Picture of the Day - Yesterday's Haul

This morning I organized my finds from yesterday's expedition to the Gaviota Coast. I found 46 pieces of petrified whale bone at two beaches we visited (I gave three away as samples to other's I met at the beach) and 3 pieces of petrified wood. Some of the whale vertabra I found are some of the most beautiful such I have ever found. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

About Last Night's Bow Echo

Last night saw the Central Coast visited by an unusual phenomenon for this area of the world, to wit, a bow echo complex of thunderstorms. These are more common in Tornado Alley and the Eastern U.S. This bow echo formed west of the Santa Barbara Channel and moved eastward through the channel and into coastal Ventura County where it made landfall. To my knowledge there were no reports of water spouts over the channel or tornados over coast valleys although they can occur with bow echos. There might have been some straight-line wind damage and minor flooding along the Gaviota Coast of Santa Barbara County but I cannot confirm that at this time. This bow echo passed south of me, but I did directly experience a more powerful bow echo in Liberal, Kansas, in 1993.  

Courtesy of Jordan Root @ AccuWeather via Twitter (all rights reserved)

Courtesy of Jordan Root @ AccuWeather via Twitter (all rights reserved)

Courtesy of Kevin Takumi @ KTTV-TV Los Angeles via Twitter (all rights reserved)

Revisiting Jalama Beach

This past weekend the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen embarked on their second expedition, this time to Jalama Beach in southwestern Santa Barbara County at the western end of the Gaviota Coast, one of the most magical stretches of California Coast on par with Malibu and Big Sur. Today it was three of us, Dennis, Ron, and myself. We turned left and headed eastward towards the better petrified whale bone prospects. Each of us found a piece, each one different: Dennis's piece was a naturally tumbled pebble featuring great bone cell structure, Ron's was palm-sized and naturally tumbled and polished, and mine was palm-sized and very rough with the bone mostly in its original configuration not long out of the matrix in which it was preserved and petrified. We each also had a good day finding beach agates which we knew were there but did not expect to find as much of as we did. We did get to the concretions and checked a few of them before heading back due to time constraints. Next time we visit we will get an earlier start and stay later and longer. Our time constraint was an appointment with the most legendary rockhound I know of the fruit of which encounter can be seen HERE.

View back towards the campground with Dennis and Ron at left and right, respectively.

These pebbles are predominately radiolarian chert pebbles.

My petrified whale bone find.

Jalama Beach sedimentary cliffs.

Natural tar snake

Natural tar shark. The natural tar detritus was quite prominent and the most I have ever observed here.

Tar shark head detail.

Note the stretch marks as this tar shark oozed out of a natural tar seep along a submarine fault-line nearby.

More mostly radiolarian chert and sandstone pebbles amidst stone outcroppings covered in weathered tar.

Note the concretions in the cliff face. All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Of Tsunamis, Whales, Coral, and Sand Dollars

Today the newly-formed, real-life League of Extraordinary Gentlemen conducted a field trip to Santa Barbara County hunting for Miocene Epoch petrified whale bone along the Gaviota Coast as well as anything else of interest that might present itself. After stops at Gaviota and El Capitan State Beaches and a intermediate beach accessed directly from Highway 101 frequented by surfers and nudists, the group headed into Santa Barbara for lunch-dinner at Harry's and a short visit to Chaucer's Bookstore before one more stop at a fossil-bearing site in the San Antonio Valley of northern Santa Barbara County en route home. A wonderful day was had by all. Below are some of the highlights.

This one-foot-thick iron oxide-stained layer at Gaviota S.B. strikes me as being a prehistoric tsunami deposit (or it could be a turbidite deposit).

This verticality of bedding at Gaviota S.B. indicates a fault trace runs through this location.

This is a largish boulder of Miocene fossilized coral at El Capitan S.B. I wish I had placed my geologist's hammer on it for scale.

Note the presence of calcium carbonate stalactitic formations within the cavity at center of this image of the coral boulder.

Large fossilized sand dollar-infused stratified boulder from San Antonio Valley.

Fossilized sand dollar in San Antonia Valley excavated and discarded by a gopher.

Sand dollar-infused boulder at San Antonio Valley locality we visited today.

Close-up of aforementioned sand dollar-infused boulder.

Today's fossilized sand dollar finds.

My petrified whale bone finds from today. All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Sherpa Fire Apocalyptic Scene

T
This is the scene tonight in Las Flores Canyon at the refinery location up the canyon from El Capitán State Beach on the Gaviota Coast of Santa Barbara County. Both the refinery and the state beach are evacuated at this hour as are other nearby communities and facilities. The Sherpa Fire began this afternoon on the Chirpa Ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains adjacent to the Los Padres National Forest where most of this fire has burned thus far.  Previously this blog reported the fire began on the Rancho La Scherpa Christian Conference Center which was in incorrect. Thus far the wind-driven fire has consumed a guestimated 500 acres, but the true size may already be ten times that number. Dreaded sundowner winds are predicted to kick in overnight after non-Sundowners already whipped up this fire earlier with wind gusts up to 40 m.p.h. Update: nearing midnight Sundowners have arrived and are now up to 50 m.p.h. Photo courtesy Mike Eliason, Santa Barbara Co. FD PIO (all rights reserved). *Note: last updated 6/17/16 at 1:15 p.m.

My Refugio Fossil Fest 2015

The last time I got out of my cage to rockhound was on September 4, 2014... today was March 11, 2015 (four-year anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, on an unrelated note). That is to say it has been a half-year and a week since last I rockhounded. Today I rockhounded. That was not "my" original plan for the day but often the best things in life are things that happen "off-the-cuff" or "spontaneously." Today I picked up a dear loved one from a medical facility in Long Beach and drove them home. On the way home we stopped at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County on the Gaviota Coast to unwind. There I looked around in the newly-sorted cobbles on the "beach" as I have done in the past. Unlike in the past, I found an abundance of interesting and even unexpected things, all in a rather small section of beach and in only about an hour's time. Earlier this winter some fairly vigorous wave events churned this coastline refreshing the cobbles and stones along the coast. As many of you know this coastline is famous for its petrified whale bone and less commonly, petrified wood and even sharks teeth and on rare occasions, whole shark jaws and whale brain casts. Today's visit was my most fruitful one ever for any location along the Gaviota Coast and I recommend my rockhound brethren check this place before the summer wave pattern starts dumpting sand atop some of this material. Pictured below are each of the items I found today.

Balanced-rock monument

My search area looked like this.

The rocks generally looked like this.

This specimen appears to capture a turbidity zone on the ocean bottom which might have been a submarine landslide.

Calcite nodule/geode.

Generic petrified whale bone specimens.

Petrified whale bone vertebra.

Heavily silicated petrified whale bone vertebra. 

Closer view of whale bone vertebra.

Even closer view of same vertebra: note bone cell structure.

Petrified whale bone in matrix.

Odd-looking petrified whale bones in matrix are cervical vertebra.

Different view of previous specimen with alternating layers of bone.

Large, well-preserved petrified whale bone vertebra with both disks attached.

Close-up of silicated fossilized coral.

Petrified drift wood encased in worm-eaten concretion. All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Picture of the Day - Gaviota Coast Tilt

Uplifted marine strata showing faulting and erosion at Gaviota State Beach, Santa Barbara Co, CA.
This area is rich in marine fossils and is a world class petrified whale bone collecting locale.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

85th Anniversary of the Honda Point Disaster

On this evening eighty-five years ago, US Navy Destroyer Squadron 11 (DESRON-11) was conducting exercises off the coast of Central California.
The group of 14 ships was cruising in a single line formation in the fog utilizing dead reckoning and radio silence simulating wartime conditions.

Due to the dangerous nature of the coast of Santa Barbara County along with the fog and strange tidal currents along the coast that day the ships erroneously turned into the coastline believing they were turning into the Santa Barbara Channel.

One by one each ship steamed through the murky fog and into the maw of the rock outcroppings known as the "Devil's Jaw".

Of the 14 ships in DESRON-1, seven were lost (USS Delphy, USS S.P. Lee, USS Young, USS Woodbury, USS Nicholas, USS Fuller, USS Chauncy) with 23 sailors killed with three more ships making it into the area of the rocks but avoiding being sunk (USS Farragut, USS Percival, USS Sommers) and four ships stopping in time to avoid the rocks altogether (USS Kennedy, USS Paul Hamilton, USS Stoddert, USS Thompson).

Subsequent court martials of Commodor Edward H. Watson and each of the ship captains whose ships were lost were later overturned.

The US Navy hired a private contractor to conduct a salvage operation on the wrecks and then blow up whatever remained visible of them.

My friends, Ernie and Alice Porter of Atascadero later conducted another salvage operation on what remained of the ships during the period 1949-1951.
I had the privilege of viewing and handling and ultimately acquiring from them some of the last remaining items they had leftover from that salvage operation.

To this day this remains the worst peace-time disaster in US Navy history.

For additional information and the source of the info in this anniversary reminder check the following links:

Honda Point Memorial

Honda Point Disaster Wiki

Honda Point Disaster Image Archive

For additional reading I recommend these books:

"Jaws of Honda" by Mary Hoag Copyright 2001 ISBN 0-9707277-0-4

"Tragedy at Honda" by Charles A. Lockwood and Hans Christian Adamson Copyright 1997 ISBN 0-9655527-2-1


Kimmer