The Inyo Mountains are a short mountain range

Mountain range

A mountain range is a single, large mass consisting of a succession of mountains or narrowly spaced mountain ridges, with or without peaks, closely related in position, direction, formation, and age; a component part of a mountain system or of a mountain chain...

 east of the Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The range separates the Owens Valley

Owens Valley

Owens Valley is the arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States, to the east of the Sierra Nevada and west of the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains on the west edge of the Great Basin section...

 to the west with Saline Valley

Saline Valley, California

Saline Valley is a large, deep, and arid valley in the northern Mojave Desert of California. Most of it became a part of Death Valley National Park when the park expanded in 1994. This area had previously been administered by the BLM. It is located northwest of Death Valley proper, south of...

 to the east, extending for approximately 70 mi (130 km) SSE from the southern end of the White Mountains

White Mountains (California)

The White Mountains of California are a triangular fault block mountain range facing the Sierra Nevada across the upper Owens Valley. They extend for approximately as a greatly elevated plateau about wide on the south, narrowing to a point at the north, with elevations generally increasing...

, from which they are separated by Westgard Pass

Westgard Pass

Westgard Pass is a narrow gap between the White and Inyo mountain ranges in the Basin and Range Province of California. Westgard Pass lies entirely within the Inyo National Forest, in northern Inyo County, California....

, to east of Owens Lake

Owens Lake

Owens Lake is a mostly dry lake in the Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo County, California. It is located about south of Lone Pine, California...

.

Geologically

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, the mountains are a fault block

Fault-block mountain

Fault-block landforms are formed when large areas of bedrock are widely broken up by faults creating large vertical displacements of continental crust....

 range in the Basin and Range Province, at the western end of the Great Basin

Great Basin

The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...

. They are considered to be among the most important and best-known Late Proterozoic

Proterozoic

The Proterozoic is a geological eon representing a period before the first abundant complex life on Earth. The name Proterozoic comes from the Greek "earlier life"...

 to Cambrian

Cambrian

The Cambrian is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from Mya ; it is succeeded by the Ordovician. Its subdivisions, and indeed its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's...

 sections in the United States.

Approximately 205,000 acres (810 km²) of the range are designated as the Inyo Mountain Wilderness managed by the Bureau of Land Management

Bureau of Land Management

The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...

. Much of the northern part of the range is within Inyo National Forest

Inyo National Forest

Inyo National Forest is a federally administered forest in the United States. The forest covers parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California, and the White Mountains of California and Nevada. It contains two wilderness areas: the John Muir Wilderness and the Ansel Adams Wilderness...

.

Wildlife in the area includes the endangered

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

 Inyo Mountains Salamander

Inyo Mountains Salamander

The Inyo Mountains Salamander, Batrachoseps campi, is an endangered species of salamander in the Plethodontidae family that is endemic to California , in the western United States.-Distribution:...

 and the Desert Bighorn Sheep

Desert Bighorn Sheep

The Desert Bighorn Sheep is a subspecies of Bighorn Sheep that occurs in the desert Southwest regions of the United States and in the northern regions of Mexico. The trinomial of this species commemorates the American naturalist Edward William Nelson...

. Plant communities include creosote and sagebrush

Sagebrush

Sagebrush is a common name of a number of shrubby plant species in the genus Artemisia native to western North America;Or, the sagebrush steppe ecoregion, having one or more kinds of sagebrush, bunchgrasses and others;...

 at lower altitudes, and bristlecone pine

Bristlecone pine

The bristlecone pines are a small group of pine trees that are thought to reach an age far greater than that of any other single living organism known, up to nearly 5,000 years....

 forests at higher. A number of rare and endemic plants are adapted to the unique limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 soils of the mountains, including the cliffdweller

Caulostramina

Caulostramina is a monotypic plant genus in the mustard family containing the single species Caulostramina jaegeri, which is known by the common name cliffdweller....

, bristlecone cryptantha

Cryptantha roosiorum

Cryptantha roosiorum is a species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common name bristlecone cryptantha.It is endemic to Inyo County, California, where it is known from only a a few occurrences in the northern Inyo Mountains....

, and Inyo rock daisy

Perityle inyoensis

Perityle inyoensis is a rare species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names Inyo rockdaisy and Inyo laphamia. It is endemic to Inyo County, California, where it is known from just a few occurrences in the southern Inyo Mountains. Its habitat is dry, rocky mountain slopes,...

.