Death Valley National Park - The violence of this month's big Baja California earthquake was captured in scientists' video of tiny fish that live in a deep Mojave Desert cavern.


The U.S. Geological Survey says researchers studying a spawning site of the endangered Devils Hole pupfish had just reconnected cameras 10 minutes before the magnitude-7.2 quake struck on April 4.

The video shows the glassy water begin to stir and then whip into a froth worthy of a washing machine.

The USGS says oscillations lasted 15 minutes, but fish returned to the site five minutes after the water calmed.

Devils Hole is part of California's Death Valley National Park but is located just outside the park boundary in Nevada.

From USGS website:

In this video excerpt, we see motion from two video surveillance cameras capturing continuous daytime video data on pupfish spawning, and as seen here, other occurrences. The cameras are positioned approximately four feet above the water surface and one underwater.

The water at Devils Hole is generally very still and although clear, quite stagnant. Thus, the movement seen in this video is thought to represent a fairly great disturbance to the shallow feeding/spawning shelf. The shelf substrate, consisting largely of sand, gravel, and cobble, was largely redistributed as a result, changing the topography fairly drastically. The entire video (not shown) shows fish returning to the shelf starting about five minutes after the water movement ceases.