The Nature of Cima Dome

In the Mojave Desert of southeasternmost California is a remarkably smooth, symmetrical rock-alluvial dome which takes its name from Cima on the Union Pacific Railroad. Lawson (1915, pp. 26, 33) cited Cima Dome as a prime example of a panfan, but Thompson (1929, p. 550) later showed that its upper part is bare rock. Davis (1933, pp. 240-243) considered it a fine example of a convex desert dome evolved from back-wearing of a fault block, but this concept is contradicted by the geological relations (Hewett, 1954), which throw more light on the nature and origin of Cima Dome than do geomorphological theories.