Salinian Block

The prominent, upward-sloping Salinian Block formation can be seen here from the Point Reyes Lighthouse.

The Salinian Block is largely granitic, in accordance with its continental crustal origin. This composition contrasts sharply, and paradoxically, with much of the crust to its east, which is sedimentary and oceanic in origin. The block's granitic core, fragments of the batholith of the Peninsular Ranges, shares its origins with the Sierra Nevada mountains far to the east.

During the past 30 million years the North American Plate has been overriding the East Pacific Rise and transform faulting along the developing San Andreas fault zone. Successive "stretched out" slivers of the Sierra Nevada - the Peninsular Batholith - have been and currently still are moving to the northwest to their current location.[1] The granitic plutons of the Salinas block stretch from Bodega Head (38°18′39.6″N 123°03′57.6″W) in the north to Mount Pinos (34°48′46.1″N 119°08′43.4″W) at the southern end of the block.

In the years since the 1974 study by Johnson and Normark the connection with the southern Sierra Nevada has been questioned, stating that "it more nearly resembles granite in the Mojave Desert". [2]

Some of the more notable portions of the block are visible as:

• Bodega Head – Promontory in California, United States
• Point Reyes
• The Farallon Islands – Group of islands off the coast of California, United States
• Devil's Slide
• Monterey Peninsula
• Pebble Beach
• Point Lobos – Cape in California, USA
• McWay Falls
• Anderson Canyon
• Pinnacles National Park – National park in California, United States of America
• Mount Pinos

Much of the mountainous terrain along the Salinian Block is protected under the US Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, most notably within Los Padres National Forest, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, and Point Reyes National Seashore.

• Marin College: "Feldspar Staining of the Plutonic Rocks of the Salinian Terrane"