Mojave Desert History

The History of the Mojave desert

What does the name “Mojave” mean? The Mojaves were a small North American Indian tribe that lived in the same area as what’s now called the Mojave desert. They spoke a Yuman dialect and were friends with all the other Indian groups on that land. The other native tribes in the Mojave were called Piutes and Chemehuevi. They didn’t have a formal government . They had common Indian rituals and beliefs. An example is that they believed that dreams were meaningful to one’s life. When a Mojave Indian would die, the tribe would cremate that body and burn all of his or her’s property. There are now approximately 2,000 Mojave
Indians remaining in the Colorado River Reservation.

What is a desert? It’s
The problem with getting anywhere on this mountain is that it’s for experienced hikers because of its rocks. Clark Mountain has given miners over four million dollars worth of silver, copper, and gold. Even now mining goes on in certain parts of the mountain. The topography of the Mojave desert is known as basin and range. Its mountains abruptly rise up from the desert ground and areas that separate those mountains are called basins. In the city of Soda Springs, there is Soda Dry Lake which is the largest dry lake in the Mojave. It’s not that dry because it’s near the Mojave River Sink, the place where the
Mojave river begins to flow underground. The surface of the lake is thus muddy and wet. Unlike Death Valley, which has the country’s lowest point on land (282 feet below sea level) and the hottest temperature recorded in America (134 degrees), cities in the
Mojave Desert average a summer high temperature of 90 degrees and rarely get into triple digits. That’s because it’s lowest elevation is 2,000 feet and it’s highest is 5,000.(1)
This also means that the winter temperatures are colder than land which is closer to sea level. Below freezing temperatures, especially during the night, are common in
The river was formed thousands of years ago when the climate was much wetter than it is today. The
Mojave river used to empty into the ancient Lake Manix. It also was the second biggest river in the region with only the Colorado river being bigger. The differences from the two sides of the Mojave river are quite large considering that both are close to each other.
Eastern Mojave is larger than Western. The West is more sandy and flat than the East.
The East has tall mountains and is only flat land appears between those mountains.
Rocks in the East have been estimated to have formed 150 million years ago. Because the land is different on the other sides of the river, the types of animals and plants also differ. In the northern part of the East Mojave desert is a large area of extinct volcanoes. Some date back to ten million years ago! Dried streambeds are dangerous because just a little amount of rain can cause them to fill up quickly. The rushing waters bring with them materials from areas far away from where they’re found. Another unique feature in the East Mojave is something called desert varnish. It’s a shiny