Free live presentation and Zoom lecture with Art Wahl

This presentation was offered live at St. Mark’s-in-the-Valley Episcopal Church and as a Zoom lecture on May 20, 2022.

View the Zoom lecture recording at this link: The San Rafael Mountains Mélange.
This lecture preceded an auto caravan field trip the following day, May 21, for which registration was required. Please refer to the separate post.

The Santa Ynez Valley is bounded on the north and east by the San Rafael Mountains and includes rock formations that have fascinated geologists, their students, and the public for generations.  This so-called San Rafael Mountains Mélange, a chaotic collection of rock, has been slowly revealing itself by the combined effects of erosion, tectonic forces, and time. At first glance the mélange appears as shattered and ground-up chaos.  Detailed study, however, has revealed a structural order. For example, the Franciscan mélange within the greater mélange displays the California state rock, serpentinite.  Art Wahl, a UCSB alumnus, enlightened our understanding of the strange reality that is the San Rafael Mountains Mélange, and followed up with a caravan field trip the next day (see below).

Art Wahl mapped the Franciscan mélange located in Santa Cruz Creek and published his research in the USGS Bulletin.  Seeing that today’s leading interpretations of the mélange did not apply to what he thought he had found, Wahl revisited the area. His new findings and map will be published by the California Geological Survey in the summer of 2022. He was awarded a BS in Geosciences from the University of Houston and an MA in Geological Sciences from UCSB. His a long-time member and leader of the South Coast Geological Society.

 

Here is the link to Art Wahl’s talk last night in our first hybrid in-person/Zoom presentation — https://www.dropbox.com/s/pahuzap3fqumx4p/How%20to%20Reconstruct%20Chaos%20-%20The%20San%20Rafael%20Mountains%20M%C3%A9lange%20with%20Art%20Wahl.mp4?dl=0