Is Tomales Point Moving Northwest Faster Than it is Being Eroded?

On my birthday, as I hiked to Tomales Point, I had one simple question. Is Tomales Point moving northwest faster than it is being eroded by the ocean?

The implications of this question are huge. If it is moving northwest faster than it is being eroded, it is actually moving northwest. If not, it is either stationary or moving southeast. Most of us know the Pacific Plate side of the San Andreas Fault is moving northwest. But the features riding on top of it may not be.

Wind

In the desert, the full force of wind gusts hit you, or your house, and it feels like a blow from a hard object. It carries dust, sand, gravel, and anything else not secured well enough such as lawn furniture and shingles. It is a huge part of your life--you can't ignore it, inside or out, and the morning after a windy night everyone is cranky because they spent the night listening to a hurricane instead of sleeping.

Since we moved, we don't miss the wind. Spring tends to be windy here--as it also is in the Eastern Sierra, where I lived for most of the last two decades. But the wind here is in the treetops. Wind in a forest is a completely different thing than wind in the desert. You worry about a tree falling on your house instead of your house falling down.

Thalweg Surveys

Nerd Terrarium warning: Some terminology and concepts may be considered nerdy.

My first thalweg survey was in a Forest and Range Hydrology class at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. We were surveying San Luis Creek downstream of downtown San Luis Obispo. I remember we reached a big, deep pool, and as a taller person, I got to go into it with the survey rod because I could reach the deeper parts while still standing. I remember climbing onto a big log and reaching out into the pool to place the rod in what I thought was the deepest point.

And that is what a thalweg survey is. The thalweg is the deepest part of a channel. If you are in a boat and not wanting to run aground, you would typically follow the thalweg. If you were walking up or down a stream, unless you wanted to get really wet, you would typically avoid the thalweg. A survey of the thalweg is done in order to produce a profile view of the creek--from which you can see the slope and pools and riffles.

On Sunday I walked downstream. It was a hot day, but I wasn't prepared to go in too deeply or do too much climbing over debris because I was carrying my sleeping son in a carrier on my chest. Nevertheless, I got farther than the debris-jam and pool that stopped me last year. Peak flows during the winter cleared the jam and deposited sediment in the pool.

The Last Bedload-mobilizing Peak Flow of the Season

Okay, you read the title and wonder, "why wasn't this in the Nerd Terrarium category?" Because that is a pretty nerdy title. I almost created that category when I wrote the title. I still may.

So the weather is warmer, the sun is stronger, and San Geronimo Creek is low. This gets me thinking about walking up the creek again on a warm day. Last year I walked from our house up to the next bridge upstream. The first attempt ended at a neck-deep pool on a not-warm-enough day when I wasn't appropriately attired. Turning around and walking downstream ended at a debris-jam with a similarly-intimidating pool.

Now I look downstream and see that the debris jam appears to be gone. The set of storms and resulting peak flows this winter were not big enough to jam more debris, but big enough to clear out the debris already there. I want to go downstream to investigate.

I am not an Environmentalist

A friend of mine shared this article with me recently, prompting me to think of this "Best of" from my former Website, republished below, which touches on many of the ideas mentioned in the article.

I am not an Environmentalist

circa 2001

I don't like stereotypes and labels, and this is no exception. It is too easy for someone to say, "Oh, he thinks that because he's an environmentalist." This devalues the worth of your ideas and allows someone with different ideas to brush them off without even considering them because of who you are.

It Matters What Kind of Bullets You Use

"The Iraqi city of Fallujah has seen a dramatic rise in birth defects and childhood cancer since 2004, when U.S. forces used depleted-uranium shells and white phosphorous against militants. Doctors say the city's birth-defect rate is 14.7 percent--much higher than in Hiroshima after World War II." --The Week, January 20, 2012

After reading this in The Week a couple of months ago, I couldn't help but think this is an "I told you so" moment (and what took the mainstream media so long to notice this story?!!!). This seems like a good time to post another "Best of Beyond the Batholith--Essays from the Eastern Sierra" that I wrote around 2007:

Control

I was walking into an office building and noticed the landscaping: concrete, ivy, wood chips, and tidy, evenly-spaced.... hold on a second. I want to say "evenly-spaced flowers" but I'm the kind of guy that would want to drive over there and double-check before writing that they were evenly-spaced. They sure felt like they were evenly-spaced.

So, where was I... Oh yeah, so the landscaping in this interior-building alcove was all about control. The concrete controls the buried earth and prevents anything from growing there and allows dirt and foot traffic to be easily controlled. The ivy is a weedy and invasive plant that controls everything else--nothing else will be able to grow where the ivy is, and the gardener