderness. This picture was taken long before such a Federal designation.

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. Here's a view back westward to the snow-dusted Sierra Nevada. Just behind the jeep and the two paleontology enthusiasts, where the road passes through a minor reddish-brown ridge, is a splendid fossil locality, where abundant, striking "cabbage" algae remains and ostracodes (a minute bivalve crustacean) can be found in lacustrine (lake-deposited) facies of the Pliocene Coso Formation; picture taken long before the Coso Wilderness became established.

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. Here's the famous Ranch House Cafe along the western side of Highway 395 in Olancha. Picture taken from the Texaco gasoline station across the street. The Ranch House Cafe offers up tasty, quality food at a reasonable price (for the Owens Valley).

   
Click on the image for a larger picture. A shot looking southward from the Texaco gasoline station in Olancha. Note the southbound traffic along Highway 395--picture was taken on a Sunday afternoon, and lots of folks were no doubt headed home to the Los Angeles Basin after a weekend of play in the mountains.

   

Click on the image for a larger picture. Here is an image of several Big Horn sheep petroglyphs from Petroglyph Canyon in the Coso Range. Photograph by Darios Caloss, University California Santa Cruz. Image is courtesy of the Web Page, An On-Line Archive of Digital Images of Rock Art from the Western United States ; the Coso Range contains the largest concentration of petroglyph rock art drawings in North America. Tours to the world-famous Petroglyph sites must be arranged well in advance through the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, California.

Visit the Coso Range petroglyph site with the late Huell Howser, (October 18, 1945-January 7, 2013), host of the long-running PBS series California's Gold, 1991-2012. The Coso Range petroglyph video first aired on California's Gold January 13, 2008.

   

Click on the image for a larger picture. This is a photograph of some of the striking petroglyphs found etched on desert varnished basalt surfaces at Renegade Canyon in the Coso Range. Photograph by Darios Caloss, University California Santa Cruz. Image is courtesy of the Web Page, An On-Line Archive of Digital Images of Rock Art from the Western United States ; Tours to the world-famous petroglyph sites must be arranged well in advance through the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, California.

Visit the Coso Range petroglyph site with the late Huell Howser, (October 18, 1945-January 7, 2013), host of the long-running PBS series California's Gold, 1991-2012. The Coso Range petroglyph video first aired on California's Gold January 13, 2008.

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