As an ode to my natal beach, which has recently and unfortunately made the news for being closed to public access indefinitely due to sewage contamination, I’m taking a look back at a happier time for this spot on the southern tip of the Point Reyes Peninsula, and the discovery of the lone specimen of … More Hometown Fossil: The Lone Six Million Year-Old Parabalaenoptera baulinensis
One of California’s most unique and rare wetland systems is found nested between vast, migrating dune lobes on the Mendocino Coast. The Inglenook Fen-Tenmile Dunes ecological reserve forms the northern portion of MacKerricher State Park, a few miles north of Fort Bragg, CA. Most fens in California are found in the Sierra Nevada, Klamath Mountains, … More Inglenook Fen: A Rare Coastal Wetland System
California’s coastal seasonal freshwater wetlands usually appear in the late winter through spring, during the wet season of our Mediterranean Climate; yet it’s the heart of the dry season in California, and on the north coast late-season freshwater seep wetlands can be found along the rocky shoreline of the marine terraces within feet of the … More Coastal Habitat Oasis
Geomorphology in action! Sinkhole, anyone? A startling site while hiking out on the mesa grasslands, even for this lifelong CA coastal hiker and geologic explorer. I have never seen a seepage-cut depression this large and deep; cut down through the bedrock; this far from the shoreline; and apparently not influenced by human drainage/irrigation debacles. Surging, … More Spring Ranch: Sinkholes, Emergent Tectonics, and Mini Terraces
Steady tectonic uplift of the emergent active coastal margin, combined with the erosional forces of wave dynamics, produces a series, or flight, of stair-stepped geomorphic plateaus, known as marine terraces. Through dating methods such as uranium series dating and acid geochronology of bio- mineralogical materials, as well as cosmogenic radionuclide inventories, marine terraces have been … More Marine Terrace Flights, the Ecological Staircase Effect, and the Evolution of Soils
Marine terraces are a defining geomorphological feature of the West Coast, and are dispersed along the entire extent of California’s active, uplifting coastline. Found on emergent tectonic coastal margins worldwide, marine terraces underlay much of California’s heavily developed and populated regions. Terrace Geomorphology: Tectonics and Sea Level Change Marine terraces begin as wave cut platforms, … More California’s Marine Terraces
The California Current is one of the world’s most productive eastern boundary currents, and upwelling is the primary physical factor driving the highly productive marine ecosystem associated with the current. Upwelling occurs when persistent longshore winds create an offshore flow at the surface, which in turn upwells deeper nutrient rich ocean waters along the coast. … More California Current Upwelling System
The subnivean layer, or zone, is the concealed ecotone that forms in winter, uniting and encapsulating the boundary between the earth’s surface and the foundation of a snowpack. The subnivean zone can form under as little as ten inches of snow pack, and provides an insulated environment for wintertime productivity and flourishing trophic connectivity. This … More Biogeography of the Subnivean Zone
Blizzards are rare in California, and when they do occur it is usually in the higher alpine zones of the Sierra-Nevada and southern Cascade Range, where they can be hard to detect or predict. Technically, a blizzard is a severe storm characterized by high winds and reduced visibilities due to falling or blowing snow. The … More California’s Historic Blizzards
Geomorphology Word of the Day…
