U.S. President Joe Biden designated two California sites -- a swathe of desert significant to native tribes and a dormant volcano -- as national monuments on Tuesday, advancing his record of conserving more U.

The declarations bar oil and natural gas drilling, as well as mining and other exploration and production initiatives, on the 624,000-acre Chuckwalla site, and 225,000-acre Sáttítla site.

Biden has federally protected 1,053,125 square miles of land and ocean in his term — an area nearly four times the size of Texas.