Going through Searles Valley

Pinnacles

Recipe how to make a unique Tufa Pinnacles :
– travel back 10,000 to 100,000 years,
– capture snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada as it flows toward Death Valley through a chain og glacial lakes,
– accumulate highly concentrated carbonated brine in Searles Lake,
– fracture the bottom of the lake with upsurges from underground hot springs,
– allow the calcium-rich groundwater to bubble up through the lakebed fissures,
– combine the groundwater with the carbonated brine to produce calcium carbonate,

Simmer ingridients over the years to:
– bond these ordinary calcium carbonate deposits with algae colonies,
– watch the small hollow tubes grow to become the most spectacular tufa formations in North America!!!!

… and a few more pictures of the desert around