Earthquake Country: The Cordelia and Green Valley Faults

Situated at the southeastern edge of the Northern Coast Range, where subduction complex abuts the Great Valley Sequence, two outlying strands of the broad San Andreas fracture zone cut a striking and majestic tectonic landscape.

The picture perfect Cordelia fault, and its more significant fractious neighbor, the Green Valley fault, sculpt plunging walls and scarps, paradisaical valleys, and ebullient, tumbling rocky hillscapes, through the igneous reaches of remote eastern Napa and western Solano Counties.

The “small” but mightily photogenic Cordelia fault core, including its shear zone, residual secondary faults, and fractured wall rock within a tectonic damage zone.. exposed at a graded road cut along Rockville Road in Solano County.

Tectonic landforms of the Cordelia Fault at Rockville Hills Regional Park: fault valleys and sag ponds along the fault trace, within uplifted Sonoma Volcanics geology, host oak woodlands, vernal pools, and meadow/prairie ecosystems.

Tectonic ridges, scarps, and idyllic California valleys of the Green Valley fault in remote eastern Napa County.


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