Striped Butte Fossils and Spring Flora

Striped Butte is the dominant landform of Butte Valley, and is, as the name implies, striated with different colors of rock. When I was here the spring bloom was on its tail end, but still made for some nice macro pictures. All of the visible fossils are marine organisms, mostly sponges and coral, so apologies if the title misled you to massive jurassic bones and skulls. Other formations in the park, including the Lost Burro formation and the Tin Mountain Limestone include larger corals and sponges, also pleistocene lake deposits include Mastodons and other larger fossils.

The rock that builds Striped Butte is limestone from the Permian Era (270 million years) Anvil Spring Formation, which is oddly out of place just near the Precambrian dolomite that lies under much of the region at no older than 1.8 billion years, exposed in the mountains nearby. The Anvil Spring limestone layer contains entire fossilized reefs, and fossils of coral and sponge are quite common, the two photographed are just feet from the end of the road and there were plenty more scattered about. Nearby, though not exposed in Butte Valley is the Eureka Quartzite, which covered the ancient North American coastline in up to 200 meters of coarse quartz sand. This gradually became quartzite, and the formation is exposed from the eastern reaches of Death Valley up to central Nevada in various locations. The top of Pyramid Peak in the Funeral Mountains is white because this Eureka Quartzite forms its summit.

Looking west toward Redlands Canyon

Coral Fossils from when Death Valley was a tropical reef near the equator. 

Sponge fossils from another formation. 

Some quartz 

More quartzite. I believe this may be a chunk of Eureka Quartzite.

This flower was really small.

Another really small flower.

Quartz chunk.

I was pleased to find this lone lithic scatter flake from toolmaking.

The east face of Striped Butte.