Geography 417
California for Educators

Landform Regions
and
Basic Physical Features of California

Lesson Outcomes

• Students will identify, locate describe the major landforms regions in California.

• Students will explain how the physical landscape of California creates context for current and historical events.

• Students will identify and explain the basic processes that have contributed to the creation of landforms.

What are the major geomorphic regions of California?

Standards

• 4.1 Students demonstrate an understanding of the physical and human geographic features that define places and regions in California.

•

• 1. Explain and use the coordinate grid system of latitude and longitude to determine the absolute locations of places in California and on Earth.

• 2. Distinguish between the North and South Poles; the equator and the prime meridian; the tropics; and the hemispheres, using coordinates to plot locations.

• 3. Identify the state capital and describe the various regions of California, including how their characteristics and physical environments (e.g., water, landforms, vegetation, climate) affect human activity.

• 4. Identify the locations of the Pacific Ocean, rivers, valleys, and mountain passes and explain their effects on the growth of towns.

• 5. Use maps, charts, and pictures to describe how communities in California vary in land use, vegetation, wildlife, climate, population density, architecture, services, and transportation.

The Geomorphic Provinces of California

• California has perhaps the greatest physical diversity of any state which makes it scenic and complex, but also creates cultural, economic and political divisions within the state.

• A result of millennia of tectonic activity on the coastal fringe of the US.

• In much of the state two tectonic plates are sliding past one another creating high forested mountains and deep valleys.

• In the North, the Pacific plate is, at least in part, sinking beneath the lighter crustal material of North America and this has created massive volcanoes and lava flows.

Coast Ranges

• Folded and faulted

• Mendocino Ranges north of Golden Gate

• Diablo Range and Big Sur to the south

• 2,000 - 6,000 ft.

• San Andreas Fault Zone diagonally cuts across the area.

Klamath Mountains

• Most complex in CA

• Numerous ranges, seemingly random orientation

• Many igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks

• Eastern peaks reach 5,000 - 9,000 ft.

• High rainfall - forests

• Pleistocene Glaciation

• Rivers cut V-shaped valleys: Trinity and Klamath

Southern Cascades and Modoc Plateau

• Lava, Lava, Lava

• Ash, domes, cinder cones, volcanic mtns.

• Lassen (10,457 ft) - 1914-1917

• Shasta (14,162 ft)

• Much of Modoc plateau is in rainshadow of Cascades and is thus arid (< 20”/yr)

Basin and Range

• Horst and Graben

• Death Valley
(-282 ft)

• Panamint Ranges - Telescope Peak (11.045 ft)

• Owens Valley

• Mono Lake

• Whole region in rainshadow of Sierra Nevada

Sierra Nevada

• 400 mile long

• Granitic batholith

• Mt. Whitney (14,495 ft)

• Steep eastern escarpment

• Faulted Block Construction

• Orographic Precip.

• Barrier to people and animals

• Glaciation

Scenes from the Sierras

Great Central Valley

• San Joaquin Valley and River in south

• Sacramento Valley and River in north

• Downfolded construction

• Very thick layers of sediment - good soils

• San Francisco Bay Delta

• Seasonal flooding before Europeans

• Sutter Buttes (2,200’) - volcanic

Scenes from the Great Central Valley

Mojave Desert

• High Desert
(4,000 - 7,000 ft)

• Highest in northeast corner

• Bounded by Garlock and San Andreas faults

• Rocks of all types exposed

• Snow in Winter

• Joshua Trees

Scenes from the Mojave

• Joshua Tree (above)

Colorado Desert

• Low Desert
(-234 - 1,000 ft)

• Sunken fault block

• Also the Salton Trough or Sink

• Coachella Valley in north - date palms

• Imperial Valley in south - vegetables

• San Andreas fault is widening the area

• Colorado River Drains into it.

Transverse Ranges

¢ Santa Ynez, Santa Monica, San Gabriel, and San Bernardino Mtns.

¢ Trend East-West, perpendicular to other CA mtns.

¢ Mt. San Antonio “Old Baldy” in Gabriels (10,064 ft)

¢ San Gorgornio in San Bernardino's (11,499 ft) is highest in SoCal.

¢ Precip low (10-40”) and seasonal

Los Angeles Basin and Peninsular Ranges

¢ Granitic; steep eastern side

¢ LA basin’s deep alluvial fill

¢ Mt. San Jacinto (10,804’)

¢ Cuyamaca and Palomar Mtns surpass 6,000’ in San Diego

¢ Marine terraces in San Diego

¢ Peninsular Ranges extend to S. Baja.

Local Mountain Ranges

• Third grade standards require this knowledge

• San Gabriel Mountains (east of LA – 210)

• Santa Monica Mountains (West of LA –PCH)

– Hollywood Hills

• Santa Susanna Mountain (Northwest -118)

– Simi Hills

• Sierra Palonas (I -5 – Northwest – Santa Clarita)

• Santa Anas (Orange County)

• Emdigio, Topa Topa Mountains (Ventura)

• http://www.csun.edu/~cfe/geog_resources.html#geog3

Local Passes and Rivers

• Sepulveda Pass

• Cahuenga Pass

• Tejon Pass

• Los Angeles River

• San Gabriel River

• Santa Clara River

• Santa Ana River