Читать книгу Hiking & Backpacking Big Sur. Your complete guide to the trails of Big Sur, Ventana Wilderness, and Silver Peak Wilderness онлайн

11 страница из 112

Over subsequent millions of years, a massive oceanic plate slid slowly beneath the continental plate. The increasing depth and pressure melted the sandstone, siltstone, and limestone, which slowly cooled and solidified underground as various types of granite, marble, schist, and gneiss. The cooling process formed large crystals that lend these rocks a salt-and-pepper appearance in the sunlight. Geologists believe that rock types along the Big Sur coast and Santa Lucia Range share traits with granites of the Sierra Nevada, comprising a group called the Salinian block.

The hard, crystalline rocks of the Salinian block comprise many of the prominent high peaks of the range, such as Ventana Double Cone and Pico Blanco, as well as many of the rugged coves, cliffs, and promontories along the Big Sur coastline, particularly at Garrapata, Julia Pfeiffer, and Partington Cove. These durable, erosion-resistant granitic rocks hold up well in the pounding surf, producing little sediment to cloud the waters. Any sediment is coarse-grained and quickly sinks to the bottom, unlike finer sediments that cloud coastal waters elsewhere in California.