West Mojave Plan FEIR/S - Desert Managers Group

that they might identify traditional cultural properties of cultural and religious importance, andconsider the effect of its actions on those places. Places meeting the criteria for traditionalcultural properties are then evaluated under criteria for the National Register. Under theAmerican Indian Religious Freedom Act and Executive Order 13007, a federal agency mustconsider the effects of its actions on Native American spiritual places and on access to suchplaces by religious practitioners. Consultation usually combines compliance with both laws. Atraditional cultural property is a place that is eligible for inclusion in the National Register ofHistoric Places because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living communitythat are rooted in that community’s history and are important in maintaining the continuingcultural identity of the community. Traditional cultural properties may overlap a number ofcategories of cultural resources such as archaeological sites, historic sites, areas where naturalmaterials are collected, sacred sites, or sacred landscapes.3.7.1.8 Significant Paleontological LocalitiesA triangular area roughly bounded by the Sierra Nevada Front, Highway 395, andGarlock Road has been subject to paleontological research for several decades and has beenfound to contain important paleontological resources. The Dove Spring Wash area contains afossil assemblage known as the Dove Spring Lignites Local Fauna (Whistler 1990). Containingmollusks and a diversity of small vertebrates, “the Dove Spring Lignites Local Fauna is the mostdiverse, Late Pleistocene vertebrate assemblage recovered from fluviatile deposits in the MojaveDesert outside of the Mojave River basin” (Whistler 1990).East of Dove Spring Wash, but within the same triangular area, the El Paso Mountainshave been subject to paleontological study for over 50 years. The Raymond Alf Museum ofClaremont, California is currently actively engaged in paleontological research of localitiescontaining Paleocene (−60 million years old) mammals. The El Paso Mountains are the onlylocality on the west coast of the United States known to contain mammal fossils of this age; theclosest known locations are in Wyoming. Consequently, these fossil localities are quiteimportant (Lofgren n.d.).A number of locations around Lake China that contain fossil remains of Rancholabreanmegafauna have been recorded and studied. Although these sites are on China Lake Naval AirWeapons Station and not BLM, similar situations may apply around the edges of otherPleistocene dry lakebeds, such as Searles Lake within the planning area.This area no doubt contains other important paleontological localities that have not beendiscovered or formally investigated.area.Table 3-65 presents an overview of paleontological resources found within the planningChapter 3 3-288