Fossil Falls and the Vanished River

North of Ridgecrest, near Little Lake, is a waterfall with no water. It has not flowed for thousands of years, and yet you can see exactly where the torrent once poured. This is Fossil Falls.

During the last ice ages, glacial meltwater from the Sierra Nevada fed a mighty ancient version of the Owens River that ran south through this chain of desert basins. Here the river met black basalt lava, erupted from the nearby Coso volcanic field between about four hundred thousand and ten thousand years ago. The rushing water, armed with hard granite cobbles that spun in its whirlpools, drilled and polished the volcanic rock into smooth bowls, curves, and glassy potholes.

When the climate warmed and the river dried, this sculpted stone was left behind, a fossil of moving water. People camped along the falls when the river still ran, some as far back as ten thousand or more years ago. They came in part for the obsidian, the volcanic glass from the Coso field, which they chipped into razor sharp blades and traded across great distances.

Today the Bureau of Land Management protects the site.