SORTING SNOWBALLS IN DEATH VALLEY

Among Precambrian geologists, the Kingston Peak (KP) Formation of Death Valley is renowned for its stratigraphic record of Cryogenian snowball Earth glaciation. Yet, due to complex intraformational unconformities and facies change, compounded by uncertainties in structural reconstructions of the southern Basin and Range, local to regional correlation models for units of the KP remain ambiguous. Building upon decades of previous work on the KP, we integrate new geologic mapping and stratigraphic data sets from across Death Valley with recent geochronology and chemostratigraphy to provide an updated depositional framework for these units and discuss their relationships to the broader, global context of Cryogenian climate and tectonics.