Saratoga Springs

Geology: Saratoga Springs is probably the best spring in Death Valley. The large pools are partially the result of talc miners adding a berm (probably in the 1950’s) but all of the buildings and non-native vegetation were removed by the early 1970’s. The flow of the springs was once measured to be 48,000 liters per day (Robinson, 1957). The flow of underground water in the Death Valley-southwest Nevada region is very complex, but with the large quantities of fractured limestone, faults and gravel-filled basins, long distance migration of groundwater is quite possible. As Death Valley is the lowest land around and Saratoga Springs is at the bottom of the southern end of the valley with the geologic requisites mentioned above, its existence should not be a surprise. The ponds are the home of a species of pupfish, Cyprinodon saratogensis (Miller, 1950). The existence of these small fish (Brown, 1971) in diverse localities throughout the Death Valley region establishes both dramatic recent climate change and the existence of a significant system of desert lakes and rivers that were present as recently as the most recent glacial maximum approximately 18,000 years ago. However, the fish found here and in Salt Creek and Devil's Hole have speciated since their respective isolation. Recent data (Knott, et. al., 2008) establishes that divergence of the species may have begun in the mid-Pliocene and at that time Death Valley was not connected to either the Mojave or Amargosa Rivers. The springs were a major locus of talc mining after World War Two (Wright, 1950). This is one of the best places to closely examine the 1.08 billion-year-old diabase sills (Heamon & Grotzinger, 1992) and the Crystal Spring formation. The best access is just northeast of the large ponds, a very short hike from the parking area.