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Cucomongo Wash
FN5. Location/Access:(37o 20.930’N; 117o 46.862’W) This view down the strike of the northern Death Valley Fault zone can be reached from the Eureka Valley by traveling 7.8 miles northeast from the main Death Valley-Big Pine Road on the Eureka Valley Road to the Cucomongo Wash junction. Then go 1.4 miles north towards Fish Lake Valley, stop and look behind you (south) up Cucomongo Wash. This is also accessible from the north by traveling 36 miles east from Big Pine on CA 168 to the Mono County line and then going 11.4 miles south on a very good gravel road to this point.
Best Time: Early afternoon, all year.
Geology: The is the best place to view the northern Death Valley Fault zone (NDVFZ) as you are looking directly down a strike canyon and there are numerous shutter ridges and severely eroded rocks within the fault zone. Traveling up Cucomongo Wash about a half mile from the junction (to about 37o 20.490’N; 117o 45.602W) will put you close to many ridges and crush zones within the NDVFZ. The rocks on the east side of the fault zone are the Jurassic Bear Creek quartz monzonite pluton and the rocks on the west are a complex of Cambrian formations (Bonanza King, Polito, Harkless and Saline Valley) (Joseph & Taylor, 1987, Plate 1A). Offset rates along this portion of the fault zone ( about 3 mm/yr) are less than slip rates (4 to 5 mm/yr) farther south (Frankel, et. al., 2007).
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