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Do you know geology at all? There's something really interesting going on where the dark rock meets the lighter rock I wouldn't mind examining.

Well, I taught geology for a number of years at the University of Nevada, Reno ;)

The strata here are Early Paleozoic carbonate rocks (limestones and dolostones) containing varying degrees of other kinds of sediment. The ones that are purer tend to be gray or blue-gray. The rusty or brownish units contain more sand and silt as well, including lots of iron, which oxidizes to give those colors. The strata are dipping obliquely toward us, giving "dip-slope" exposures. I've not been up to inspect the contact closely, but the contrast you're talking about appears to be where a small fault has juxtaposed the blue-gray unit in the foreground with an overlying silty, rusty-colored unit. I've marked the fault and where the blue-gray unit appears to show up again slightly upstream where it's been dropped down. (A "fault", of course, is a boundary along which rock units have moved.) So, the relative motion on this fault is up on the side toward us, down away. (If the note box would let me put in arrows I'd show them!)

Thanks for your interest!

So, yeah, you probably know a little bit about what you're looking at here. :-)

I'd assume the fault is related to extension. Death Valley's still in the Basin and Range province, right? Anyway, this is an extremely pretty spot. Thanks for the information.