The Carrizo Plain

Welcome to sunny California, the first stop on my trip around the world viewing places that plate tectonics have shaped. I am in Carrizo Plain, the easiest place in California to view the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas Fault is the a transform boundary, which means it is the boundary between two plates that are sliding past each other. There are no volcanos at transform boundaries because there is no subduction happening. No magma is being pushed up.

A transform boundary

In the case of the San Andreas Fault, the two plates are the Pacific and the North American Plate. The plates move erratically, sometimes moving a lot, sometimes not at all. Tension builds up when the plates don't move, and when this tension snaps, the plates move a lot and an earthquake occurs. This is why California has so many earthquakes.

An aerial photo of the San Andreas Fault at the Carrizo Plain

Around the fault line at Carrizo Plain is beautiful. It's an open grassland surrounded by mountains, with many different plants and animals. The fault at the Carrizo Plain is amazing to behold. You can see from the picture what the forces of tectonics have done to the landscape, cracking it and raising the land up around it. It's like a great scar in the middle of the plain.

My first stop on this trip was a great success. Next, I will be going halfway around the world to the mighty Himalayas, a very different environment. See you there!

Photos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kluft-photo-Carrizo-Plain-Nov-2007-Img_0327.jpg
             http://www.gweaver.net/techhigh/projects/period1_2/Yellowstone/Plate%20Tectonics.html