SAN ANDREAS FAULT – CALIFORNIA 58 TO CHOLAME (CALIFORNIA 41)

The best way to see this segment of the fault is to travel west on California 58 or the Carissa Hwy from the junction with Soda Lake Road – to Bitterwater Road.  Turn north onto Bitterwater Road.  On Google Map (below) you will see quite an array of solar energy panels.  

Following Bitterwater Road the road will veer towards the northeast and then back to the northwest.  The  fault will run along the zig-zag'd county boundary of San Luis Obispo and the Kern County lines.  This is some of the most remote country in California.

You are now in the Bitterwater Valley.  The road is running northwest right on top of the San Andreas Fault.  There will be farms dotted along the road and the fault line.  This segment of the fault ruptured during the Great Fort Tejon Earthquake of 1857.  Bitterwater Road will become Palo Prieto Road and then Annette Road then a left turn back onto Bitterwater Road.

This northern segment of Bitterwater will run west of the fault unto  you reach California 41/46.  At this point you can turn to the west if you’ve had enough of running the fault.  CA 41/46 will lead the motorist towards Paso Robles and California Hwy 101 (the El Camino Real).

Once you come to Paso Robles, look for many of the BBQ restaurants there and pick up a tasty Santa Maria Tri-Tip sandwich – a California delicacy.  Paso Robles is the half way point between Los Angeles and San Francisco if you take the 101.  Don't forget to get some gas.

Going east from Bitterwater Road through Cholame you can go back in time to September 30, 1955.  Actor James Dean is travelling west on California 46 from Los Angeles to Salinas to race his Porsche.  He never makes it to Salinas as he tragically is killed in a one car accident at this junction of California 46 and California 41, now known  as the James Dean Memorial Junction.  

Below:  a map of the Parkfield, Cholame and Carrizo Rupture Segments of the San Andreas.

The Carissa Hwy (Hwy 58) junction with Bitterwater Road.  Note again, the many solar power arrays.

A couple of fault segments near Cholame, California.

A seismologist working on top of the fault near Cholame.

A couple of pics:  James Dean and his Porsche and the James Dean Memorial at Hwy 41 and 46.

ST. ANDREW’S ABBEY, VALYERMO, CALIFORNIA – THE BACKSIDE STORY

In the small Southern California town of Valyermo, southeast of Palmdale, California – there lies a Benedictine Monastery by the name of Saint Andrew’s Abbey.  The Abbey was initiated in 1956 (the year I was born at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Hollywood, CA – which is now the Scientology Headquarters).

What does the Saint Andrew’s Abbey have to do with my geology blog.  Two things. Dr. Levi and Dorothy Noble and the San Andreas Fault.  Before 1956, the St. Andrew’s Abbey property was the Hidden Springs Ranch.  This was owned by renouned geologist Dr. Andrew Levi and his wife Dorothy who lived there from 1910 for most of their married lives.  Dr. Noble died in 1965 near Auburn, New York.

Levi Noble did some amazing field work on the Palmdale segment of the San Andreas Fault and first noticed some of the fault scarps from the 1857 Fort Tejon Great Earthquake.  Noble was also a rancher and with his wife, ran the Hidden Springs Ranch at a profit.

Noble also did geological work along the fault at the Mormon Rocks, the Grand Canyon, the Tehachapis and Death Valley.

There are lots of materials on the Abbey and the life of Levi Noble.  I have included some pictures from their ranch days and the Abbey is known for their ceramics.  Thanks to Katie Wagner for her inspiration and information and something that connected with me after reading a book about the history of the San Andreas Fault ("Earthquake Storms" by John Dvorak).  

The backside story:  This particular segment of the San Andreas runs from Wrightwood, CA which is the highest elevation of the fault at 6,862 ft. above sea level, to Palmdale, CA.  The fault is located just back or on the southern boundary of the Abbey or the old Hidden Ranch.  

Dr. Kerry Sieh did his landmark research at Pallett Creek just west of the Abbey, to discover how often and regularly this segment of the San Andreas produces large earthquakes in Southern California.

No doubt that as a result of the Great Fort Tejon Earthquake of 1857 that the ranch was jolted and lurched around 10 feet to the southeast relative to the westward movement of the San Gabriel Mountains just south of the fault line.  The 10 feet of movement would have been immediate.

St. Andrews Abbey is definitely worth a visit and while you’re there, check out the fault features in this area of Southern California.

A screen shot from Google Earth Pro.  The black line from the left to the middle lower right is where the fault line passes just south of the Abbey, north center of the above picture.

The Abbey lower front, with the San Andreas Fault from Wrightwood, California top-left (highlighted in yellow).

SAN ANDREAS FAULT TRIP, 1988 - THE CARRIZO PLAINS

It was 1988 when I was 32 years old.  After some changes I was going through in life, a breakup and a loss of a business and income, I decided to take a trip.  That morning that I was going to leave for Northern California – from Chatsworth, California – I started driving up the Interstate 5 (I still say “the” before the word Interstate – a California ‘thing’).

At Castaic Junction I turned off, being early in the morning – still dark out I drove west on US Hwy 126 towards Ventura, CA.  When I reached Santa Paula, I turned north on CA 150 towards  Ojai and then north again on CA 33 up over the Santa Ynez mountains north of Ojai towards Ventucopa, California.

After a right turn on CA 166 I turned left again on Soda Lake Road.  Somewhat paved, then turning to dirt most of the way.  This road would lead to the Carrizo Plains, now the Carrizo Plains National Monument.  The road I would go up would lead me right up (north) the famed San Andreas Fault.  I would follow many roads that would ride right along the San Andreas up to San Francisco and then follow the Fault north of San Francisco.

As far as photography, my medium at the time was 35mm slides.  This was almost 20 years before the digital cameras could be introduced to the public. Because some of these slides have faded a bit over the years, when I tell this tale in my  blog I will include some current pictures of some of the places I passed through.

With the Carrizo to my left and the Temblor Range to my right – I would drive along one of the most photographed gashes resulting from a major earthquake fault or a rift between the Pacific Tectonic Plate and the North American Tectonic Plate.  The Pacific Plate is moving northwest in relation to the southeast grind of the North American Plate.

I have included some images of the Carrizo Plains NM including the famed Wallace Creek offset which has been measured to about 3,000 years of sudden movement along the San Andreas.

At this point I will continue later as I am covering the Carrizo Plains segment from CA 166 to CA 58, or the Carrisa Highway that transverses from McKittrick, CA to Santa Margarita, CA just north of San Luis Obispo.

PETRIFIED WOOD, ARIZONA

Petrified Wood:  300X: from Arizona.

The white mostly quartzite.  The reds:  mostly iron.  The greens: mostly copper.

The scratches are very minute micro-scratches from polishing.

HOW I GOT STARTED STARTED WITH MY INTEREST IN GEOLOGY

Hi, Bruce Edwards is back in the blog.

I have changed the name of my blog to:

Thelastnail's rocks tumbling and polishing.

Quite a far cry from my other two blogs of relational pop psychology and the 2014 NCAA College football season.  Yes, it's been four years since my last entry.

Some changes.  I'm working now.  I'm living in Boulder, still in beautiful Colorado.  Been with Keeli, my girl-friend for four years.

Since I was a kid living in Chatsworth California, I've had an on and off again interest in rocks and minerals.  On February 9, 1971 at 6:01am I quickly became interested in seismology.  That was the the exact time, PST, that the 6.4 Sylmar earthquake hit the northern San Fernando Valley.

I will also mention something about my faith and why that is relevant to what I am covering in this blog.  I have been a Christian for almost 30 years.  I believe in God the Creator, who created time, space and matter according to Genesis 1:1.

From there my theology differs from young earth creationism.  I do not see myself as an evangelical 'take all of the Bible literally' right-wing Christian.  I am fairly middle of the road.  As we view God's creation, we cannot ignore science.  

In fact, science is not a liberal conspiracy.  When you are not feeling well, you depend on science.  When you are waking up, working, going back to sleep, you depend on science during the day.  When I read further from Genesis 1:2 to the conclusion of the third chapter of Genesis - I take this as an allegorical theme of separation of light from darkness, not to be taken literally as geological and biological Earth history.

With that said, I believe that this earth, this universe is very old.  I am also an evolutionist when it comes to life, geological processes and so forth.  This blog is not a debating arena if you happen to disagree with me, just letting you know where I coming from if I mention something about the age of a particular rock, a mineral, for that matter the age of the Earth and so forth.

Back on December 29, 2017 - I was viewing a YouTube video titled roughly - California in 10 Million Years - Perspective on Ocean Science, by Dr.  Graham Kent.

Dr. Kent examined subjects such as:

1.  Lake Tahoe - Faulting

2.  Mono Lake

3.  Gulf of California

4.  Farallon Plate

5.  Walker Lane

I decided that each day I was going to take a subject from YouTube or YT and link it to another subject, possibly on YT.  So I started with Lake Tahoe - Faulting.

I looked at the following:  A Mega-Tsunami on Lake Tahoe roughly 40,000 years ago resulting from a landslide.  Then the Mono Lake tufas.  After that was the Gulf of California tectonic setting - quakes and the spreading ridge and the Gulf of California rift zone.

Then the ancient Farallon Plate (which is now in the north as the Juan De Fuca Plate which is diving under Northern California, Oregon and Washington,  and the Cocos  Plate that is diving under Mexico.

Finally, the Walker Lane, east of the Sierra Nevadas of California.

I will stop there at this point and this is to be continued.