Fascinating San Rafael Mountains Rock Formations

Since Spring 2020, the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society has offered their lectures via Zoom.  They have announced a return to in-person lectures starting on May 20, 2022. With his lecture titled, How to reconstruct chaos: The San Rafael Mountains Mélange, geology expert Art Wahl will help members and friends of the SYVNHS understand some of the strange reality that comprises the San Rafael Mountains rock formations with both a lecture and a field trip.

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 chaotic collection of rock that has been slowly revealing itself by the combined effects of erosion, tectonic forces, and time includes the California state rock, Serpentinite, and the glowing purple Blueschist.

This can also be viewed as a Zoom/Webinar – to register for webinar preregister at:  https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rlUdFjKqQu6ND6fFCW0h_g

Art Wahl was awarded a BS in Geosciences from the University of Houston and an MA in Geological Sciences from UCSB.  Working under Prof. Art Sylvester at UC Santa Barbara, Art Wahl mapped the Franciscan mélange located in Santa Cruz Creek and published his research in the United States Geological Society Bulletin.

Seeing that today’s leading interpretations of the mélange did not apply to what he thought he had found, Wahl revisited the area. The California Geological Survey will publish his new findings and map in the summer of 2022.

Photo by Sam Spaulding.