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CSU Desert Studies Center

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Welcome to the Desert Studies Center

The Desert Studies Center (DSC) is a 1,280-acre field station in Zzyzx, California, on the western edge of the Mojave National Preserve. Located on the shore of Soda Dry Lake at the terminus of the Mojave River, the Center provides researchers and students with easy access to distinctive desert land-cover types, including alkali salt flats, creosotebush lowlands, Joshua tree forests, rocky slopes, lava flows, and sand dunes.

The DSC is an ideal location for courses and research in the Soda Springs area, as well as a convenient base of operations for activities in the broader Mojave Desert. The facilities provide lodging for up to 70 people, as well as meeting rooms, a classroom, laboratory, small library, natural history collections, and outdoor meeting spaces. The Center is a satellite campus of the California State University (CSU) and is closed and off-limits to the public without a reservation.

Established in 1976, the DSC is governed by the California Desert Studies Consortium, comprised of faculty and administrative representatives from seven southern California CSU campuses, at-large members, and representatives from the National Park Service, our federal partner. We collectively acknowledge that the Center is located on traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of the Chemehuevi people of the Southern Paiute (Nuwuvi), territory that holds great historical, spiritual, and personal significance for its original inhabitants.