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Kern Canyon Fault
The Kern Canyon Fault (Late-Quaternary Active Kern Canyon Fault) is a dextral strike-slip fault (horizontal) that runs roughly around 150 km (93 mi) beside the Kern River Canyon through the mountainous area of the Southern Sierra Nevada Batholith. The fault was a reverse fault in the Early Cretaceous epoch during the primal stages of the Farallon Plate subduction beneath the North American Continental Plate and fully transitioned into a strike-slip shear zone during the Late Cretaceous. Professor Robert W. Webb of the University of Chicago was the first to research the fault in 1936; He found a lava flow (Pliocene age) that covered the northern end of the fault trace where the Little Kern and Kern River coincided. Without any evidence of deformation affecting the hardened lava and without any evidence found previously when investigating the fault line, Webb deemed the fault to be inactive. In 2007, Professor Elisabeth Nadin (University of Alaska Fairbanks) discover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dextral
Sinistral and dextral, in some scientific fields, are the two types of chirality ("handedness") or relative direction. The terms are derived from the Latin words for "left" (''sinister'') and "right" (''dexter''). Other disciplines use different terms (such as dextro- and laevo-rotary in chemistry, or clockwise and anticlockwise in physics) or simply use left and right (as in anatomy). Relative direction and chirality are distinct concepts. Relative direction is from the point of view of the observer; a completely symmetric object has a left side and a right side, from the observer's point of view, if the top and bottom and direction of observation are defined. Chirality, however, is observer-independent: no matter how one looks at a right-hand screw thread, it remains different from a left-hand screw thread. Therefore, a symmetric object has sinistral and dextral directions arbitrarily defined by the position of the observer, while an asymmetric object that shows chirality may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metamorphic Rock
Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causing profound physical or chemical changes. During this process, the rock remains mostly in the solid state, but gradually recrystallizes to a new texture or mineral composition. The protolith may be an igneous, sedimentary, or existing metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rocks make up a large part of the Earth's crust and form 12% of the Earth's land surface. They are classified by their protolith, their chemical and mineral makeup, and their texture. They may be formed simply by being deeply buried beneath the Earth's surface, where they are subject to high temperatures and the great pressure of the rock layers above. They can also form from tectonic processes such as continental collisions, which cause horizontal pressure, friction, and distorti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History Of Kern County, California
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word ''nature'' is borrowed from the Old French ''nature'' and is derived from the Latin word ''natura'', or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth". In ancient philosophy, ''natura'' is mostly used as the Latin translation of the Greek word ''physis'' (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics of plants, animals, and other features of the world to develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-So ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kern River Valley
The Kern River Valley is a valley and region of the Southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada, in Kern County, California, Kern County, California. History The valley was inhabited for millennia by the indigenous Tübatulabal and Kawaiisu people, and various bedrock mortar and pictograph sites can be found throughout the region. Their first recorded contact with European settlers was in May, 1834, when Joseph R. Walker scouted a Walker Pass, mountain pass through the valley. He would return along the same route in December, 1845 as part of John C. Frémont, John C. Frémont's John C. Frémont#Third expedition, third expedition, this time with cartographer and artist Edward Kern. While exploring the valley, Kern camped at the fork of a river, once nearly drowning in its swift waters. In return for Kern's service to the expedition, Frémont named it the Kern River. Gold was discovered near the valley in 1853, leading to the Kern River Gold Rush and the founding of Keyesville. On ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geology Of Tulare County, California
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth sciences, including hydrology, and so is treated as one major aspect of integrated Earth system science and planetary science. Geology describes the structure of the Earth on and beneath its surface, and the processes that have shaped that structure. It also provides tools to determine the relative and absolute ages of rocks found in a given location, and also to describe the histories of those rocks. By combining these tools, geologists are able to chronicle the geological history of the Earth as a whole, and also to demonstrate the age of the Earth. Geology provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and the Earth's past climates. Geologists broadly study the properties and processes of Earth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geology Of Kern County, California
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth sciences, including hydrology, and so is treated as one major aspect of integrated Earth system science and planetary science. Geology describes the structure of the Earth on and beneath its surface, and the processes that have shaped that structure. It also provides tools to determine the relative and absolute ages of rocks found in a given location, and also to describe the histories of those rocks. By combining these tools, geologists are able to chronicle the geological history of the Earth as a whole, and also to demonstrate the age of the Earth. Geology provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and the Earth's past climates. Geologists broadly study the properties and processes of Earth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Nevada (United States)
The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is part of the American Cordillera, an almost continuous chain of mountain ranges that forms the western "backbone" of the Americas. The Sierra runs north-south and its width ranges from to across east–west. Notable features include General Sherman, the largest tree in the world by volume; Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in North America; Mount Whitney at , the highest point in the contiguous United States; and Yosemite Valley sculpted by glaciers from one-hundred-million-year-old granite, containing high waterfalls. The Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks; and Devils Postpi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seismic Faults Of California
Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies. It also includes studies of earthquake environmental effects such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, glacial, fluvial, oceanic, atmospheric, and artificial processes such as explosions. A related field that uses geology to infer information regarding past earthquakes is paleoseismology. A recording of Earth motion as a function of time is called a seismogram. A seismologist is a scientist who does research in seismology. History Scholarly interest in earthquakes can be traced back to antiquity. Early speculations on the natural causes of earthquakes were included in the writings of Thales of Miletus (c. 585 BCE), Anaximenes of Miletus (c. 550 BCE), Aristotle (c. 340 BCE), and Zhan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sequoia National Park
Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing a vertical relief of nearly , the park contains the highest point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, at above sea level. The park is south of, and contiguous with, Kings Canyon National Park; both parks are administered by the National Park Service together as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. UNESCO designated the areas as Sequoia-Kings Canyon Man and the Biosphere Programme, Biosphere Reserve in 1976. The park is notable for its Sequoiadendron giganteum, giant sequoia trees, including the General Sherman (tree), General Sherman tree, the List of largest giant sequoias, largest tree on Earth by volume. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five of the ten largest trees in the world. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kern River
The Kern River, previously Rio de San Felipe, later La Porciuncula, is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield. Fed by snowmelt near Mount Whitney, the river passes through scenic canyons in the mountains and is a popular destination for whitewater rafting and kayaking. It is the southernmost major river system in the Sierra Nevada, and is the only major river in the Sierra that drains in a southerly direction. The Kern River formerly emptied into the now dry Buena Vista Lake and Kern Lake via the Kern River Slough, and Kern Lake in turn emptied into Buena Vista Lake via the Connecting Slough at the southern end of the Central Valley. Buena Vista Lake, when overflowing, first backed up into Kern Lake and then upon rising higher drained into Tulare Lake via Buena Vista Slough and a changing series of sloughs of the Kern River. The lakes wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mylonite
Mylonite is a fine-grained, compact metamorphic rock produced by dynamic recrystallization of the constituent minerals resulting in a reduction of the grain size of the rock. Mylonites can have many different mineralogical compositions; it is a classification based on the textural appearance of the rock. Formation Mylonites are ductilely deformed rocks formed by the accumulation of large shear strain, in ductile fault zones. There are many different views on the formation of mylonites, but it is generally agreed that crystal-plastic deformation must have occurred, and that fracturing and cataclastic flow are secondary processes in the formation of mylonites. Mechanical abrasion of grains by milling does not occur, although this was originally thought to be the process that formed mylonites, which were named from the Greek μύλος ''mylos'', meaning mill. Mylonites form at depths of no less than 4 km. There are many different mechanisms that accommodate crystal-plastic def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kern River Canyon
The Kern River Canyon is a canyon in Kern County, California. It is located in the Southern Sierra Nevada. The canyon was formed by the Kern River, and connects the Kern River Valley and southern San Joaquin Valley.Lee, Charles. ''An Intensive Study of the Water Resources of a Part of the Owens Valley, California''. United States Geological Survey - United States Department of the Interior. Government Printing Office. 1912. Page 49. California State Route 178 (Kern Canyon Road) follows the canyon, from east of Bakersfield up to the Lake Isabella Lake Isabella also called Isabella Lake, is a reservoir in Kern County, California, United States created by the earthen Isabella Dam. It was formed in 1953 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Kern River at the junction of its two f ... area. References Canyons and gorges of California Kern River Landforms of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Landforms of Kern County, California Kern River Valley {{Ke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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