Zayante Creek (

Ohlone The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...

: ''Sayant'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed March 15, 2011

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

within the

San Lorenzo River The San Lorenzo River is a long river whose headwaters originate in Castle Rock State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains and flow south by southeast through the San Lorenzo Valley before passing through Santa Cruz and emptying into Monterey Ba ...

watershed in

Santa Cruz County, California Santa Cruz County (), officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Santa ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The U.S. government has designated Zayante Creek as impaired with respect to

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand an ...

. Lompico Creek, a tributary of Zayante Creek, is listed for impairment by

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ ...

s. In the period 1998 to 2000 a restoration project was conducted for this stream to improve

anadromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...

fish passage, rearing and

spawning Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aquati ...

. There has been a permanent

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and ...

gauging station A stream gauge, streamgage or stream gauging station is a location used by hydrologists or environmental scientists to monitor and test terrestrial bodies of water. Hydrometric measurements of water level surface elevation ("stage") and/or volu ...

on Zayante Creek which has operated since the year 1959; the mean altitude of the Zayante Basin, carved within the western slopes of the

Santa Cruz Mountains The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from ...

, is . Significant tributaries to Zayante Creek are Lompico Creek and Bean Creek. Soils formations along the mainstem of Zayante Creek by ascending altitude are: Monterey Formation,

Zayante Formation Zayante may refer to several features and localities in Santa Cruz County, California. *Zayante, California, an unincorporated community *Zayante Creek, a tributary of the San Lorenzo River *Rancho Zayante, a former Mexican land grant The Span ...

Vaqueros Sandstone The Vaqueros Formation is a sedimentary geologic unit primarily of Upper Oligocene and Lower Miocene age, which is widespread on the California coast and coastal ranges in approximately the southern half of the state. It is predominantly a medi ...

and

Lompico Sandstone The Lompico Sandstone is a sedimentary rock formation of lower to middle Miocene age. It overlies the Salinian basement rocks of Santa Cruz County, California. It interfingers with and is overlain by the Miocene Monterey Formation. These are in tur ...

; about midway through its course, Zayante Creek is bisected by the

Zayante Fault Zayante may refer to several features and localities in Santa Cruz County, California. *Zayante, California, an unincorporated community *Zayante Creek, a tributary of the San Lorenzo River *Rancho Zayante, a former Mexican land grant The Span ...

. Several notable ecological features are present in the Zayante Creek watershed, including the occurrence of a rare forest type:

maritime coast range ponderosa pine forest The maritime coast range ponderosa pine forests are rare temperate forest assemblages associated with a limited range portion of the Santa Cruz Mountains of northern California. There are only three known small forests of this type, all situated i ...

, which contains two

endangered arthropod As of July 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 616 endangered arthropod species. 6.5% of all evaluated arthropod species are listed as endangered. The IUCN also lists 27 arthropod subspecies as endangered. No ...

s. Regarding specific

avafauna Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight s ...

species there are sightings of

Townsend's warbler Townsend's warbler (''Setophaga townsendi'') is a small songbird of the New World warbler family. Taxonomy Townsend's warbler was species description, formally described in 1837 by the American naturalist John Kirk Townsend under the binomial nam ...

.David Suddjian, ''Santa Cruz Birds'', Albatross, March/April 1993 (Vol 38, No. 4)
/ref>

References

Rivers of Santa Cruz County, California Rivers of Northern California Tributaries of the San Lorenzo River {{California-river-stub

See also

References