I grew up riding dirt bikes right where you are standing. There were no houses back then and that whole area is filled with great geologic features. Thanks for explaining what I've been looking at for 55 years!
When I was in college, I took a geology class. We went on a field trip and followed the San Andreas fault from San Bernardino to the Garlock Fault. We could see where an old river bed had split with one part moving about 1/2 mile up from the original bed. Geology is amazing.
Since the last video you posted you inspired me to do so many great adventures out in the wonderful world of geology. Your videos touched my soul and it is increased my happiness tenfold
Wow! This makes me so happy! I'm so glad you're out there getting dusty. It's amazing how rewarding it feels when you can understand (even partially) what you're looking at, geologically speaking. 😀
@@geologicallyspeaking Hi, are you related to Woody from toy story? you have that awesomeness and charisma, Thanks for sharing your knowledge and for explaining to us mortals how everything was made, and the geology history of southern California, I have always wondered about it. You have a new subscriber!! 🙂😊
This was even more spectacular about 30 years ago when they widened the freeway and the cut was brand new. Over the last 3 decades it has weathered a lot so it looks now more like it did before they widened it. I used to drive through there two times a day when I lived in Palmdale.
This is awesome! Gorgeous footage, informative, and hilarious. 👍 Thank you for ducking the "velvet rope" and finding a vantage point to share these amazingly pushed around sediment layers. Love the semi analogy too, so fitting for SoCal and the SA! Here's to getting excited about roadcuts!
I have the same book- roadside geology, but I find it difficult sometimes to relate to real locations. Your footage and these videos are so much of a blessing… please do more often. I love your videos. I watched them all…..
Thanks for the encouragement and kind words. I feel the same as you sometimes (relating to the real locations) which is why I always try to go there in person and I have to tell you that I grasp so much more when I'm at the actual location.
Thank you, Scott! As always you find such cool geology in California to share with us with great clarity and passion. You rock 😉! And I'm always excited to see a new video of yours pop up! Anxiously awaiting the next one...
"Velvet rope" hehehe. I fuckin love geologists, every one ive met and have gotten to learn from are all insatiably curious, humourous and good teachers.
Ive been down into the fault like in the Coachella vslley and words cant describe the feeling that comes over you when you see how massive the earths forces truly are . The uplifts and folding you see in the walls towering over your head are justvmind blowing !! If ypu ever get a chance to see it , DO IT ! There are jeep tours that are excellent and also take ypu to palm oasis growing from the fault linr
Depending on my cancer, and the price of gas, I plan on coming to southern CA after Labor Day to see a friend and some landmarks, and then driving up the SA Fault. Maybe we could meet up sometime while I'm out there. Be well. Greg in TN (from Nick's FB group and livestreams)
Thank you for all your information. It was really helpful for me. I use to travel 14 every day. Noticing changes here and there. One thing I did notice, (and it's not just me). Just before a earthquake the sides of the mountains change color. Sort of a light pinkish to a darker color. You might want to check it out.
Haha! When heading north on the 14, exit Avenue S and turn left. Take your first right at Tierra Subida Ave. In about 1/2 mile you'll see Pelona Vista Park to your right with plenty of parking. You'll see plenty of trails/utility service roads on the backside of the pressure ridge. It's just a short hike up these trails and to the top of the roadcut on the west side. I'd recommend doing this in the afternoon as the sun will be illuminating the east side of the road nicely like in my video. Have fun!
Just found your channel and glad that I did. Going through the So Cal geology series I see a missing one. Have you considered the Santa Rosa Plateau? The volcanic activity was tremendous there. Basalt vernal pools (rare) and so much more. A plus… the scenery and wildlife. Spectacular. Thanks Todd !
Thanks for watching Charlie. Well, it's at the surface now, but not necessarily in the past. Those two fault strands have pushed all this land up. More evidence of the uplift is that the vertical layers of rock have been truncated or eroded at the top, so there was most likely more layers above this that have eroded away as it was continually lifted up by the pinching of these two fault strands. Cool stuff huh?
Is it probable that the motive force behind the SA and adjacent Faults is the underlying East Pacific Rise Spreading Ridge offset flow @the mantle? If not, what could the Northwesterly rafting mechanism be? If the sides of the faults are in opposing directions, what would the Southeasterly rafting mechanism be? I only see one explanation, both sides are being rafted in the same direction, but at different velocities and rates by the Northwesterly flowing EPR offests.
Thanks for the observation and explanation John. And you're correct, everything here is drifting NW, but just at different rates. Most diagrams show the North American Plate moving SE and the Pacific Plate moving NW, but those are just relative movements; everything is trending NW, but just at different rates. The Pacific Plate is drifting NW faster than the North American Plate. These different rates (and probably differing dip-angles of fault strands) is what caused the pressure ridge to get pinched up like this.
@@geologicallyspeaking People assume incorrectly that the opposing sides must be NA, which is why they always place opposing arrows @these faults; but NA’s drift is too Southwesterly oblique to be the motive force. I guess a Southeasterly source could be from the JDF, but it’s too far offset to the West. I haven’t been convinced that the mantle Spreading Ridge upwelling that operates for 10’s to 100’s of millions of years simply stop as they become over-ridden by Continental Lithosphere; they must continue their divergent activities no matter what’s above them, such as Baja for instance.
I've never been to Palmdale, but I've always wanted to trace the fault in this area. I live a bit north (closer to Parkfield so Wallace Creek is pretty close by) but it's not as cool as this road cut in Palmdale. Plus I've heard the stories about Una Lake being haunted too, but then again Loch Ness is also a fault zone too. Cheers!
Years ago, I was driving by here and had to relieve myself in the worst possible way. I pulled off the road near there to do my business and I stepped on a rattle snake. Thankfully I had boots on and he did not penetrate them. He had a clear shot at my "full moon" if you know what I mean. I ran back to my car ASAP and never looked back..
So this is Palmdale, and San Andreas fault that you say is next to the San Gabriel Mtns in the far distance. The San Andreas fault then N-S. So is this a western 2 branches of the San Andreas or this pressure ridge is part of some other 2 faults that are moving W=>E or E=>W or both WE or W=>
Hi John! It may be hard to tell in the video, but even these strands in the video are trending NW/SE. This is a pretty tight region of the SAF at the North side of the San Gabriel mountains; the region is probably only about 5 miles wide here. If you pull up a fault map of this area it should make more sense.
@@geologicallyspeaking So this photo and video of thePalmdale road cut across an ancient lake bed, we are actually "looking down the pathway and mouth of the monster" NW to SE toward the San Gabriel mountains ... versus the fault being located "over there"
@@johnlord8337 Yes! Haha! Looking down the pathway and mouth of the monster indeed. The SAF region is "over there" near the base of mountain and continues north of them for a few miles.
The world needs you to have your own TV-show. Very informative and very entertaining. 😃 Greetings from The Netherlands. Subscribed. I wish you get a million subscriptions within a decade🪄🔮
Those are the san Gabriel mountains, not the san bernardino's. From where you were in your video go toward LA on the 14 to turn off for the 138 hwy. Take it sixty some miles to the 15 freeway. Look across the 15, those are the san Bernardino mens. Look to your right, those are the san Gabriel's that you traveled along for sixty miles. By the way, you are on top of the fault again. It comes up the Cajon pass there and splits those mountain ranges. Gary from Tehachapi.
It is really no big deal when U drive past it twice every work day .... Living on the North American Plate & Working on the Pacific Plate. Correct yourself PLEASE 2.5 Million Years Ago the Pacific Plate or South Side of the Ridge was near Little Rock not right there in Palmdale. & just think of this fun fact if it was not for Rogers Dry Lake & Burbank Skunk Works there may have never been a 14 freeway built.
I grew up riding dirt bikes right where you are standing. There were no houses back then and that whole area is filled with great geologic features. Thanks for explaining what I've been looking at for 55 years!
i live here this is my off ramp Ave S....every time i am here i say a prayer NOT TODAY Ms San Andreas as i drive thru this neat road cut...
I will never drive past here the same again. Thank you 🙏
When I was in college, I took a geology class. We went on a field trip and followed the San Andreas fault from San Bernardino to the Garlock Fault. We could see where an old river bed had split with one part moving about 1/2 mile up from the original bed. Geology is amazing.
Extremely informative and awesome video!!!
Since the last video you posted you inspired me to do so many great adventures out in the wonderful world of geology. Your videos touched my soul and it is increased my happiness tenfold
Wow! This makes me so happy! I'm so glad you're out there getting dusty. It's amazing how rewarding it feels when you can understand (even partially) what you're looking at, geologically speaking. 😀
Every time I drove though that area, I have pondered just how this geology was formed. Now I know. Thank you.
My favorite road cut! Nothing like seeing rock compressed into a serpentine
That to me is pretty spectacular!! I did feel a rush upon seeing this
You have an engaging way of conveying your knowledge of Geology, hats off to you, Todd, you should have your own show 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Thank you kindly. 😊
@@geologicallyspeaking Hi, are you related to Woody from toy story? you have that awesomeness and charisma, Thanks for sharing your knowledge and for explaining to us mortals how everything was made, and the geology history of southern California, I have always wondered about it. You have a new subscriber!! 🙂😊
Right Todd pays the cost to be the boss while others pay the buster fee on their coverage of the San Andreas fault!
This was even more spectacular about 30 years ago when they widened the freeway and the cut was brand new. Over the last 3 decades it has weathered a lot so it looks now more like it did before they widened it. I used to drive through there two times a day when I lived in Palmdale.
This is awesome! I'm glad you found the time to explore this and share this with us. I really enjoy your videos.
Thanks Rick!
I called Palmdale, California, home for 23 years and lived 3 miles due east of that location. It's a great place to live.
If you’re ever lucky enough to take the train from the bottom to the top of the Cajon Pass you will see the San Andreas Fault in all of its glory.
This is awesome! Gorgeous footage, informative, and hilarious. 👍 Thank you for ducking the "velvet rope" and finding a vantage point to share these amazingly pushed around sediment layers. Love the semi analogy too, so fitting for SoCal and the SA! Here's to getting excited about roadcuts!
Thanks for the kind words Lindsay! It was my pleasure to share this incredible geological feature!
I have the same book- roadside geology, but I find it difficult sometimes to relate to real locations. Your footage and these videos are so much of a blessing… please do more often. I love your videos. I watched them all…..
Thanks for the encouragement and kind words. I feel the same as you sometimes (relating to the real locations) which is why I always try to go there in person and I have to tell you that I grasp so much more when I'm at the actual location.
@@geologicallyspeaking I live in the Santa barbara county. I would love it if you plan on making a video over here.
Thank you, Scott! As always you find such cool geology in California to share with us with great clarity and passion. You rock 😉! And I'm always excited to see a new video of yours pop up! Anxiously awaiting the next one...
Thanks so much Angie. It's always nice to know people appreciate the effort in creating a video. Thanks for watching!
"Velvet rope" hehehe. I fuckin love geologists, every one ive met and have gotten to learn from are all insatiably curious, humourous and good teachers.
Thank you so much! I love your enthusiasm.
Thanks Lorraine!
Highway 14 has some remarkable road cuts for a long distance thanks
WHAT A HOOT!! It would be so much fun to go with you on your forays into the world of geology!!
Ive been down into the fault like in the Coachella vslley and words cant describe the feeling that comes over you when you see how massive the earths forces truly are . The uplifts and folding you see in the walls towering over your head are justvmind blowing !! If ypu ever get a chance to see it , DO IT ! There are jeep tours that are excellent and also take ypu to palm oasis growing from the fault linr
I drove past this cut nearly every day!
The love ofgeology and deep time is obvious in your 'lessons' thank you.
Depending on my cancer, and the price of gas, I plan on coming to southern CA after Labor Day to see a friend and some landmarks, and then driving up the SA Fault. Maybe we could meet up sometime while I'm out there. Be well. Greg in TN (from Nick's FB group and livestreams)
Thank you for all your information. It was really helpful for me. I use to travel 14 every day. Noticing changes here and there. One thing I did notice, (and it's not just me). Just before a earthquake the sides of the mountains change color. Sort of a light pinkish to a darker color. You might want to check it out.
I like the vanilla swirl part of the pressure point 😂
Fantastic video and so informative. Thank you from England.
Thanks for watching! Greetings from Southern California.
Came from itchy boots channel. Awesome geology of san Andreas
Excellent thanks 👍💯
Thanks for sharing..
An absolutely fantastic road cut.
San Gabriels all the way to Cajon Pass, then San Bernardino Mts, but enjoyed the video!
Haha, I've rubber-necked that spot 1000 times and never got such a good look. Thanks! (How'd you get up there???)
Haha! When heading north on the 14, exit Avenue S and turn left. Take your first right at Tierra Subida Ave. In about 1/2 mile you'll see Pelona Vista Park to your right with plenty of parking. You'll see plenty of trails/utility service roads on the backside of the pressure ridge. It's just a short hike up these trails and to the top of the roadcut on the west side. I'd recommend doing this in the afternoon as the sun will be illuminating the east side of the road nicely like in my video. Have fun!
THANK YOU!
Thank you
Been waiting for this one!
😊
Thanks for the great reveal!!!
That's amazing!!! Thank you
Thanks for watching!
I live near the Cajon pass and see the fault line and it amazes me that they built homes on the fault line by the san bernadino mountains.
The colors in it were much more vivid when the cut was fresher.
Just found your channel and glad that I did. Going through the So Cal geology series I see a missing one. Have you considered the Santa Rosa Plateau? The volcanic activity was tremendous there. Basalt vernal pools (rare) and so much more. A plus… the scenery and wildlife. Spectacular. Thanks Todd !
Crazy how the San Gabriel mountains look a lot like the San Bernardino mountains
Thanks for the info
Big thumbs up on this vid! But, you’re the kind of guy that surely needs a pocket protector 😂
I love geomorphology.
Interesting how a fold like that can develop on the surface.
Thanks for watching Charlie. Well, it's at the surface now, but not necessarily in the past. Those two fault strands have pushed all this land up. More evidence of the uplift is that the vertical layers of rock have been truncated or eroded at the top, so there was most likely more layers above this that have eroded away as it was continually lifted up by the pinching of these two fault strands. Cool stuff huh?
Driven past that many times. Just assumed the vertical marks were erosion lines.
Really great video, Todd. So good you’re back!
Yeah… please do more videos around HW 395
5:40- The state transportation dept. had a part time job at the geology dept. that revealed this natural wonder 😁
IAM an A.l geography student this video is really useful for me thank you 😌
I legit live on the other side of the hill where you were standing, I live on a pressure ridge.
Is it probable that the motive force behind the SA and adjacent Faults is the underlying East Pacific Rise Spreading Ridge offset flow @the mantle? If not, what could the Northwesterly rafting mechanism be?
If the sides of the faults are in opposing directions, what would the Southeasterly rafting mechanism be? I only see one explanation, both sides are being rafted in the same direction, but at different velocities and rates by the Northwesterly flowing EPR offests.
Thanks for the observation and explanation John. And you're correct, everything here is drifting NW, but just at different rates. Most diagrams show the North American Plate moving SE and the Pacific Plate moving NW, but those are just relative movements; everything is trending NW, but just at different rates. The Pacific Plate is drifting NW faster than the North American Plate. These different rates (and probably differing dip-angles of fault strands) is what caused the pressure ridge to get pinched up like this.
@@geologicallyspeaking People assume incorrectly that the opposing sides must be NA, which is why they always place opposing arrows @these faults; but NA’s drift is too Southwesterly oblique to be the motive force. I guess a Southeasterly source could be from the JDF, but it’s too far offset to the West.
I haven’t been convinced that the mantle Spreading Ridge upwelling that operates for 10’s to 100’s of millions of years simply stop as they become over-ridden by Continental Lithosphere; they must continue their divergent activities no matter what’s above them, such as Baja for instance.
I've never been to Palmdale, but I've always wanted to trace the fault in this area. I live a bit north (closer to Parkfield so Wallace Creek is pretty close by) but it's not as cool as this road cut in Palmdale. Plus I've heard the stories about Una Lake being haunted too, but then again Loch Ness is also a fault zone too.
Cheers!
Thanks for this!!!! So cool!
Years ago, I was driving by here and had to relieve myself in the worst possible way. I pulled off the road near there to do my business and I stepped on a rattle snake. Thankfully I had boots on and he did not penetrate them. He had a clear shot at my "full moon" if you know what I mean. I ran back to my car ASAP and never looked back..
wow my eyes
North of the San *Gabriel* Mountains!
It looks like the rolled up section was still wet when it was impacted. So the sediment was young when this tectonic activity occurred.
So this is Palmdale, and San Andreas fault that you say is next to the San Gabriel Mtns in the far distance. The San Andreas fault then N-S. So is this a western 2 branches of the San Andreas or this pressure ridge is part of some other 2 faults that are moving W=>E or E=>W or both WE or W=>
Hi John! It may be hard to tell in the video, but even these strands in the video are trending NW/SE. This is a pretty tight region of the SAF at the North side of the San Gabriel mountains; the region is probably only about 5 miles wide here. If you pull up a fault map of this area it should make more sense.
@@geologicallyspeaking So this photo and video of thePalmdale road cut across an ancient lake bed, we are actually "looking down the pathway and mouth of the monster" NW to SE toward the San Gabriel mountains ... versus the fault being located "over there"
@@johnlord8337 Yes! Haha! Looking down the pathway and mouth of the monster indeed. The SAF region is "over there" near the base of mountain and continues north of them for a few miles.
Wow
The world needs you to have your own TV-show. Very informative and very entertaining. 😃
Greetings from The Netherlands. Subscribed. I wish you get a million subscriptions within a decade🪄🔮
Is a pressure ridge the same thing as a horst in a horst and graben structure?
I live in Riverside County. Can you explain the crazy geology at 34.01264705947437, -117.23443282192927...?
geologazing 😎
Those are the san Gabriel mountains, not the san bernardino's. From where you were in your video go toward LA on the 14 to turn off for the 138 hwy. Take it sixty some miles to the 15 freeway. Look across the 15, those are the san Bernardino mens. Look to your right, those are the san Gabriel's that you traveled along for sixty miles. By the way, you are on top of the fault again. It comes up the Cajon pass there and splits those mountain ranges. Gary from Tehachapi.
Sorry, but that's not the San Andreas fault. Also not the San Bernardino Mountains. Also, not the way pressure ridges form.
Una lake is so deep, it has fish that have never been seen before by science
But again the road never crack ( show us the 2 dilatation joints ; not a single one in fact ...)
Afault ???? road never crack ?! ???
You were about 2.5 miles from my house.
Avenue “S”..
Jim 805
The San Gabriels are “East -West”..?being ground down….
It used to be called “The Palmdale Bulge”.,
It is really no big deal when U drive past it twice every work day .... Living on the North American Plate & Working on the Pacific Plate.
Correct yourself PLEASE 2.5 Million Years Ago the Pacific Plate or South Side of the Ridge was near Little Rock not right there in Palmdale.
& just think of this fun fact if it was not for Rogers Dry Lake & Burbank Skunk Works there may have never been a 14 freeway built.
I used to get off at the Avenue S exit, so I didn't drive past there every day, but a lot of time in the 23 years I called Palmdale home.
Just don't end up car jacked and in a ditch out there!
... not a nice place to be driving on the ca-14 during a major earthquake !!!
Geology really don't need Da Dumb TV speak flow ...
Better known as the African valley! Bwhahahaha
Not impressed...looks like a bunch of sand. There are 100s of better san andreas outcrops....show some more with ROCK
Too much shtick
Nice hat.
LOLJK