Death Valley

This article is about the valley. For the park, see Death Valley National Park. For other uses, see Death Valley (disambiguation).

Death Valley
Death Valley as seen from Space Shuttle Columbia in October 1995
Death Valley is located in California
Death Valley
Death Valley
California
Floor elevation−282 ft (−86 m)[1]
Area3,000 square miles (7,800 km2)
Geography
Coordinates36°14′49″N 116°49′01″W / 36.24694°N 116.81694°W / 36.24694; -116.81694 [2]
RiversFurnace Creek
Amargosa River

Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is thought to be the hottest place on Earth during summer.[3]

Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevation in North America, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level.[1] It is 84.6 miles (136.2 km) east-southeast of Mount Whitney – the highest point in the contiguous United States, with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m).[4] On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek in Death Valley,[5] which stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth.[6] This reading, however, and several others taken in that period are disputed by some modern experts.[7]

Lying mostly in Inyo County, California, near the border of California and Nevada, in the Great Basin, east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Death Valley constitutes much of Death Valley National Park and is the principal feature of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve. It runs from north to south between the Amargosa Range on the east and the Panamint Range on the west. The Grapevine Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively.[8] It has an area of about 3,000 sq mi (7,800 km2).[9] The highest point in Death Valley National Park is Telescope Peak, in the Panamint Range, which has an elevation of 11,043 feet (3,366 m).[10]

A group of European-American pioneers got lost here in the winter of 1849–1850, while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, giving Death Valley its grim name. Although only one of the group members died here, they all assumed that the valley would be their grave.[11][12] Death Valley is home to the Timbisha tribe of Native Americans, formerly known as the Panamint Shoshone, who have inhabited the valley for at least the past millennium.

  1. ^ a b "USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) 1 meter Downloadable Data Collection from The National Map 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) – National Geospatial Data Asset (NGDA) National Elevation Data Set (NED)". United States Geological Survey. September 21, 2015. Archived from the original on March 25, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2015.
  2. ^ "Feature Detail Report for: Death Valley". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
  3. ^ "World Heat Record Overturned – A Personal Account". WunderBlog. Retrieved October 24, 2016. Consequently, the WMO assessment is that the official highest recorded surface temperature of 56.7 °C (134 °F) was measured on July 10, 1913 at Greenland Ranch (Death Valley) CA
  4. ^ "Find Distance and Azimuths Between 2 Sets of Coordinates". Federal Communications Commission. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved August 13, 2010. Entered coordinates for Badwater 36-15-01-N, 116-49-33-W; and Mount Whitney 36-34-43-N, 118-17-31-W
  5. ^ "World Meteorological Organization World Weather / Climate Extremes Archive". Archived from the original on January 4, 2013. Retrieved April 14, 2017.
  6. ^ El Fadli, KI; et al. (September 2012). "World Meteorological Organization Assessment of the Purported World Record 58°C Temperature Extreme at El Azizia, Libya (13 September 1922)". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 94 (2): 199. Bibcode:2013BAMS...94..199E. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00093.1.
  7. ^ "'Highest temperature on Earth' recorded in US". BBC News. August 17, 2020. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
  8. ^ Death Valley National Monument: Proposed Natural and Cultural Resources Management Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Statement. U.S. Department of the Interior. 1981. p. 72.
  9. ^ Wright, JW, ed. (2006). The New York Times Almanac (2007 ed.). New York, New York: Penguin Books. p. 456. ISBN 0-14-303820-6.
  10. ^ Cunningham, Bill; Cunningham, Polly (2016). Hiking Death Valley National Park. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 209.
  11. ^ Valley, Mailing Address: P. O. Box 579 Death; Us, CA 92328 Phone: 760 786-3200 Contact. "Frequently Asked Questions – Death Valley National Park (U.S. National Park Service)". National Park Service. Retrieved June 3, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Dotson, Danny. "Research Guides: National Parks: Death Valley National Park". guides.osu.edu. Retrieved June 3, 2024.