Happy Friday, good people!
We close out the workweek with a fold, and today it comes to us from Larry O’Hanlon, who manages the AGU Blogosphere.
Larry writes that he was recently in California, and…
I noticed a little fold in a sea cliff at Calafia State Beach in San Clemente. I barely managed to snap a few pictures before being pulled away by the kids. Looks like soft sediment deformation of beach sands? As it is about 100 m from the surf and maybe less than 10 m above sea level, I’m guessing this is a fairly young deposit exposed by uplift.
Here it is:
I’ve attempted to trace out bedding here, but it’s hard to do in the most tightly folded bit:
I agree that this looks like a soft sediment slump fold.
Thanks for thinking of the Friday fold when you were traveling, Larry! I hope all readers of the blog will consider snapping some fold photos when they see them during their global peregrinations…
Just received this via email from a reader:
Those photos today (fantastic for sure) are at “San Clemente State Beach” (Calafia Road and, maybe, Calafia Park). They are of soft-sediment deformation in deepwater submarine channel and fan deposits of the Pliocene Capistrano Formation; and the beds are basically flat-lying, unlike the Miocene stuff around here. That is a very famous location; frequent site of industry and academic field trips. There are incredible exposures of the fan beds and channel fills all along the San Clemente Beach Trail here. Here are some links:
San Clemente State Beach: http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=646
Geology (PDF file): http://busby.faculty.geol.ucsb.edu/library/pdf/AAPG_20B.PDF