When I first heard about Conglomerate Mesa, located on BLM land right outside of Death Valley, I had no idea how much ground a single episode could cover. This one's got everything, including what makes a place a desert, a little bit of geology, Joshua trees, the General Mining Act of 1872, juniper pinyon ecosystems, the rain shadow effect, a very lovable, fuzzy-tailed rodent, a daisy that is only found on about one square mile of the entire planet, soil that is alive, the historic and contemporary importance of this mesa to Native people, and the fight to keep a Canadian gold mining company from quite literally digging the whole place up and spraying cyanide all over it.

Some useful links: 

Friends of the Inyo

Center for Biological Diversity on Conglomerate Mesa 

Cyanide Use in Gold Mining 

National Geographic on Deserts

1961 UC Berkeley Video on Native People Processing Pine Nuts 

What is the Great Basin? 

Smithsonian Article on Joshua Trees 

Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands 

"Big Four" American Deserts

Conglomerate (Rock) 

Sierra Club on Conglomerate Mesa 

Inyo Rock Daisy LA Times Article 

You can find me on Patreon at www.patreon.com/michellefullner

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My website is www.goldenstatenaturalist.com 

The theme song is called "i dunno" by grapes and can be found here.