That is interesting about the Sea of Cortez flooding into the Salton Trough eventually. We won't be around to see it, but humans may have seen such events like the filling of the Black Sea.
The Mediterranean, too, has been through some wild changes over the ages. It’s flooded and dried up more than once, and there’s proof with huge salt deposits that geologists have found. The Strait of Gibraltar occasionally shuts in geologic time.
I remember when I was a kid I saw an article in National Geographic that said this island-in-the-making will be off of the Oregon coast in 96 million years.
Actually the Gulf originally extended all the way to the Coachella area but has been filled in with Colorado sediment---all that ag land in Imperial and Mexicali was open ocean when the peninsula started breaking away as evidenced by marine fossils like walruses in the area. Amazing amount of sedimentation from the Colorado.
Also there is a secondary fault system, Walker Lane, that extends up east of the Sierra Nevada to near the Oregon border...some think this may eventually subsume the San Andreas as the main fault.
That is interesting about the Sea of Cortez flooding into the Salton Trough eventually. We won't be around to see it, but humans may have seen such events like the filling of the Black Sea.
The Mediterranean, too, has been through some wild changes over the ages. It’s flooded and dried up more than once, and there’s proof with huge salt deposits that geologists have found. The Strait of Gibraltar occasionally shuts in geologic time.
I remember when I was a kid I saw an article in National Geographic that said this island-in-the-making will be off of the Oregon coast in 96 million years.
It’s kind of trippy to imagine that.
I really liked reading this article. Everything changes, doesn’t it? Thank you for posting.
Thank you! It was fun to write. Yes, everything changes. Sometimes pretty slowly.
Actually the Gulf originally extended all the way to the Coachella area but has been filled in with Colorado sediment---all that ag land in Imperial and Mexicali was open ocean when the peninsula started breaking away as evidenced by marine fossils like walruses in the area. Amazing amount of sedimentation from the Colorado.
Also there is a secondary fault system, Walker Lane, that extends up east of the Sierra Nevada to near the Oregon border...some think this may eventually subsume the San Andreas as the main fault.