1. By: Jacqueline Alvarez
A journey to Los Gatos in
Coalinga, CA
The Journey to Los Gatos Rd.
in Coalinga, CA
By: Jacqueline Alvarez

2. As I submerged myself into the hills I lifted I live in Coalinga, Ca so I didn’t
my eyes and low and behold I found what travel too far just up to the hills, and
wonderful mysteries lie amongst me I was so intrigued by this interesting
everyday…. pattern in the mountain, you can
clearly see layers and when I did
some research I found out that this
is an ANTICLINE. Coalinga is
extremely rich in Petroleum there
are many oil fields here. These
Anticlines run parallel to the San
Andreas Fault. “Anticlines are
usually recognized by a sequence of
rock layers that are progressively
older toward the center of the fold
because the uplifted core of the fold
is preferentially eroded to a deeper
stratigraphic level relative to the
topographically lower flanks. The
strata dip away from the center, or
crest, of the fold.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticline
)

3. Vaqueros Sandstone
There is hard and soft sandstone, shale, and
conglomerate located here in Los Gatos Creek.
Overtime the hard sandstone hasn’t been effected
as much as the soft sandstone at the base you can
see oil and petroleum. “In the early Miocene a
sedimentary formation was deposited in Coalinga
that is correlative of the formation of Vaqueros
Sandstone in the region nearer the coast…These
formations are shown by the fact that the fossil
remains of mollusks characteristic of lower Miocene
time exist in both.” (Ralph Arnold, Robert Anderson This milk maid just
1908) happened to be blocking
a closer view at the rocks.

4. Granite
I believe this rock to be
granite because it was
near gravel. It was a hard
rock that was in abundance
and it has crystals all over
it. The texture and feel of
the rock also made me
think it was granite. It has a
very slick feel to it. It has
many colors also
grey, white red, and
different hues intermingled
each other, and when I was
looking at all the rocks the
only type of rock I saw that
it resembled was granite.

5. Conglomerate
This is one rock comprised of
many rocks. I believe this rock to
be a Conglomerate rock. The way
I deciphered this was first by
knowing these rocks are
sedimentary meaning they
accumulated over time. It seems
like it’s comprised of cement, and
small particles, and different rocks.
I zoomed this photo in so you
could see all the different rocks
that have weathered together. This
rock was found by a very fast
moving water current in the creek.

6. Los Gatos in retrospect.
Photo was borrowed from www.picacho.org/joaquin-rocks.html

7. Temblor Range
The Fauna poses

8. “ The Temblor Range and surrounding region contains
extensive outcrops of the Monterey Formation(Miocene
age, about 20 to 9 million years). The Pliocene-age
Etchegoin Formation contains marine fossils to about 4
million years old. Fossils of the Etchegoin Formation are
supporting evidence that the Coast Ranges and the
Temblor Range are young, having been uplifted mostly
during the Pleistocene Epoch (or Quaternary) in the past
several million years. Much of that ongoing uplift is due
to tectonics associated with the San Andreas Fault and
other fault systems in the region.”
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9099958/Temblor-Range)

9. Snails
Picture of this fossil is
Courtesy of The Baker
Museum in Coalinga, CA
I was so amazed to learn that Coalinga, Ca was once under water.
There are so many snails in Coalinga they are pretty much pests to
some people. I went to the Baker Museum to find some Geological
significance of the snail and guess what they had actual fossils that I
was able to view, I wasn’t able to locate fossils myself but the Baker
Museum had them on display and if you look at the fossil you can see
how much they have evolved.

10. I have to be honest I am so excited because this is the first real fossil
that I have actually got to view, and its so neat to have a piece of history
right here in front of my eyes. The evolutionary process is tremendous in
this critter because these snails now live on land, not in water and
initially they were in the depths of the sea.
 “The earliest known snails were similar in structure to limpets. These
creatures lived in shallow sea water and fed on algae and they had a
pair of gills. The most primitive of the air-breathing snails (also called
pulmonates) belonged to the Family Ellobiidae. Members of this family
still lived in water (salt marshes and coastal waters) but they went to the
surface for air… When we look back through the fossil record, we can
see various tendencies in how snails changed over time. In general the
following patterns emerge:
 the process of torsion becomes more prominant
 the shell became increasingly conical and spirally coiled
 there is an evolutionary tendency among pulmonates towards the entire
loss of a shell”(www.about.com)

11. California Pine
“The oldest known fossil of the pine
family (Pinaceae) is a cone from the
Lower Cretaceous period, about 130
million years ago. The structure of
this fossilized pine cone is similar to
that of modern cones of the Pinus
genus.”(http://science.jrank.org/pages
/5234/Pines-Evolution-
classification.html)
I believe this tree to be a hard pine,
the way I deciphered this was
because the bundles were in bundles
of 3, and two main veins.

12. Red Winged Black Bird
I was so fortunate to locate this Red
Winged Black Bird (on the wire fence)
The evolutionary process of birds in my
opinion is the most interesting. They
initially were reptiles. They emerged
150,000,000 years ago. There bones
evolved too they now are hallow and
filled with air. The first birds were not
skilled fliers like they are now. They
were comprised differently. Their
feathers and veins were different so
they evolved into the amazing aviators
they are today.
I read about the worlds first birds in a
book I had entitled (The New Book Of
knowledge)

13. Homo Sapien’s have evolved too!
Homo Erectus to Neanderthal to Modern day cuties like these we
have evolved like our Environment and we can now fight off
disease. Survival of the fittest is no longer a necessary truth.

14. Igneous Intrusions
“Sills are always parallel to
beds (layers) of the surrounding
country rock. Usually they are
in a horizontal
orientation, although tectonic
processes can cause rotation of
sills into near vertical
orientations… a sill is a tabular
sheet intrusion that has
intruded between older layers
of sedimentary rock, beds of
volcanic lava or tuff, or even
along the direction of foliation in
metamorphic
rock.”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
ki/Sill_(geology)

15.  References
 Pines - Evolution And Classification - Hard, Soft, Species, and Section
- JRank Articles . (n.d.). Science Encyclopedia
- JRank Articles . Retrieved December 3, 2011, from
http://science.jrank.org/pages/5234/Pines-Evolution-classification.html
 Anticline - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Retrieved December 2, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticline
 Arnold, R., & Anderson, R. (1910). Geology and Oil resources of the Coalinga district
(California), by Ralph Arnold and Robert Anderson, with a Report on the chemical and
physical properties of the oils, by Irving C. Allen. Washington: government printing office.
 Evolution of Snails. (n.d.). Animals Wildlife - Animal Facts, Animal Pictures, Habitat
Facts, Evolution and Zoology. Retrieved December 2, 2011, from
http://animals.about.com/od/mollusks/ig/World-of-Snails/Snail-8.htm
 Joaquin Rocks. (n.d.). Clear Creek Recreation Area. Retrieved December 2, 2011, from
http://www.picacho.org/joaquin-rocks.html
 Sill (geology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Retrieved December 3, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sill_(geology)
 Temblor Range (mountains, California, United States) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
(n.d.). Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 2, 2011, from
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9099958/Temblor-Range
 The New book of knowledge. (1984). Danbury, Conn.: Grollier.