Is every living thing related? Is the first instance of life on this planet, in effect, our own (human) beginning?

Each species is on a natural evolutionary track. Has human activity disrupted natural evolution? In what ways? What species are “off” of their evolutionary track because of human impacts? Aren’t human activities considered natural?

How long did it take for the various pupfish species to become distinct from one another? Is there a standard or average time it takes for speciation?

Evolution explains why the introduction of foreign life forms is potentially devastating to Ash Meadows wildlife—the playing field is not even. Exotic species have unfair advantages gained from evolving under spatially separate and environmentally distinct conditions. Knapweed is not inherently evil, it just evolved elsewhere.

Did mammoths once walk through what is now the refuge? Were there short-faced bear in this area? What was the climate like then? Was Ash Meadows actually under an ice-age lake? During the coldest ice age, how close did the glaciers come to Ash Meadows?

What picture of Ash Meadows did the earliest human inhabitants witness? Did prehistoric people cause the extinction of such ice age remnant species such as the mammoth?

What dinosaurs might we expect to have lived at Ash Meadows?

What are we seeing in the various colored layers at Point of Rocks? Lakebed sediment? Ocean sediment?

The springs seem to line up (vaguely) in zig-zag from North to South. Why?

The refuge monitors spring output. Some are slowing while some are increasing their output. What explains this phenomenon?

How does this valley—the Amargosa Valley—fit into the Basin and Range lands? How did these lands form? How does plate tectonics explain the Ash Meadows landscape? What earthquakes have occurred nearby or with the refuge land as the epicenter?

How were some of the unique soils and clays formed at Ash Meadows?

Why all-of-a-sudden are there sand dunes in the middle of the refuge?

How old are the oldest exposed rocks at Ash Meadows? What era in geologic time are they from? What forms of life were on the planet at this time?