Southern California Coast Ranges, Domain 3
The Southern California Coast Range domain is a mountainous region with subparallel ridges aligned north–south, or more precisely north, northwest–south, southeast, and with intervening valleys that are controlled by strike-slip faulting. It extends about 400 km from the Golden Gate at the entrance to San Francisco Bay south to the Transverse Ranges that have east–west trending ridges. The domain corresponds to a physiographic region about 400 km long and 100 km wide that is bound by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Great Valley of California on the east, on the north by the drainage outlet of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers through the Carquinas Straight and San Pablo Bay, and on the south by the Transverse Ranges. Ridges in the Southern California Coast Ranges generally have nearly level crests (Page et al. 1997), but they range considerably in height up to about 1500 m on some of the higher peaks. No streams from the Great Valley cross the Southern California Coast Ranges to the Ocean; the Great Valley drains through the Carquinez Straight and Golden Gate at the north end of these ranges. The larger streams in the Southern California Coast Ranges drain from the Santa Clara Valley, Salinas Valley, and Cuyama Valley to the San Francisco, Monterey, and San Luis Obispo bays. Only relatively small streams drain to the Great Valley, but some of them have large alluvial fans in the valley. There are many Tertiary-faultbound valleys and basins among the mountain ranges. Some of the more prominent basins are the Santa Maria basin, Carrizo Plains, Paso Robles basin, and Watsonville basin. Serpentine is scattered in relatively small bodies throughout the domain and is concentrated along some of the major faults and in the New Idria area (locality 3-12). Climates range from cool and foggy along the coast to warm inland, with hot and dry summers inland from the fog belt.