When I first heard about Conglomerate Mesa, located on BLM land right outside of Death Valley, I had no idea how much ground a single episode could cover. This one's got everything, including what makes a place a desert, a little bit of geology, Joshua trees, the General Mining Act of 1872, juniper pinyon ecosystems, the rain shadow effect, a very lovable, fuzzy-tailed rodent, a daisy that is only found on about one square mile of the entire planet, soil that is alive, the historic and contemporary importance of this mesa to Native people, and the fight to keep a Canadian gold mining company from quite literally digging the whole place up and spraying cyanide all over it. Some useful links:  Friends of the Inyo Center for Biological Diversity on Conglomerate Mesa  Cyanide Use in Gold Mining  National Geographic on Deserts 1961 UC Berkeley Video on Native People Processing Pine Nuts  What is the Great Basin?  Smithsonian Article on Joshua Trees  Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands  "Big Four" American Deserts Conglomerate (Rock)  Sierra Club on Conglomerate Mesa  Inyo Rock Daisy LA Times Article  You can find me on Patreon at www.patreon.com/michellefullner Follow me on Instagram or TikTok @goldenstatenaturalist  My website is www.goldenstatenaturalist.com  The theme song is called "i dunno" by grapes and can be found here.  --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app