Hi Cathryn & All,

It struck me this morning as to how tired I was last night when I'm posting about hopes for a volcanic island off of Northern CA, and thinking of Catalina and then this morning took a look at the NEIC list and realized in my more cognitive mind, that this was not a Northern, CA matter, but an Oregon matter.

So, since you broached the question as to whether Catalina Island is volcanic, I did some quick research for you to answer this question. So read on and by all means, please use the links supplied to see how beautiful the island is and how rich it is in geological features.

Geology of Catalina
Catalina was not formed like the other Channel Islands. Catalina is the result of a collision between two plates. The Northern Plate was moving from Mainland towards the sea. The Pacific Plate was moving from the sea towards Mainland. As a result the two plates collided. This happened millions of years ago. The North American Plate had another collision with a smaller plate. The plate Farralone slipped under the North American plate for thousands of years. When this happened the plate became metamorphosis rock. Then as the two upper plates collided, and slid along each other, stretching and pulling the earth's crust (just as it does at the San Andreas Fault), a rupture occurred and the schist from the lower Farralone Plate erupted up with volcanic rock and ash to become Catalina Island.

See Link For Further Details:
http://www.rain.org/~akraemer/catalina.html

Enjoy! Petra

• Santa Catalina Island Photos