Dana Point 3

Posted on June 27, 2003 in Biomes Evolution & Creation Photos

The sandstone cliffs which threaten to crumble under the weight of the palatial estates divide on either side of a conglomerate formation which my geology professor, Donald MacIntyre, told us was the mud and rock dumped there by an ancient river. If you look closely at the chunks in the maroon cement, you’ll recognize stones which could only have come from the San Gabriels thirty miles away.

The whole California Coast breaks up like this: here the sandstone is replaced by this dead estuary. Elsewhere, at Aliso Beach, you see a rainbow studded breccia whose nearest relations bask on Catalina, thirty miles across the water. Earlier, I showed a series of the crack that divides the San Mateo sandstone locally from the Monterrey shale. It takes a few nights cozying up with a geology text to understand the differences between these rocks, but it doesn’t take an expert to see that the textures of the cliff faces change.

How wondrous is the story of the earth with all its bulldozing rivers and sliding planes. How shallow those who look at these rocks as nothing more than a pallette slopped upon by a deity.

---

Click on the picture to view today’s gallery.