Welcome to the Mojave Desert Field Study webpage! This site documents the field research conducted by students from the University of Minnesota Duluth. Our goal was to explore, study, and understand the Mojave Desert’s unique geology, climate, and ecosystems.
📍 Stayed at the Desert Studies Center, ZZYZX, CA
🛤️ Visited key geological and ecological sites
📊 Conducted environmental assessments & data collection
📝 Documented findings across various subtopics
This website is the cumulative work of the University of Minnesota Duluth field studies course and our endeavor to persevere in unfamiliar land. We set out to learn, to explore, and to understand the Mojave Desert and compile our findings here. In our 15-week semester, we had one week to experience the Mojave; In the first weeks of our course, we studied what we could about the Mojave. We researched the geology, the environment, the business and economics, and most importantly understood its water. The desert is an arid and dry place which ardently preserves features and brings about exotic characteristics in the land and the animals.
The Mojave Desert is an incredibly interesting environment to learn from; on the surface it may be hard to see, but the seemingly permanent and unchanging desert is sustained by more mechanisms than we initially understood. Every drop of water, every rock, every plant, everything works and interacts with each one another in a brilliant and beautiful pageantry. It is this collective research and personal experience that makes this mysterious and desolate landscape understood just that much more.
We would like to thank all of our tour guides for Mountain Pass Mine, Boron Mine, and Mitchell Caverns for the really, really, ridiculously good tours; they were all incredibly informative and helpful! We’re very grateful to the California State University System for the hospitality at the Desert Studies Center. We also appreciate the town of Baker for existing. Finally we would like to thank our instructors: Howard, Karen, and Phil; we’re very grateful for you all making this experience possible and for your amazing expertise in the field, thank you!