Places of interest in the Death Valley area Places of interest in the Death Valley area Places of interest in the Death Valley area are mostly located within Death Valley National Park in eastern California. Artist's Drive rises up to the top of an alluvial fan fed by a deep canyon cut into the Black Mountains. Artist's Palette is an area on the face of the Black Mountains noted for a variety of rock colors. These colors are caused by the oxidation of different metals (iron compounds produce red, pink and yellow, decomposition of tuff-derived mica produces green, and manganese produces purple). Called the Artist Drive Formation, the
Geology of the Death Valley area laterally over the surface, laying down cobbles, sand, and mud. Outcrops of the resulting conglomerates, sandstone, and mudstone of the Titus Canyon Formation can be observed in road cuts at Daylight Pass on Daylight Pass Road, which becomes State Route 374 a short distance from the pass. Several other similar formations were also laid down. Large volcanic eruptions, originating near the Nevada Test Site, covered the Death Valley area and much of Nevada in thick sequences of silica-rich ash 27 million years ago. The ash has a rhyolitic composition, which is the volcanic equivalent of the plutonic rock granite; it