Talk:Owens Valley

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Added the WikiProject Southern California and WikiProject Los Angeles banners since the Owens Valley has been forever altered by the City of Los Angeles diverting the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, not to mention that they own approximately 2/3 of the land in the Owens Valley. -- Gmatsuda (talk) 11:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 11:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

One confusing sentence
Fascinating article. Such a beautiful place. There is one confusing sentence - the third sentence from the end: "At this time 2008 Los Angeles has rewatered the lower Owens River." The citation at the end goes to an NPR report from December 7, 2006. I'm not sure if I should change the date or just put parentheses around "2008." --Little Flower Eagle (talk) 20:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Serial reversions; without any discussion here.
Editor User:71.219.184.69 (& their previous IP #s in log here next to my User:Look2See1 ones) are continue to revert while refusing to use talk-page for solutions.
 * I again respectfully invite editor User:71.219.184.69 (& former User:71.219.172. 174 etc... regardless of IP# used) to discuss issues on this talk-page, and not repetitively use same poor faith, accusatory-abusive language, & incorrect assumptions terms -Only in edit summary. Owens Valley deserves the best.--- Look2See1  t a l k →  01:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Geology Cleanup Needed
Someone with some time and good resources needs to clean up the Geology section. For example, there are almost no glacial moraines along the border of the Valley, but there is a description that would indicate they abound. The valley is mostly bounded (on both sides) by alluvial fans, and there is no mention of that at all.

Similarly, the discussion of volcanism is very sparse. I've edited out the assertion that the valley is part of the Long Valley Caldera (see the map at that page to understand why). But there is indeed a large amount of volcanic activity remnants in the valley, and that should be discussed. I should note that the statement about things near Little Lake doesn't really belong in the Owens Valley page, since that's actually part of Rose Valley, not Owens Valley. Doug (talk) 05:24, 3 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I think there are a substantial number of moraines along the border, at least if "border" is interpreted generously enough. Most of the creeks descending to the valley from the Sierras are associated with moraines.  Many don't reach lower than 8000 ft, but the larger ones, for example on Lone Pine Creek, come down to near 6000 feet.  In any case I encourage you to fix any errors you find here. Looie496 (talk) 14:27, 3 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I am unaware of any "moraine" that exists along, or at the end of the valley of Lone Pine Creek. There is a substantial alluvial fan from that creek's valley opening. Since I have property in the area, I'm quite familiar with the terrain; if you would like to point to a source showing the moraine, I'd be interested.  Doug (talk) 04:03, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The moraine is shown on the USGS Lone Pine quadrangle geological map, https://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/2617/pdf/i2617.pdf. (Moraine is labeled QM on the map.) As the map shows, much of the Whitney Portal area is built on moraine, and the lower part of the Meysan Lakes Trail runs over moraine. Looie496 (talk) 17:55, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * But that's not in the Owens Valley, is it? The fact that there are moraines up in the cañons is different from moraines that actually are in the Owens Valley itself (such as the ones up by Bishop Creek). Thus the statement, "The western flank of much of the valley has large moraines coming off the Sierra Nevada" is not accurate. Indeed, as any aerial view shows, the dominant feature of the western and eastern flanks are the alluvial fans that spread out from the mouths of the cañons. This is my point here. Doug (talk) 15:59, 12 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I notice that my edit removing the Long Valley Caldera from the Owens Valley has also been reverted by someone, on the ostensible basis that the Owens Valley includes anything that has the Owens River in it. This is silly, of course; there's a REASON the Caldera is called the Long Valley Caldera, namely that the Caldera forms Long Valley, a geographically and geologically distinct valley from the Owens Valley. This is the sort of geology "fact" that needs to be cleaned up here.Doug (talk) 15:59, 12 September 2017 (UTC)


 * These sorts of disputes should be settled by verifiable facts supported by reliable sources. Can you come up with some supporting your view? —hike395 (talk) 15:11, 13 September 2017 (UTC)


 * This request misses an essential point: what "reliable sources" did the editor who made the original claim about the Long Valley Caldera rely upon? Reference to a simple MAP shows that the Long Valley Caldera is to the northwest of the Owens Valley. The claim that the Caldera is IN the valley is a claim that must be supported by a "reliable source". No such source was offered; there was simply an assertion made at the time of the reversion that the Owens Valley must be synonymous with the Owens River watercourse. Lacking a "reliable source" for this claim, I have removed it, and substituted the geographically verifiable notation that there is a directional relationship between the two. Doug (talk) 17:08, 22 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Since there do not seem to be any reliable sources supporting either view, I just dropped the sentence from the article. —hike395 (talk) 10:49, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Which desert?
Is Owens Valley officially a part of the Great Basin Desert or is it in / on the edge of the Mojave Desert ? Grutman (talk) 10:33, 18 July 2019 (UTC)


 * There's no official single definition of the Great Basin Desert. Even according to the multiple definitions, the Owens Valley seems to overlap both deserts:
 * If you take the "lacking Larrea tridentata" definition, all "but the southeast corner" of Owens Valley is in the Great Basin Desert.
 * If you use the definition of the Central Basin and Range Ecoregion from the USGS, the Great Basin Desert stops at around 36.5°N, while the southern tip of the Owens Valley is near Coso, at about 36.0°N. By this definition, the southern third of Owens Valley is in the Mojave Desert (south of Owens Lake).
 * Hope this helps. —hike395 (talk) 13:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)