Aaron Murdock

ALA12 The Story of Your Favorite Coastline

1. Waves
a. The waves likely have to travel across the Santa Monica Basin before
reaching the shallows that lead up to the beach. The beaches experienced
stronger waves the past few years from El Niño, which can amplify the
effects of winter waves taking sand out to sea and summer waves bringing
it back it.
2. Tides
a. They are just like the book says. The high and low happens twice a day,
like most places.
3. Storms
a. The El Niño of the last couple years affected the coastlines by bringing
storms that caused more erosion than normal.
4. Slope of seafloor
a. The seafloor near Santa Monica has shallow water that reaches out into
the ocean about 5 miles before dropping into the Santa Monica Canyon,
Santa Monica Basin, and a nearby escarpment. About one hundred miles
out the plate stops and the ocean deepens considerably.
5. Orientation of coastline
a. The beach runs northwest to southeast along California’s southern coast.
6. Bedrock
a. There are Quaternary deposits that include old marine deposits and
alluvium. The bedrock is sometimes exposed in the nearby mountains and
are from the Pleistocene Age.
7. Streams and sediment
a. There are no streams at the actual Santa Monica Beach, but there are
streams nearby. To the north are the Santa Monica Mountains, which
have a few streams that meet the ocean. I tried to find specific names, but
nothing was coming up.
b. The sediment comes from the quartz, mica, and granite mountains and is
deposited by watershed streams up and down the coast.
8. Uplift
a. According to an article I read, referenced below, the coast of California is
not uplifting as much as previously thought. The studies did not consider
glacial retreat over the millennia and isostatic adjustment. The mountains
along the coast were formed as the North American and Pacific plates
collided, and are still forming.
9. Climate
a. The climate in coastal Southern California is Mediterranean, with warm
and dry summers and wet, mild winters. The ‘wet’ is a bit exaggerated,
though, as the area does not see heavy rains very often. This means the
 beaches and mountainsides do not erode in large floods of water, but
slowly, over time.

Websites referenced:
● http://gmw.conservation.ca.gov/SHP/EZRIM/Reports/SHZR/SHZR_036_Venice.p
df
● http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/07/15/38176/southern-california-s-geologic-
history-as-told-by/
● http://maps.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/informationwarehouse/
● http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/015849/california-rising
● http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-el-nino-california-
20170214-story.html