Salinian Block

The Salinian Block is a geologic province of which lies west of the main trace of the San Andreas Fault system in California. It is bounded on the south by the Big Pine Fault in Ventura County, and on the west by the Nacimiento Fault.

The Salinian Block is largely granitic, in accordance with its continental crustal origin, contrasting sharply, and paradoxically, with much of the crust to its east, which in much of California is mostly sedimentary and oceanic in origin. It's granitic core, or "batholith", shares its origins with the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Salinian Block was the southward extension of the same granitic batholith which forms the core of the Sierras, broken and moved northwest by the action of the San Andreas Fault in a fashion that is not yet fully explained.

Today, northern portions of the block are visible as Bodega Head, Point Reyes, the Farallon Islands, and the picturesque coastal scenery of the Monterey Peninsula, exemplified at Pebble Beach.

The block was named for the Salinas Valley in California.

External links

* http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~jim/geolprojects/