Late Pleistocene time. The hills and knolls in the Los Angeles 



Plain area, the stream cuts, marine terraces and high sea cliffs, 



and the great submarine canyons were probably formed at this 



time. In addition, thick deposits of marine and continental 



sediments were deposited over large parts of the region during 



and subsequent to the Pleistocene. 



Woodford, et^ al . » (1954) have given an excellent sxiramary 



of the geological history of the Los Angeles Basin and a 



resume of their report is given as follows: 



^^The Los Angeles Basin during Pliocene time was a marine 

 embayraent somewhat larger than the present lowland area. 

 Its southwestern margin during most of this time probably 

 was a shelf, which though submerged, was thousands of feet 

 higher than the central part of the basin. The basin during 

 Miocene time was still larger, extending inland as far as 

 Pasadena and Pomona and merged into the Ventura Basin to 

 the northwest. . . During Middle Miocene time the basin was 

 bounded on the southwest by a land mass (Catalina) that 

 apparently was composed exclusively of glaucophane schist 

 and related rocks. Today the basin's central floor is buried 

 beneath at least 20,000 feet of Miocene and later sedimentary 

 rocks. The southwestern shelf has a crystalline schist floor 

 . . .that is 1,000 feet above sea level in the Palos Verdes 

 Hills, mostly 4,000 to 10,000 feet below sea level north of 

 those hills, and as much as 14,000 feet subsea beneath Long 

 Beach. A similar shelf on the northern and eastern sides of 

 the basin is floored by pre-Upper Cretaceous crystalline 

 rocks. . .at depths that probably range from about 15,000 

 feet subsea to approximately sea level. The Los Angeles 

 Basin is somewhat similar in its geologic history to the 

 Ventura Basin. Each was a deep marine trough at the beginning 

 of Pliocene time, and each was then filled. . .with sediments 

 containing fossils characteristic of shallower and shallower 

 water, until the uppermost, largely continental. Pleistocene 

 strata were deposited.'^ 



Land Forms 



Santa Monica Bay is a crescent-shaped indenture of the 

 southern California coast with three major leind provinces 

 forming its boundaries (Fig. 1). These physiographic provinces 

 are the Santa Monica Mountains to the north, the Los Angeles 



