FT 3: A Visit to CSU’s Desert Studies Center at Zzyzx in the Mojave National Preserve

Monday, August 2, 2021

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM Pacific

Session Organizer(s)

Anne Kelly

Desert Studies Center, California State University Fullerton
Baker, CA, USA

Volunteer(s)

Jennifer Perez

Session Co-organizers: Jason Wallace, Desert Studies Center, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Baker, CA, Terrence McGlynn, Department of Biology, California State University Dominguez Hills, CA
Trip Itinerary: We’ll begin with Dr. Terry McGlynn, Jason Wallace, and Dr. Anne Kelly live on site at the Desert Studies Center. We’ll introduce ourselves and our unique location. The entire presentation will alternate between video and live Q&A. Some video will have interactive content. • We’ll play a ~10 minute video tour of the facility. It sits on abundant perennial springs in a location climatically similar to (and just south of) Death Valley. This riparian habitat in one of the hottest places on Earth attracts abundant wildlife, including a snake-oil salesman. “Doc” Springer built an illegal health spa here in the 1940s, and this spa became the Desert Studies Center in 1976. The springs also hold the source populations of the endangered Mojave Tui Chub, as well as Shoshone pupfish, and the springs sustain a healthy herd of desert bighorn sheep. We’ll show the springs, the grounds, and the facilities available to educators and researchers visiting to study the Mojave Desert.
• We’ll do a live Q&A after this video.
• (~minute 15) Dr. Joel Abraham will lead a tour of educational opportunities at the Center. He will demonstrate some of his hands-on learning in the field, including inquiry-based lessons on evolution, food webs, and field observation skills. This portion will have some audience engagement through the video. Other professors (several have volunteered - TBD) will give examples of their intensive interdisciplinary field course lessons linking geology, biology, and hydrology.
• Live Q&A with Dr. Abraham and others after this video.
• (~minute 30) Dr. Nicholas Van Buer will lead a "Paleogeographic Tour of Mojave National Preserve" will highlight some interesting geology in the Preserve. His ~3-minute stops will include: • Cambrian (~540 million years ago) sediments in the Providence mountains, including trilobite fossils, and the shallow marine environment (Bahamas-like?) these rocks represent.
• The great unconformity between Paleozoic marine rocks and the 18.78 million Peach Springs Tuff (ash erupted in Arizona, and still hot enough to melt together in California). Paleo-soils along the unconformity developed during the sweltering early Cenozoic period, the last time the earth had more CO2 than we have generated now from burning fossil fuels.
• The mix of Jurassic volcanic rocks and shallow-water sediments in the DSC's own backyard that represent a Nicaragua-style volcanic arc.

• Live Q&A with Dr. Van Buer.
• (~minute 45) Our final segment will feature Jason Wallace and his ~20-year herpetology community study. Nearly every month for two decades, Wallace and his predecessors have surveyed reptile populations over a 55-hectare plot at the Center. This plot represents the common substrates of the Mojave Desert, including sand dunes, boulder fields, and desert pavement. During this period, the region has experienced historically record drought, rainfall, heat, and cold. Dr. Kelly and Mr. Wallace will have a pre-recorded conversation “live” in the plot about the study and its important findings about reptile adaptations and their potential futures under climate change in this extreme environment.
• Closing remarks from CSU Desert Studies Director Dr. Terry McGlynn, and a live Q&A conversation with McGlynn, Wallace, and Kelly.

On this tour, we’ll get a look at the California State University Desert Studies Center field station and its environs. We’ll highlight research and education opportunities at the Center and in the Mojave National Preserve. The Center sits in a biodiversity hotspot surrounded by abundant perennial springs, rugged mountains, sand dunes, salt sinks, and high plateaus. The Center hosts thousands of students and researchers annually from California and around the world. • We’ll start with a quick tour of the Center itself. We show the natural mineral springs that attracted a mid-century snake-oil salesman to build a small health resort. We’ll walk through the quirky resort that now houses the Desert Studies Center and highlight amenities available to visitors.
• Second, we’ll demonstrate some of our hands-on learning opportunities, including field experiences for students at all levels. Demonstrations include one-day mini research projects, as well as an upper-division interdisciplinary environmental science field course.
• Third, we’ll do a three-stop geology road tour. We’ll visit Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic formations, show fossils, and discuss ecology from those periods, and show present-day plant communities.
• Finally, we’ll close with an in-depth tour of a multi-decadal herpetological community study, which demonstrates the effects of geologic substrate and a changing climate on endemic reptile communities living on a characteristic Mojave Desert bajada.

Each of these segments will include a pre-recorded tour with CSU professors and Center staff, followed by facilitated live Q&A.