Olympic National Park is a United States national park located in the State of Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. The park has four regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west-side temperate rainforest, and the forests of the drier east side. Within the park there are three distinct ecosystems, including subalpine forest and wildflower meadow, temperate forest, and the rugged Pacific coast.
A slump is a form of mass wasting that occurs when a coherent mass of loosely consolidated materials or a rock layer moves a short distance down a slope. Movement is characterized by sliding along a concave-upward or planar surface. Causes of slumping include earthquake shocks, thorough wetting, freezing and thawing, undercutting, and loading of a slope.
The Pacific temperate rainforests ecoregion of North America is the largest temperate rain forest ecoregion on the planet as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The Pacific temperate rain forests lie along the western side of the Pacific Coast Ranges along the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America from the Prince William Sound in Alaska through the British Columbia Coast to Northern California, and are part of the Nearctic realm, as also defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The Pacific temperate rain forests are characterized by a high amount of rainfall, in some areas more than 300 cm (10 ft) per year and moderate temperatures in both the summer and winter months.
The Marin Headlands is a hilly peninsula at the southernmost end of Marin County, California, United States, located just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge, which connects the two counties and peninsulas. The entire area is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Headlands are famous for their views of the Bay Area, especially of the Golden Gate Bridge.
The Northern California coastal forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of coastal Northern California.
In geology, a mélange is a large-scale breccia, a mappable body of rock characterized by a lack of continuous bedding and the inclusion of fragments of rock of all sizes, contained in a fine-grained deformed matrix. The mélange typically consists of a jumble of large blocks of varied lithologies. Both tectonic and sedimentary processes can form mélange.
Humboldt Lagoons State Park is on the California coast on the Pacific Ocean, in Humboldt County, Northwestern California. The California state park protects three lagoons with estuaries and wetlands. It is located off U.S. Route 101 between Eureka, and the border with Oregon.
A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks are called riparian vegetation, characterized by hydrophilic plants. Riparian zones are important in ecology, environmental resource management, and civil engineering because of their role in soil conservation, their habitat biodiversity, and the influence they have on fauna and aquatic ecosystems, including grasslands, woodlands, wetlands, or even non-vegetative areas. In some regions, the terms riparian woodland, riparian forest, riparian buffer zone,riparian corridor, and riparian strip are used to characterize a riparian zone. The word riparian is derived from Latin ripa, meaning "river bank".
The Franciscan Complex or Franciscan Assemblage is a geologic term for a late Mesozoic terrane of heterogeneous rocks found throughout the California Coast Ranges, and particularly on the San Francisco Peninsula. It was named by geologist Andrew Lawson, who also named the San Andreas fault that defines the western extent of the assemblage.
The Cummins Creek Wilderness is a 9,300-acre (3,800 ha) wilderness area in the Siuslaw National Forest within the Oregon Coast. It is one of three wilderness areas created in the Siuslaw in 1984, along with Drift Creek and Rock Creek. It is "dedicated to preserve in a wilderness state, the last remaining virgin stands of Sitka spruce, western hemlock and Douglas-fir, in Oregon's coast lands." Cummins Creek and nearby Cummins Ridge are named for F.L. Cummins, an early homesteader.
The Rock Creek Wilderness is a wilderness area comprising 7,486 acres (3,029 ha) within the Siuslaw National Forest on the Oregon Coast. It was created in 1984, along with the Drift Creek Wilderness and Cummins Creek Wilderness. The Rock Creek Wilderness has "no developed trails or trailheads."
Rodeo Lagoon is a coastal lagoon located in the Marin Headlands division of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is in southern Marin County, California. This brackish water body is separated from the Pacific Ocean by a sand bar that forms Rodeo Beach. Rodeo Lagoon stretches approximately 900 metres (3,000 ft) by 250 metres (820 ft), and is about 2 metres (6.6 ft) deep at its maximum depth. It covers a surface area of about 15 hectares.
An earthflow is a downslope viscous flow of fine-grained materials that have been saturated with water and moves under the pull of gravity. It is an intermediate type of mass wasting that is between downhill creep and mudflow. The types of materials that are susceptible to earthflows are clay, fine sand and silt, and fine-grained pyroclastic material.
The Coast Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and California. It stretches along the Pacific Coast from the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in the north to the San Francisco Bay in the south, including Grays Harbor, Willapa Bay, and the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington, the entire length of the Oregon Coast, and the Northern California Coast. Named for the Coast Range mountains, it encompasses the lower elevations of the Olympic Mountains, the Oregon Coast Range, the Californian North Coast Ranges, and surrounding lowlands.
Ring Mountain is an elevated landform on the Tiburon Peninsula in Marin County, California. This mountain was named for George E. Ring, who served as a Marin County Supervisor from 1895 to 1903.
Freshwater Lagoon is the northernmost and smallest of three similar lagoons within Humboldt Lagoons State Park, along the coast of Humboldt County, California.
Stone Lagoon is the second of three similar lagoons within Humboldt Lagoons State Park, along the coast of Humboldt County, California.
Big Lagoon is the southernmost and largest of three similar lagoons within Humboldt Lagoons State Park, along the coast of Humboldt County, California.
The Central Pacific coastal forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion located in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system.
Blue goo is a sticky, plasticky, blueish-grey, clay-textured soil derived from a highly weathered serpentinite mélange. The name derives from the soil's color; a result of undergoing anaerobic conditions and becoming gleyed. A greyer variation is called "grey goo". Blue goo is primarily found along the Northern California coast.
