Now that the apocalypse is over and the world is ended we can get back to life and celebrate what is beautiful about our planet. I wasn't going to take the chance that the world would end with me sitting on a couch at home bored, so I was on the road on the northern California-southern Oregon coast during a pretty major storm. A couple of feet of snow was expected in the mountains, along with several inches of rain in the coastal areas and some very high winds. It was not a day for photography: dark skies and rain made things pretty tough. I only got a few photos that I thought were worth sharing.
We were at the Kuchel Visitor Center in Redwood National Park near Orick, California for a short break. I wandered down towards the beach (without a jacket as usual) and snapped a few shots of the sea stacks just offshore. The surf was running at 10-15 feet and maybe more, and the wind was whipping spray off the whitecaps, making for a violent geologic environment.
Large winter waves are among the most powerful of the forces in geology, capable of dislodging huge blocks of rock and tumbling them to sand in an incredibly short period of time. One can look at these sea stacks and consider how short a time they will exist before disappearing into the surf. Or...one can consider that they are the last remnants of what used to be land. Erosion is a relentless power that is continually and forever changing the face of our planet despite our best efforts to contain it.
Worried about apocalypses? It's fun to play with the concept sometimes (I love some of the Google+ and Facebook posters today), but really, it's pretty conceited of us to think that we are such a twisted generation that we get to see the end of the world. There have been plenty of people worse than us in the past, and in the future there will be plenty more. The world isn't going to end. But we do have the power to change the world into a slightly better place before we leave it. The real apocalypse is taking place slowly, one grain of sand at a time. The world will change and all things will pass away. But we have been given a short period of consciousness, and the company of many others, and we have choices about what we do with our short existence on planet Earth.
I can't really call this post part of the "Other California", because that series concentrates on geologically interesting places in unfamiliar corners of the state. My trip today was to the shoreline at Half Moon Bay along one of the four or five star resort complexes that costs hundreds of dollars a night and appears on lots of postcards. Note that I was not staying at said resort: I'm a teacher, after all, on a teacher's salary. But one very nice thing about California is that the shoreline belongs to everyone, and so despite that rich trappings, anyone can stroll along the beautiful cliffs and beaches.
Wave-cut cliffs abound along this section of the coast, due to tectonic uplift and deformation along nearby faults, including the San Andreas and San Gregorio. The rocks exposed in the cliffs tell a complex story of deformation of this block of crust, including granite rocks of the Sierra Nevada that have been displaced at least 200 miles northward, and seafloor sediments folded and lifted above sea level (check out this 2001 NAGT field guide, published by the USGS for some details).
Evidence of vigorous wave erosion is evident not just in the fresh seacliffs, but also in human developments close to the edge of the interface between water and land. The stairwell above has been undercut by powerful winter waves, and has been reinforced with the large boulders called riprap. The boulders absorb the force of waves, slowing down the water and preventing it from washing the softer sediments of the cliff away. The road below is probably not long for this world. I've been at a restaurant here in winter and seen water was splashing on the windows facing the beach. 
The fun of the central coast of California is the diversity of landscapes. Not five miles from the beach we found a beautiful quiet redwood forest at Purisima Creek Reserve. The reserve has 24 miles of trails in a second-growth forest. Most of the older trees were logged in the early 1900's, but the evidence is nearly buried away in the rich undergrowth. The park was established with the help of the Save-The-Redwoods League. It was a nice place to end the day.
