SUSAN SORRELLS / Special to the PVTGary Scott and Luis Gilbert check out the compressed beds of volcanic ash that may be found around Shoshone. Advertisement

SHOSHONE, Calif. -- Almost every visitor who explores Death Valley and the Amargosa River basin is struck by the beauty of the terrain.

Few, however, are aware this terrain also holds a key to mysteries surrounding the formation of the planet and the evolution of life itself.

Even more intriguing is that this same terrain may also hold a key to discovering whether there is life on other planets.

Scattered throughout this breathtaking scenery are fossils and formations that contain clues, sometimes preserved for over a billion years, which indicate how the planet, and life on it, evolved.

These fossils and formations, also reveal, or at least hint at, the set of conditions that led to the explosion of multi-celled creatures from one-celled microbes that had been the only form of life for more than a billion years. This transition took place around 1.2 billion years ago, and many researchers feel it may have been triggered by global glaciations called "snowball earth." Much of the research swirling around this theory took place in this area.

Because the Death Valley and Amargosa basin areas are so rich in geologic features, they have become a mecca for geologists from throughout the world.

These scholars have many monikers -- structural geologists, geobiologists, paleomagnetists, astrobiologists, to name a few -- but they all make their way to this destination to spend their days in the hills in an attempt to better understand the earth's secrets.

Two geologists in particular, Lauren A. Wright and Bennie W. Troxel, spent their entire careers mapping the mountains, presenting papers about their discoveries and leading national and international field trips for students and scholars.

Shoshone was their home base.

These two researchers were so passionate about the area, and their work so fascinating, that they attracted other scholars who devoted their careers to the area.

Serpa and Pavlis

Two of these scholars were Laura Serpa and Terry Pavlis. Strangely enough, Serpa's hometown was another Shoshone, this one in Idaho. She got her BA and MS at the University of Utah, then ventured east to Cornell University in New York where she earned her doctorate.

While she was at the University of Utah she met her husband, Terry Pavlis, who was getting his Ph.D there in structural geology.

Serpa originally came to Shoshone to interview Troxel but couldn't shake her fascination for the area, so she went on to study the evolution and faulting of Death Valley, Amargosa Valley and Chicago Valley.

Both geologists became professors at the University of New Orleans and in 1989 started bringing their students to Shoshone on a regular basis.

Although their fascination for the region grew, the cold nights, sand storms and unexpected rains, which are common occurrences in the desert during the winter months, convinced them that they needed a permanent facility as a shelter from the harsh desert elements.

They approached several residents of Shoshone Village and made arrangements to lease the historic mining quarters built by Southern California Minerals in the early 1950s. They formed a nonprofit organization -- Shoshone Education and Research, or SHEAR -- and upgraded the facilities to accommodate groups and classes.

In 1996 Darrel Cowan, who had just finished the chairmanship of Geological Sciences at University of Washington, and Marli Miller, at the time an instructor at University of Wisconsin but now at University of Oregon, joined the SHEAR board.

With the addition of these two members, the reputation of the center continued to grow, and soon university groups from throughout the United States and the world, such as Columbia, Princeton, University of California Riverside, MIT and the University of Salisbury, were making their headquarters at SHEAR.

As Cowan described it, "The SHEAR Center has enabled students and faculty to experience the geology of this very rich area in a more comprehensive way. They can study, converse and do field work without worrying about the logistics of camping with the elements."

Thanksgiving convocation

Over the recent Thanksgiving weekend, several geologists, their students and supporters joined together to upgrade the historic buildings.

Pavlis, Serpa and Cowan spearheaded the effort, which they jokingly called "Habitat for Geologists." True to form, during the same weekend several geologists from the University of Alicante in Spain, whom Cowan had met in Sardinia at a conference sponsored by the International Association of Sedimentologists this past summer, arrived in the area.

They were joined by Gary Scott, a paleomagnetist from UC Berkelely who was collaborating with Luis Gilbert, a Fulbright scholar from Spain.

The two were returning to the area to study the Tecopa lakebeds and the Shoshone Ash, which was created by prehistoric volcanic eruptions at Mammoth Lakes in California and Yellowstone in Wyoming more than 650,000 years ago.

This volcanic ash has recorded paleo-earthquakes as well as recording the changes in the magnetic fields of the earth, which tend to flip every 700,000 years.

The study of magnetic fields in the Amargosa basin and throughout the world has been a key in determining whether a snowball earth actually occurred before the explosion of life.

The visitors from Spain were so enthralled by the "world class geology" of the Amargosa basin that one exclaimed that if the Amargosa River were in Spain, it would be an internationally recognized geopark -- an area designated by the United Nations (UNESCO) as "a nationally protected area containing a number of geological heritage sites of particular importance, rarity and or aesthetic appeal."

A geopark achieves its goals through conservation, education and geotourism.

If the Amargosa basin indeed acquired this international designation, which many feel it deserves, it and the SHEAR Center would become an even more widely recognized international destination.