last updated 18 June 2021
California Relief Map - Earthguide UCSD.edu.
Major Influences:
Plate tectonics:
- About 200 million years ago, a large tectonic plate (called the Farallon Plate) started to subduct beneath the western edge of North America
- Beginning about 30 million years ago, so much of the Farallon Plate was consumed by subduction that the Pacific and North American plates were in contact, forming the San Andreas transform plate boundary in western California.
California Plate Tetconics
Volcanos
Glaciers:
Glaciers of California
Links:
Geology of Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada
Return to California
Earthquakes
California Prominence Page
Sierra Nevada
Yosemite
Surveying California
Oakland Geology
Books:
Assembling California
Deep Oakland