Along with Drs. Nate Onderdonk (Cal State Long Beach) and Antonio Garcia (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), LCI’s Ian McGregor will co-lead a Geological Society of America (GSA) field trip to the western Transverse Ranges on September 20–21, 2024. This trip will visit the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley and remote coastal areas between Point Conception and Point Sal to see how fluvial and marine terraces have been used to understand Late Quaternary uplift and deformation at the western end of the Transverse Ranges. The trip will cover (1) the regional Quaternary terrace stratigraphy, based on luminescence dating, and how terrace ages relate to climatic changes; (2) fluvial response to a blind fault that grew up through a river system; and (3) surprising variations in deformation rates and uplift rates in this area over the past ~100 ka as faults turned on and off. The first day of the trip will follow the Santa Ynez River from its upper reaches toward the coast as it crosses several major faults that have lifted, faulted, and folded a sequence of fluvial terraces. The second day of the trip will visit coastal sites to see how the fluvial terraces correlate with marine terraces and to see deformation and fault offset of the marine terraces. This trip will start and end in Santa Barbara.
To learn more and to register for this trip, visit the GSA Connects 2024 website here: FT407. Tectonics of the Northwestern Transverse Ranges (geosociety.org)