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The Mecca Hills Recreation area is a U.S Bureau of Land Management park/preserve covers 31,400 acres in southern California, and is located on the eastern side of the Coachella Valley near the Salton Sea (about 15 miles south of Indio). It is part of the Colorado Desert ecosystem and is home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, spotted bat, and many other rare and endangered plant and animal species. This view is looking west from the headwater region of Painted Canyon toward the ridge crest of the Mecca Hills. The ridgeline as a structural horst between faults associated with the San Andreas Fault System that runs along the western edge of the Mecca Hills into the Salton Sea. The rocks exposed in the hills consist of Miocene-, Pliocene-, and Quaternary-age sediments and volcanic ash beds that accumulated on alluvial fans draining higher country to the east (the Orocopia and Chocalate Mountains and possibly other regional sediment source areas including older uplifts that are now eroded or buried by younger sediments). As the San Andreas Fault system developed along with the opening of the Gulf of California the valley flooded intermittently by basin lakes that ranged over time from freshwater to hypersaline conditions (much like the modern Salton Sea). Oyster shell beds in the Anza Borrego State Park area across the Coachella Valley show that shallow marine incursions extended partly up the valley from the Mexico region in late Miocene time. These basin deposits are part of the Palm Springs Formation (Late Miocene to Pliocene age). |
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