Hmm...I'm supposed to report on the Friends of the Pleistocene Field trip for the Santa Barbara coastal belt faults and folds, the Santa Ynez Mountains, and the area of the Little Pine fault that uplifts, or uplifted, the San Rafael Mountains, which exceed 2 km elevation and are made up of shale, not resistent rock....

Trip was run by Larry Gurrola and Ed Keller of UCSB. Gurrola has been working on uplifting marine terraces ....uplift rates at the Mesa near Santa Barbara and at UCSB campus are fast....~2 mm/yr. This occurs, no doubt, during thrust earthquakes. The uplift rate 10 or 20 km west of UCSB is slower...about 0.75 mm/yr. It is higher eastward towards Red Mountain (work by Alison Duval)...The question is whether uplift rates along coast are representative of uplift rates of crest of mountains. I would find it an unlikely coincidence if this is the case...it would mean block uplift with no folding of the mountains. We know that part of the coastal uplift is due to ocean-side-up faults that are relatively downdropping the mountains. We had a 5 mile walk on the beach...and looked at 3 active folds...one with exposed fault. Most of the participants, including me, camped at Lake Cachuma...cold and windy, big fire, and roast of field trip leaders (we did not actually eat the leaders....I mean the other kind of roast). The park Rangers were not happy with our group of 100 trying hard to not make too much noise after 10:00. Next time the FOP goes to the desert and sings all night.....Chris