The Little River is the river in the U.S. state of

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, whose

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

is the largest on the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

coast between the Mad River and Big Lagoon. The river drains the forested

Franciscan assemblage The Franciscan Complex or Franciscan Assemblage is a geologic term for a late Mesozoic terrane of heterogeneous rocks found throughout the California Coast Ranges, and particularly on the San Francisco Peninsula. It was named by geologist Andr ...

of the

California Coast Ranges The Coast Ranges of California span from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California, south to Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains. P ...

. The lowermost mile of channel is through Quaternary

alluvium Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. ...

and dune sand of an estuarine

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

typical of coastal inlets along the

Cascadia subduction zone The Cascadia subduction zone is a convergent plate boundary that stretches from northern Vancouver Island in Canada to Northern California in the United States. It is a very long, sloping subduction zone where the Explorer, Juan de Fuca, a ...

. Land seaward of U.S. Route 101 forms Little River State Beach and Clam Beach County Park. Little River State Park was established in 1931. The floodplain upstream of the Highway 101 bridge is cleared as grazing pasture, and the upland portion of the drainage basin, including the former company town of Crannell, is in private ownership growing forest products. In 2014, the North Coast regional water board recommended that the Little River be listed as an impaired waterway due to '' E. coli'' contamination 600 times greater than normal.

References

See also