Quotes you can best serve civilization by opposing what is generally considered civilized.
Attribution
Wendell Berry
If you've been in the geothermal industry for a decade or more, you'll always spend a lot of time in the middle of nowhere. Getting to these places usually requires a few hours of driving with colleagues whose company goes from surprisingly pleasant to never-ending. An important topic that makes mileage roll in is ranking the best highway driving. Looking at the scenery alone, what routes would you recommend to others?
Over the years, I've developed a strong prejudice against most of the roads west of Denver. Favorite drive is from the Mojave Desert, north of California's Route 395, as it embraces the eastern Sierra Nevada on its way to Reno and beyond. This often unsegrated road is almost full of stunning sights, including the majestic granite walls of the Sierra Nevada mountains over 10,000 feet, alpine meadows and pine forests near Mammoth Mountain, and the vast Mono Basin centered around Lake Mona and its nearby young volcanic landforms and iconic tuff towers (Figure 1). West of Mono Lake is the back door of Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park. To its east is the basin and mountain provinces of 1,000 miles of wide, windy and barren desert.
Figure 1. In the western background is Lake Mono with high mountains. The white spikes in and around the lake are travertine towers.
An obscure part of Rte. No. 395 is about 30 minutes north of Yorke, California, and hours south of Mono Lake, with no one stopping for photos. To the west of rose valley is the southern end of the High Mountains, and to the east are low hills and mountains that are difficult to see at 75 miles per hour, known as the Corso Mountains. An appreciated fact is that the Corso Mountains have been the focal point of civilization for thousands of years.
The densest accumulation of petroglyphs in North America is present in the Corso Mountains. These mountains are also home to the Corso volcanic field. Archaeological surveys of petroglyphs and related features suggest that indigenous peoples most likely came to the area more than 13,000 years ago. They live in small settlements, mostly nomadic peoples, and come and go over time. Aside from the extrapolations archaeologists have made from artifacts found and studied, nothing is known about their culture or their way of life. A common denominator over thousands of years is the fixed location of petroglyphs.
What seems to distinguish this 10,000-year-old "lake country" and the contemporary Southwest Desert from almost anywhere else is characterized by young volcanoes and nearby hot springs. Most of the Corso Mountain petroglyphs are concentrated in the 4.0-2.5 Ma basalt andes flow, located east of the <1.0 Ma Coso volcanic zone (Figures 2 and 3). Some archaeologists argue that the petroglyphs are the product of shamans who served as the spiritual leaders of their people. Others argue that rock art may have played a more practical role due to the large number of hunting images, including staple foods such as antelopes and sheep.
In any case, land was important, if not sacred, to these indigenous peoples. They remain an integral part of the contemporary religious and spiritual practices of the tribes of the region.
Figure 2. Look east on the Coso Geothermal Field Pipeline and see dark brown, faulted, and cut lava flows. Most of the Corso Mountain petroglyphs are in these streams.
Thousands of years after these rock artists left, the Navy identified the area as an ideal place to test weapons and established the China Lake Military Base in 1943. Hundreds of thousands of acres of nearly uninhabited pastures in the desert are sunny all year round perfect for their purposes. By the early 1970s, after a decade as a shape charge specialist at Lake China, Dr. Carl Austin induced the Navy to sign a contract with a private company to develop Austin's presumed large geothermal reservoir volcanic field in Lake Corso. Presumably, these landforms and related features attracted these first humans more than 10,000 years ago. They continue to appeal to us, though for different reasons.
This relatively unknown and easy-to-bypass land in the Mojave Desert has been a link between civilizations for more than 10,000 years. It is not too much to say that it is all landscape paintings. The available food and shelter, especially during the post-glacial period of rain and floods, were also an attraction for the earliest civilizations. The vast landscape attracted troops, but they were of little use to the volcanic fields and associated features until the 1970s, when their potential energy production value was pointed out, when all Americans, including most politicians, knew that cleanliness, renewable energy, and energy independence were worth pursuing. Decades later, many current U.S. politicians no longer know this.
Figure 3. Rock art in the Corso Mountains (from Garfinkle, 2014; https://ancientamerica.com/paradigm-shifts-rock-art-studies-and-the-coso-sheep-cult-of-eastern-california/.
If it is not deliberately destroyed traces of previous civilizations, civilizations tend to be discounted. Fortunately, this is not the case with the Coso Range. The rock art of the Corso Mountains is widely known among local Native American and archaeological communities. But the work is a lot like the obscurity of coso ranges along CA Rte. 395, little known elsewhere. It turns out that the naval base in China Lake is off-limits to tourists. As a result, much of the culturally rich land within the Koso Mountains, especially the Koso volcanic area and its surroundings, remains untouched and has therefore been preserved since the base was created at least in the 1940s. While some may not care about the existence of large military bases, their presence is ironically that the land they maintain is cleaner and better preserved than most other public and private land outside of the western U.S. states and national parks. They keep their footprints to a minimum and do the necessary clean-up work on their own. Similarly, while the production of geothermal fields has changed the level and pressure within this active hydrothermal system, heat sources, crack networks, and surface hydrothermal performance remain and persist long after military and any geothermal operations continue. The local tribe is the only one who is still allowed to enter the sacred Koso Spa, where they regularly travel for spiritual and religious activities. They keep their footprints to a minimum and do the necessary clean-up work on their own. Similarly, while the production of geothermal fields has changed the level and pressure within this active hydrothermal system, heat sources, crack networks, and surface hydrothermal performance remain and persist long after military and any geothermal operations continue. The local tribe is the only one who is still allowed to enter the sacred Koso Spa, where they regularly travel for spiritual and religious activities. They keep their footprints to a minimum and do the necessary clean-up work on their own. Similarly, while the production of geothermal fields has changed the level and pressure within this active hydrothermal system, heat sources, crack networks, and surface hydrothermal performance remain and persist long after military and any geothermal operations continue. The local tribe is the only one who is still allowed to enter the sacred Koso Spa, where they regularly travel for spiritual and religious activities. Crack networks and surface hydrothermal phenomena still exist and will continue long after military and any geothermal operations continue. The local tribe is the only one who is still allowed to enter the sacred Koso Spa, where they regularly travel for spiritual and religious activities. Crack networks and surface hydrothermal phenomena still exist and will continue long after military and any geothermal operations continue. The local tribe is the only one who is still allowed to enter the sacred Koso Spa, where they regularly travel for spiritual and religious activities.
Do civilizations that occupy the same humble land have anything else in common? Is it enlightening or of any value to compare these civilizations? These aborigines used basic tools to carve petroglyphs. We can access all human knowledge on our mobile phones. They prospered for thousands of years and were ruled by shamans. Many of the leaders of our highly educated post-World War II civilization today do so by ignoring science (and logic and reason and... Put a few dollars in their pockets, putting all the creatures on Earth in grave danger. Perhaps civilization is not the best term for one of these groups.
We know very little about these ancient cultures, how they interact and treat each other, and even whether they are belligerent and wage war. But we do know these things about ourselves. A deeper examination of past civilizations may not teach us how to thrive and respect 10,000 years in the same place. But it may help us to do it tomorrow. That would be a big step. There's a lot to learn.
Compiled by Chen Yaoyun by Andrew Sabine