Pinto Mountain, California, USA
(c) 2000 Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com (fair use policy)
Pinto Mountain is not that high, but the land around it, in Joshua Tree National Park in California, is low. The peak is named from the Spanish word for spotted, because of its appearance. The lowland Colorado Desert surrounds it, typified by the creosote bushes thriving in the foreground.
It consists of a very old body of gneiss with a long and obscure history, but it arose as a mountain only a few million years ago. Pinto Mountain is at the edge of the Basin and Range province, a part of the continent that has stretched apart into tilted broken blocks of crust. The parts that tilted upward became ranges, while the down-tilted parts rapidly filled with sediments and became basins. Pinto Basin lies in front of the mountain, and the great fans of sediment that pour into the basin during flash floods are just visible at the mountain's foot.
Farther east, to the right of this photo, is a playa—a barren dusty flat that holds water briefly after winter rains. Later in the day I took this picture, strong winds hid the peak with a brown curtain of playa dust.
