Geology, California
49 locations. View on the interactive map
- Amboy Crater — Geology · San Bernardino County, CA
A classic cinder-cone volcano and lava field along historic Route 66 in Mojave Trails National Monument. A roughly 3-mile round-trip trail crosses the black …
- Artist's Palette — Geology · Death Valley, CA
Artist's Palette is a multicolored hillside on one-way Artist Drive in Death Valley National Park. Iron oxides paint yellows and reds, manganese adds pinks, …
- Black Point Fissures (Mono Lake) — Geology · Mono County, CA
Pleistocene basalt volcanic cone on the north shore of Mono Lake riven by deep cooling fissures and caves—an off-trail geology hike in the Mono Basin Nationa…
- Blue Angels Peak — Geology · Imperial County, CA
Summit on the Jacumba Mountains skyline above the Imperial–San Diego desert border, a landmark peak for the southwest Imperial desert approaches. A geology/n…
- Calcite Mine Trail — Geology · San Diego County, CA
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park truck trail and hike to a WWII-era optical-grade calcite diggings area, with slot-canyon narrows, fault-shattered sedimentary …
- Canyon Sin Nombre — Geology · San Diego County, CA
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park wash-and-canyon route off County Route S2 famous among desert travelers as a compact “geologist’s tour”: layered mudstone and …
- Castle Butte — Geology · Kern County, CA
A isolated Mojave Desert butte rising east of California City, mapped by the USGS as a distinctive volcanic and sedimentary landmark of the Castle Butte quad…
- Cinder Cone Lava Beds (Mojave Lava Tube) — Geology · San Bernardino County, CA
Pleistocene basalt cinder cones and flows in Mojave National Preserve (Cinder Cones National Natural Landmark). Visitor focus is the signed Aiken Mine Road a…
- Clark Mountain — Geology · San Bernardino County, CA
Dominant limestone peak of the Clark Mountain Range on the northern Mojave National Preserve approaches—classic desert range geology with steep carbonate cli…
- Coon Hollow — Geology · Riverside County, CA
BLM primitive campground and desert wash camp in eastern Riverside County’s lower Colorado Desert, set among palo verde, smoke tree, mesquite, and ironwood. …
- Crater Mountain (Big Pine Volcanic Field) — Geology · Inyo County, CA
Young basalt shield and cinder-cone complex of the Big Pine volcanic field on the east side of Owens Valley south of Big Pine. Crater Mountain is the field’s…
- Devils Golf Course — Geology · Death Valley, CA
Surreal landscape of jagged salt pinnacles up to 18 inches tall formed as salt crystallizes upward through the playa surface. On quiet days you can hear the …
- Devils Punchbowl Natural Area — Geology · Los Angeles County, CA
Dramatic tilted sandstone slabs and a deep fault-bounded punchbowl on the San Andreas system in the northern San Gabriels / Mojave fringe — LA County natural…
- El Paso Mountains Wilderness (Black Mountain) — Geology · Kern County, CA
BLM wilderness in the northern Mojave anchored by Black Mountain (5,244 ft), an extinct volcanic high point rising above dark mesas, reddish buttes, and narr…
- Fonts Point — Geology · San Diego County, CA
Premier overlook of the Borrego Badlands in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park—layered badland ridges and the Salton Sink from a short walk beyond a sandy spur r…
- Fossil Canyon (Coyote Mountains) — Geology · Imperial County, CA
Shell-rich canyon on the edge of the Coyote Mountains Wilderness near Ocotillo, where marine Imperial Formation beds expose abundant invertebrate fossils. Pu…
- Fossil Falls — Geology · Inyo County, CA
Pleistocene basalt channel where the ancestral Owens River once spilled over a lava dam, carving a dry waterfall of potholed, polished black rock at the foot…
- Hauser Geode Beds — Geology · Imperial County, CA
Classic public rockhounding ground in the Wiley Well District of the Chuckwalla Valley, long known for geodes, nodules, and agate in volcanic host rock. BLM …
- Hot Creek Geologic Site — Geology · Mono County, CA
Inyo National Forest day-use interpretive site on Hot Creek where boiling springs, fumaroles, and occasional geysering reveal the Long Valley Caldera hydroth…
- Inyo Crater Lakes — Geology · Mono County, CA
Pair of mid-14th-century phreatic (steam-blast) explosion craters on Deer Mountain above Mammoth Lakes—~600 ft wide and 100–200 ft deep, each holding a small…
- La Brea Tar Pits — Geology · Los Angeles County, CA
Active asphalt seeps in Hancock Park, central Los Angeles, where natural bitumen has trapped and preserved Ice Age animals for tens of thousands of years. A …
- Last Chance Canyon Arch — Geology · Kern County, CA
Named natural arch in the El Paso Mountains along Last Chance Canyon, a classic northern Mojave canyon system of colorful badlands, volcanic and sedimentary …
- Malapai Hill — Geology · Riverside County, CA
Dark basalt volcanic dome rising above Queen Valley inside Joshua Tree National Park—one of the park’s clearest windows into young Mojave volcanism. Hard bla…
- Mono Craters — Geology · Mono County, CA
Chain of young rhyolite and obsidian lava domes and craters south of Mono Lake in Inyo National Forest—one of the most recently active volcanic fields in the…
- Morro Rock — Geology · San Luis Obispo County, CA
Iconic 576-ft volcanic plug and the westernmost of the Nine Sisters (Morros) — a chain of extinct volcanic necks marching inland from Morro Bay to San Luis O…
- Narrows Earth Trail — Geology · San Diego County, CA
Short paved-access interpretive loop in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park along Highway 78 that explains some of the park’s oldest exposed rock, faulting, and d…
- Obsidian Dome — Geology · Mono County, CA
Young rhyolite–obsidian lava dome in the Inyo volcanic chain west of US-395 north of Mammoth Lakes. Short walks from dirt-road parking reach glassy black flo…
- Owens River Gorge — Geology · Inyo County, CA
Deep basalt canyon cut by the Owens River between Crowley Lake and Pleasant Valley Reservoir north of Bishop. Vertical jointed basalt walls expose Bishop Tuf…
- Painted Canyon (Mecca Hills) — Geology · Riverside County, CA
Banded sandstone and mudstone badlands in BLM’s Mecca Hills Wilderness northeast of the Salton Sea / Coachella Valley. The popular Ladder Canyon–Painted Cany…
- Painted Gorge — Geology · Imperial County, CA
Colorful faulted sedimentary badlands and canyon walls in the Coyote Mountains Wilderness near Ocotillo—a BLM dirt-road drive into striped reds, ochres, and …
- Panum Crater — Geology · Mono County, CA
Young rhyolite plug-dome volcano on the south shore of Mono Lake, formed only a few hundred years ago. A short trail climbs the pumice ring and plugs for clo…
- Pisgah Crater — Geology · San Bernardino County, CA
Young basaltic cinder cone and lava field in the Mojave Trails National Monument corridor just south of I-40/Route 66. Flows, cinder slopes, and lava-tube fe…
- Pumpkin Patch — Geology · Imperial County, CA
Field of spherical sandstone concretions (“desert pumpkins”) exposed by wind and water erosion inside Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area. Formed …
- Rainbow Basin Natural Area — Geology · San Bernardino County, CA
BLM Area of Critical Environmental Concern and National Natural Landmark north of Barstow showcasing multicolored Miocene badlands, fossil beds of the Barsto…
- Red Rock Canyon State Park — Geology · Kern County, CA
Colorful cliff-and-butte badlands where the southern Sierra Nevada meets the El Paso Mountains on the western Mojave. Soft sedimentary layers eroded into red…
- Salton Buttes — Geology · Imperial County, CA
Chain of five Holocene rhyolite lava domes on the southeast shore of the Salton Sea—Mullet Island, North and South Red Hill, Rock Hill, and Obsidian Butte—am…
- Shell Reef — Geology · Imperial County, CA
Exposed ridge of marine shell beds and badland topography in the Ocotillo Wells / northwestern Anza-Borrego desert, where ancient sea deposits weather into f…
- Split Mountain (Anza-Borrego) — Geology · San Diego County, CA
Dramatic anticline and gorge where Fish Creek Wash cuts the Vallecito Mountains at the SE corner of Anza-Borrego. Classic Colorado Desert structure-geology s…
- Striped Butte — Geology · Death Valley, CA
Isolated banded peak rising from remote Butte Valley in southern Death Valley National Park—classic multi-colored sedimentary stripes visible for miles. Reac…
- Teutonia Peak (Cima Dome) — Geology · San Bernardino County, CA
Three-mile round-trip trail from Cima Road to a rocky summit overlooking Cima Dome — one of the Mojave's best-expressed symmetrical granitic domes — and a va…
- Titus Canyon Geology Drive — Geology · Death Valley, CA
Titus Canyon Road is a rough one-way high-clearance drive from Nevada Highway 374 west into Death Valley, cutting 700 million years of rock from Precambrian …
- Trona Pinnacles — Geology · San Bernardino County, CA
Hundreds of calcium-carbonate tufa spires rise from the dry bed of Searles Lake in the northern Mojave, formed when freshwater springs met alkaline lake wate…
- Truckhaven Rocks — Geology · San Diego County, CA
Colorful sandstone outcrops of some of Anza-Borrego’s oldest sedimentary rock, rising above the Arroyo Salado bajada north of S-22 (Borrego-Salton Seaway) ne…
- Twenty Mule Team Canyon — Geology · Death Valley, CA
One-way unpaved scenic drive through yellow-and-brown badlands of eroded Furnace Creek Formation mudstone just east of Zabriskie Point. Named for the histori…
- Ubehebe Crater — Geology · Death Valley, CA
Half-mile wide maar volcano that last erupted just 300-800 years ago. A phreatomagmatic explosion hurled rock miles across the desert floor. Little Hebe Crat…
- Vasquez Rocks Natural Area — Geology · Los Angeles County, CA
Iconic tilted sandstone and conglomerate outcrops of the Mint Canyon Formation in Agua Dulce, managed as a ~945-acre LA County natural area with interpretive…
- Volcanic Tableland (Chalk Bluff) — Geology · Inyo County, CA
South-facing escarpment of the Bishop Tuff Volcanic Tableland north of Bishop — a ~760,000-year-old welded rhyolite ignimbrite sheet erupted from the Long Va…
- Volcano Peak — Geology · Inyo County, CA
Prominent basaltic peak in the Coso Volcanic Field east of US-395 near Little Lake / Fossil Falls country. Part of the young volcanic landscape that fed lava…
- Wallace Creek Interpretive Trail — Geology · San Luis Obispo County, CA
Classic San Andreas Fault field site on Carrizo Plain National Monument: an intermittent creek right-laterally offset ~130 m by repeated earthquakes, with a …