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The Santa Monica Mountain Region
This is my backyard...literally. I am a volunteer docent at two of the areas state parks--Topanga State Park and Malibu Creek State Park. This region has an absurd level of geologic complexity. The geologic forces at work here are so violent that they have rotated entire mountain ranges! We call these twisted mountains the Transverse Ranges; because, rather than running in the "normal" north-south fashion, they run east-west. While it's NOT true that California is in danger of falling into the ocean, it IS true that this sliver of California is already, geologically, part of the ocean. The slice of California west of the San Andreas fault actually "rides" on the Pacific tectonic plate while the rest of California sits on the North American plate. As a result, in about 9 million years, Los Angeles will be San Francisco's "sister city"--the Minneapolis-St. Paul of the west! This strange geology, along with Southern California's unique climate, combine to make this one of the most bio-diverse areas on the planet. So, while Hawaii and Yellowstone sit atop geologic hot spots, Southern California harbors a biodiversity hotspot. The wealth of flora and fauna in this area add an extra dimension to a photographer's compositional palette.
