Formation of California's Salton Sea in 1905-07 was not "accidental"

2020 Desert Symposium Field Guide and Proceedings | April 26th, 2020

It is widely thought that the Salton Sea was created accidentally in 1905-07 because of engineering negligence in the diversion of Colorado River water for agricultural u

It is widely thought that the Salton Sea was created accidentally in 1905-07 because of engineering negligence in the diversion of Colorado River water for agricultural use in California’s Imperial Valley. This is a misconception. Scientific data and historical records establish that formation of the Salton Sea was not accidental. The lake formed during 1905-07 in the same manner that numerous other large Salton Basin lakes did for at least tens of thousands of years from the Late Pleistocene through the late 19th century: as a result of the lower Colorado River’s natural hydrodynamic regime, floodplain morphodynamics, and established avulsion style in combination with changes in streamflow attributable to regional hydroclimate. A large body of scientific and historical evidence indicates the 1905-07 Colorado River flooding into the Salton Basin and the creation of a large lake there would have occurred regardless of man-made modifications to the river’s natural levee and distributary channels. In fact, the flooding would likely have been even worse in the absence of human intervention.

From Desert Wasteland to Agricultural Wonderland: The Story of Water and Power

Imperial Irrigation District (IID) | October 3rd, 1977

From past patterns to future potential: using historical ecology to inform river restoration on an intermittent California river

Landscape Ecology (Springer) | August 30th, 2015

Although human actions have greatly impacted the river’s extent, baseflow hydrology, and riparian habitats, many ecological attributes persist in more limited form, in

Although human actions have greatly impacted the river’s extent, baseflow hydrology, and riparian habitats, many ecological attributes persist in more limited form, in large part facilitated by these fundamental hydrogeological controls. By drawing on a heretofore untapped dataset of spatially explicit and long-term environmental data, these findings improve our understanding of the river’s historical and current conditions and allow the derivation of reach-differentiated restoration and management opportunities that take advantage of local potential.

From the Sierra to the Sea: The Ecological History of the San Francisco Bay-Delta Watershed

Bay Institute | July 15th, 2003

A vast watershed connects the mountain streams surrounding California’s Central Valley with San Francisco Bay and the ocean beyond. Over the course of the last two cent

A vast watershed connects the mountain streams surrounding California’s Central Valley with San Francisco Bay and the ocean beyond. Over the course of the last two centuries, much of the natural productivity, biodiversity and ecological integrity of the watershed has been destroyed by modifying the environment without fully understanding the long-term environmental consequences. Long the site of some of the nation’s most intensive conflicts over the use of land and water resources, this system is now emerging as the focus of one of the most ambitious ecological restoration efforts ever undertaken in the United States. This report was designed to provide a coherent and defensible ecological framework and information base for restoration. The need for such an historical, broad-scale perspective on system ecology stems from two fundamental principles of ecological restoration - the need to manage toward a natural template and to manage at ecosystem and landscape levels.

Geology and Ground Water Features of the Butte Valley Region Siskiyou County California

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | January 14th, 1960

The Butte Valley region includes an area of about 600 square miles, between long 121°37' and 122°10' W. and lat 41°38' and 42° N., in northern Siskiyou County, Cali

The Butte Valley region includes an area of about 600 square miles, between long 121°37' and 122°10' W. and lat 41°38' and 42° N., in northern Siskiyou County, Calif. U.S. Highway 97, connecting Weed with Klamath Falls, traverses the region in a northeasterly direction, and the Southern Pacific railroad serves several small farming communities in Butte Valley. The region is near the west edge of the Modoc plateau. It includes along its western border a part of the Cascade Range, Butte and Red Rock Valleys, the Oklahoma district, and a prominent northwestward-trending fault block (the Mahogany Mountain ridge) which separates Butte Valley fro-n the Oklahoma district and the Lower Klamath Lake marshland. Geologic units have been divided into two groups: Volcanic rocks which range in age from Eocene to Recent; and sedimentary rocks which range in age from Pliocene to Recent. From oldest to youngest the volcanic rocks include: (a) Predominantly andesitic lavas and pyroclastic rocks comprising the volcanic rocks of the "Western Cascades"; (b) older volcanic rocks of the "High Cascades"; (c) basaltic flows and pyroclastic rocks east of the Cascade Rang; and (d) younger volcanic rocks of the "High Cascades." Volcanic rocks of the "Western Cascades" are the oldest rocks in the region. They range in age from late Eocene to late Miocene. These rocks are chiefly pyroxene andesite, and andesitic tuff-breccia, but include lesser amounts of basalt, rhyolite, and associated pyroclastic rocks. In most places they are badly decomposed and less permeable than the younger volcanic rocks. They are best exposed in the Klamath River canyon, where the prevailing dips are to the east and northeast. The angle of dip diminishes in these directions from about 15° near the base of the series to nearly zero where the rocks disappear beneath a younger series of volcanic rocks designated on plate 1 as the older volcanic rocks of the "High Cascades." The volcanic rocks of the "Western Cascades" are at least 12,000 feet thick. The older volcanic rocks of the "High Cascades," which UE conformably overlie the volcanic rocks of the "Western Cascades," are Pliocene and Pleistocene (?) in age. They consist chiefly of basalt and basaltic andesite that spread out in successive sheets from a chain of northward-trendinr shield volcanoes built along the crest of the Cascade Range. Here the topography is almost wholly constructional, and even the oldest cones retain much of their original shape. East of the Cascade Range several large dome-shaped lava cones and most of the northwestward-trending fault block called Mahogany. Mountain ridge are composed of volcanic rocks of similar lithology. In most places the older volcanic rocks of the "High Cascades" are highly fractured and moderately permeable; they serve as a large intake area and groundwater reservoir. East of the Cascade Range, basalt of Pleistocene and Recent age issued from vents and fissures and spread out over alluvial deposits and lava sediments in the southern parts of Butte and Red Rock Valleys and the Lover Klamath Lake marshland. One of these flows the Butte Valley basalt forms the most productive water-bearing formation in the region. In the southwestern part of Butte Valley, where it is overlain by about 20 to 60 feet; of alluvial materials and lake deposits, this basaltic flow is an excellent aquifer. Yields of more than 100 gpm (gallons per minute) for each foot of drawdown are common and yields of 1,000 gpm for each foot of drawdown have been recorded. Late Pleistocene and Recent lava flows and cinder cones in the Cascade Range and extensive basaltic extrusions near Sharp Mountain are important chiefly as recharge (intake) areas for ground water. Sedimentary deposits range in age from Pliocene to Recent. The oldest of these deposits is a massive fresh-water diatomite which underlies a large part of the Oklahoma district. The diatomite is impermeable, but wells penetrating interbedded sand or cindery lapilli lenses in the diatomite may yield moderate quantities of water. Glacial moraines and fluvioglacial outwash deposits of late Pleistocene age occur near the mouth of Butte Creek canyon. These deposits are unstratified or poorly sorted and commonly are only slightly permeable. Semi-consolidated lake deposits, ranging in age from Pleistocene to Recent, underlie most of the Butte Valley plain. West of U.S. Highway 97 these deposits are composed principally of impermeable layers of clay, diatomaceous clay, and volcanic ash. However, east of U.S. Highway 97, and especially near the eastern border of the valley, the lake deposits contain a larger percentage of sand, and permeabilities range from about 50 to 230 gpd per square foot as determined from tests made in 3 pumped wells. Alluvial-fan deposits on the west side of Butte Valley range from Pleistocene to Recent in age. They are composed of poorly sorted rock debris derived from the Cascade Range and are only slightly permeable. Areas mapped as alluvium include thin beds of gravel, sand, dry, and peat covering older lake deposits in Butte Valley and the area around Lower Klamath Lake. They include also small playa deposits, poorly sorted alluvium collected in broad, shallow basins and depressions, and alluvluir in present intermittent stream channels. In most places alluvium forms a thin cover resting on lava flows or lake deposits. In general the alluviuir is slightly permeable and of little hydrologic importance except in the southwestern part of Butte Valley, where it consists of sand and gravel, ranging in thickness from 20 to 60 feet and rests on the Butte Valley basalt. In this area the alluvium probably yields moderate quantities of water to wells. Elsewhere the alluvium is largely above the saturated zone and is important chiefly because of its ability to absorb precipitation and surface runoff which percolate through it into underlying rocks. Linear wedge-shaped talus strips, formed at the foot of precipitous fault scarps, are partly concealed beneath and probably interfinger with alluvium and lake deposits. The blocky talus debris is very permeable and, where saturated, yields water readily to wells. East of the Cascade Range, block faulting is the dominant structural feature. The faults are normal and displacement is almost wholly vertical. Vertical displacements range from a few feet along minor faults to perhaps several thousand feet along major faults; there are no appreciable horizontal displacements. Butte Valley is a complexly downfaulted basin nearly surrounded by well-preserved fault scarps of late Pleistocene and Recent age. Groundwater moves eastward and northeastward across the valley into the buried talus and volcanic rocks that compose the Mahogany Mountain ridge, and may flow through that ridge to supply recharge to the area to the east. Th« direction of water movement in Red Rock Valley and in the Oklahoma district was not determined. Records of water-level fluctuations in observation wells show that water levels recover each winter, and during the period 1951-54 there was little overall change in the height of yearly recovery. Ground-water recharge in the southern part of the region occurs mainly by seepage loss from perennial spring-fed streams and unlined canals along the western margin of Butte Valley, by seepage loss from small spring-fed streams that discharge onto alluvial fans, and along the north, west, and south sides of the valley by lateral movement from the volcanic rocks. In irrigated tracts throughout the area some recharge probably occurs by deep percolation of irrigation water. Ground water is discharged by natural means and by pumping. In Butte Valley about 21,000 acre-feet of ground water was used for irrigation in 1953. In Red Rock Valley pumping of ground water for irrigation purposes was negligible. In the Oklahoma district ground water for irrigation and domestic requirements is supplied by springs and flowing and pumped wells. The quality of most of the ground water in the region is satisfactory for most uses, but in the east-central part of Butte Valley some wells yield water containing high percentages of sodium, probably derived from buried playa deposits. The chemical quality of the surface water is such that it can be used for most purposes. However, analyses of water from Meiss Lake show high concentrations of dissolved solids, ranging from 473 to 1,380 ppm, and high percentages of sodium, ranging from 75 to 91. Here the salts have been concentrated by evaporation of the lake water.

Gold Extraction Processes

Scientific American | October 31st, 1896

FROM very early times the ancients were attracted the beautiful color, the brilliant luster and the indestructibility of gold, and spared no pains in the endeavor to acqu

FROM very early times the ancients were attracted the beautiful color, the brilliant luster and the indestructibility of gold, and spared no pains in the endeavor to acquire it. In the code of Menes, who reigned in Egypt some 2,000 years before the time of Moses, the ratio of value between gold and silver is mentioned, one part of gold being declared equal in value to two and a half parts of silver, and it is, therefore, clear that the extraction of both metals from the deposits containing them must have been carried on before that time. It is indeed probable that gold was the first metal observed and collected, since it occurs in fragments of all sizes in loose sand, and the operations of collecting the larger pieces and melting them together are so simple. Among the rock carvings of Upper Egypt there are several illustrative of the art of washing auriferous sands by stirring and working them up by the hand in hollowed-out stone basins, and subsequently melting the gold in simple furnaces with the aid of mouth blowpipes. The earliest of these carvings is supposed to date back to about 2,500 B.C. However, in ancient times, gold appears to have been mainly derived from India, and that country continued to supply most of the gold used in Europe until the discovery of America by Columbus.

Gone. Decades of greed, neglect, corruption, and bad politics led to last year’s Paradise fire, the worst in California history. It should never have happened. It will happen again.

California Sunday Magazine | July 31st, 2019

By the time I made it to Paradise, the deadliest wildfire in California history was four months past, and the burned-out ridge between the two river canyons was pouring

By the time I made it to Paradise, the deadliest wildfire in California history was four months past, and the burned-out ridge between the two river canyons was pouring rain. I was riding the Skyway, the road from Chico to Paradise, flatland to hilltop, trying to understand what forces had conspired last November to create a blaze of such anger that it took the lives of 85 people and destroyed 19,000 structures. I had puzzled out enough disasters to know that tragedy was a force of intricate construction. It wasn’t one detached act that materialized as tragedy but myriad smaller acts — some incidental, some accidental, others malevolent — that lined up in perfect continuity. Had one circumstance in the sequence lost its footing, a cosmic stumble, the next circumstance would have never hitched on, and tragedy would have been averted.

Harnessing California's Waters: The Completion of the First Stage of the Pit River Power Project

Scientific American | April 1st, 1923

California is now the greatest hydro-electric power State in the Union. Over one-fifth of all the electric power generated by American water is produced in Californi

California is now the greatest hydro-electric power State in the Union. Over one-fifth of all the electric power generated by American water is produced in California. Last year, according to figures announced by Engineer H. D. McGlashan of the water resources branch of the United States Geological Survey, 3,227,262,000 kilowatt-hours were produced by water power in California. New York, which comes next with 14.72 per cent of the total. made 2,203,564,000 kilowatthours. On Saturday, September 30, 1922, an important step in California's electrification was carried out. On this date the constantly flowing waters of the Fall River were diverted through a tunnel and dropped 454 feet through steel penstocks to the Pit River Power Plant No. 1 .

Helium isotope studies in the Mojave Desert, California: implications for groundwater chronology and regional seismicity

Chemical Geology (Elsevier) | November 7th, 2003

Historical Ecology and Landscape Change in the Central Laguna de Santa Rosa

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | May 12th, 2017

This study synthesizes a diverse array of data to examine the ecological patterns, ecosystem functions, and hydrology that characterized a central portion of the Laguna d

This study synthesizes a diverse array of data to examine the ecological patterns, ecosystem functions, and hydrology that characterized a central portion of the Laguna de Santa Rosa during the mid-19th century, and to analyze landscape changes over the past 150 years. The primary purpose of this study was to help guide restoration actions and other measures aimed at reducing nutrient loads within this portion of the Laguna de Santa Rosa watershed. Prior to Euro-American modification of the landscape, the Laguna de Santa Rosa (hereafter, “Laguna”) supported a diverse and extensive array of wetland and riparian habitat types ranging from tule marshes and willow forests to wet meadows and vernal pools. As one of the largest wetland complexes in northern California, the Laguna was a productive ecosystem that was home to vast numbers of resident and migratory birds, fish, mammals, and other wildlife. It was this diversity and productivity that made the Laguna a focal element of the Santa Rosa Plain for generations of native Pomo people, and for 19th-century Spanish and American settlers. Today, the Laguna continues to provide vital habitat for a host of native plants and animals, and has been recognized by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands as a Wetland of International Importance (Ramsar 2017). However, as the population of the area has grown and land use modifications have intensified over the past 150 years, the Laguna has experienced a variety of impacts stemming from urban and agricultural development. These impacts include substantial loss of native wetland and riparian habitats, channelization of streams, alterations to streamflow and sediment dynamics, invasion of non-native species, and water quality impairments. While the Laguna still exhibits elements of its former character, the modern Laguna represents a landscape profoundly altered by over a century and a half of both direct and indirect modifications. As residents and land managers look to improve the ecological health of the Laguna and restore lost ecological functions, an understanding of what the landscape was like in the recent past, and how it has changed over time, provides a valuable starting place for envisioning its future potential.