Oakland Geology

I was writing a post on Pebble Beach for the KQED Quest site. The pebbles there are special because they represent a huge variety of source rocks, pieces of which ended up offshore in deep-sea rocks back in the Cretaceous. Those rocks were pushed up above the sea and eroded again, freeing the pebbles for several more rounds of polishing and recycling. Then they were sifted in the surf to isolate them in a pure deposit.

Oakland wasn’t lucky that way. The sediments here derive mostly from finer-grained rocks, and the big exception, the Oakland Conglomerate, didn’t include such a variety of gravel clasts. And even then, our sediments don’t seem to have enjoyed a vigorous winnowing and polishing in the Pacific waves. Rather than shiny pebbles, our shores are mostly clay and mud.

But not entirely. The Franciscan block that underlies Piedmont and neighboring parts of Oakland contains the grab-bag of seafloor rocks typical of melange, and the debris it has shed down Oakland’s creeks has made it to the bay. So have bits of the basalt in the high hills. One place that these pebbles appear is in a little spot along the shore of Lake Merritt.

Unfortunately the waves of Lake Merritt will never turn them into a dazzling display. However, neither will Oakland ever be ground into bits like the retreating San Mateo coastline. Our dwellings will never fall down the eroding coastal bluffs like they do in Daly City. I can live with that.

This entry was posted on 3 March 2011 at 7:52 pm and is filed under Oakland sediment and soil. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.