UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 

 Bulletin of the Department of Geology 

 Vol. 3, No. I, pp. 1-30, Pi. 1. ANDREW C. LAWSON, Editor 



THE QUATERNARY OF SOUTHERN 

 CALIFORNIA. 



BY 



Oscar H. Hershey. 



CONTENTS. 



PA8B 



Introduction 



The Early Quaternary Orographic Disturbance 



The Sierran Valleys 



The Santa Claran Epoch 



The Red Bluff Epoch and its Deposits 



The Later Quaternary Epochs 



Summary 



1 



3 

 8 

 10 

 II 

 26 

 28 



INTRODUCTION. 



Less attention has been given to the Quaternary geology of 

 the State of California than the subject deserves. It has not 

 proved attractive because of its simplicity . Impressive evidences 

 of startling events, such as stimulate the student of glacial geology 

 in the Eastern States, are here confined to isolated and often 

 difficultly accessible localities. The Pleistocene fauna and flora 

 were too nearly like the present to be of great interest, until 

 quite recently, to palaeontologists in a land where there is such 

 a wealth of older fossil remains. So it happens that, when all 

 the fragments of knowledge which we possess in print of the 

 Quaternary history of California are gathered together and 

 sorted out, they do not even furnish us a satisfactory provis- 

 ional scheme of classification to which to refer the various 

 surflcial deposits of the State. 



It is impracticable to apply here the scheme (with its various 

 glacial and interglacial epochs) which has been evolved in the 

 eastern portion of our continent. There is some analogy between 



