Pete Tillman
End of the trail. Glory of the Temblors! 4-20-23.
Taken from the end of the 4wd track, looking up at the high slopes of the Temblors. You can see the bedding in the Monterey group of young sediments that make up this range, dipping into the mountain. The geology of this range, named 'Temblor' after the Spanish word for earthquake, is fascinating to this geologist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temblor_Range#Origin_and_composition
The north end of the range slid off the crest, glided out over the valley, and capped the large McKittrick Oilfield: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKittrick_Oil_Field#Geology_and_pa...
"The predominant geologic feature, and the one that makes the McKittrick field distinctive, is the presence of a huge block of Monterey shale – more than 6 mi (9.7 km) long, approximately 1 mi (1.6 km) wide, and up to 2,000 ft (610 m) thick – which slipped off of the slopes of the adjacent Temblor Range during the Pleistocene and moved eastward onto the plain, almost entirely covering the field, and forming an impermeable cap over the oil-bearing rock. This mass of stone, consisting of over 3 cu mi (13 km3) of rock, moved 2 to 3 miles (3.2 to 4.8 km) from its source region, and down about 2,000 feet (610 m) in elevation. While it probably did not move into its present position all at once, the incident must have been dramatic."
THREE cubic miles of rock, moving 2 to 3 miles downslope! Now, that's a SERIOUS landslide!
End of the trail. Glory of the Temblors! 4-20-23.
Taken from the end of the 4wd track, looking up at the high slopes of the Temblors. You can see the bedding in the Monterey group of young sediments that make up this range, dipping into the mountain. The geology of this range, named 'Temblor' after the Spanish word for earthquake, is fascinating to this geologist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temblor_Range#Origin_and_composition
The north end of the range slid off the crest, glided out over the valley, and capped the large McKittrick Oilfield: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKittrick_Oil_Field#Geology_and_pa...
"The predominant geologic feature, and the one that makes the McKittrick field distinctive, is the presence of a huge block of Monterey shale – more than 6 mi (9.7 km) long, approximately 1 mi (1.6 km) wide, and up to 2,000 ft (610 m) thick – which slipped off of the slopes of the adjacent Temblor Range during the Pleistocene and moved eastward onto the plain, almost entirely covering the field, and forming an impermeable cap over the oil-bearing rock. This mass of stone, consisting of over 3 cu mi (13 km3) of rock, moved 2 to 3 miles (3.2 to 4.8 km) from its source region, and down about 2,000 feet (610 m) in elevation. While it probably did not move into its present position all at once, the incident must have been dramatic."
THREE cubic miles of rock, moving 2 to 3 miles downslope! Now, that's a SERIOUS landslide!