Desert Landforms and Surface Processes in the Mojave National Preserve and Vicinity

Landscape features in the Mojave National Preserve are a product of ongoing
processes involving tectonic forces, weathering, and erosion. Long-term
climatic cycles (wet and dry periods) have left a decipherable record preserved
as landform features and sedimentary deposits. This website provides and
introduction to climate-driven desert processes influencing landscape features
including stream channels, alluvial fans, playas (dry lakebeds), dunes, and
mountain landscapes. Bedrock characteristics, and the geometry of past and
ongoing faulting, fracturing, volcanism, and landscape uplift and subsidence
influence the character of processes happening at the surface.

[Summary provided by the USGS.]