Palm Spring Formation

The Palm Spring Formation is a Pleistocene Epoch geologic formation in the eastern Colorado Desert of Imperial County and San Diego County County, Southern California.

Palm Spring Formation
Stratigraphic range: Lower Pleistocene
Type	Geologic formation
Underlies	Vallecito Badlands
Overlies	Imperial Formation, Ocotillo Formation
Location
Region	Colorado Desert, California
Country	United States

Geology

The Palm Spring Formation is an extensively-exposed delta-plain deposit debouched by the ancestral Colorado River across the subsiding Salton Trough.^[1] It records the development of the prehistoric Colorado River delta cone into a barrier excluding marine waters from the Salton Trough.^[2]

Fossils

It preserves fossils from the Pleistocene Epoch, during the Quaternary Period of the Cenozoic Era.^[3]

Lower Pliocene sub−period petrified wood is found in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.^[4] The Lauraceae is represented by petrified Umbellularia, the Salicaceae with petrified Populus and Salix, and the Juglandaceae with petrified Juglans.^[4]

See also

• California portal
• Paleontology portal

• Ocotillo Formation — fluvial-alluvial fan Pliocene formation
• Quaternary California
• List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in California
• Paleontology in California