ELLIOTT ET AL.: THE CAVE FAUNA OF CALIFORNIA 
13 
Figure 9. A caver admires the marble bedrock in Lilbum Cave, Kings Canyon National Park, Tulare Co. Peter Bosted. 
Cave Region 6 — Coast Ranges 
This large region extends nearly the entire length of the state, and is divided into the subre¬ 
gions North Coast, Central Coast, and South Coast. Included in this category are parts of the Trans¬ 
verse and Peninsular Ranges to the south. Sea caves are covered below, but within the Coast 
Ranges carbonate caves are generally rare, and most of the reported caves are a diverse assemblage 
of rock shelters and talus caves. In Table 1 we have 55 caves, 33 sampled groundwater sites, and 
27 mines (3 biological sites). The Pinnacles Talus in and surrounding Pinnacles National Park, 
San Benito County, has at least 9 pseudokarst caves with 4 biological sites. 
The 1,350-km California coastline, including the Channel Islands and Farallon Islands, con¬ 
tain an estimated 800 littoral (sea) caves, distributed practically the entire length of the state, but 
the majority are on the Channel Islands, especially in Channel Islands National Park, and along 
the adjacent coast north to southern Mendocino County. Most are of limited extent and simple in 
layout, formed by powerful wave action driving into faults and joints (Fig. 10). Mainland sea caves 
are largely formed in Tertiary Period sandstone, mudstone, and shale. On the Channel Islands the 
caves are mostly in mid- to late-Miocene basalt (16 to 7 Ma), but some have formed in agglomer¬ 
ate, a coarse accumulation of blocks of volcanic material that contains many volcanic bombs 
(Bewley 1988; Bunnell 1988c, 1993a, 1998). 
We have data on 405 sea caves, including 93 biological sites (Table 1). These caves often have 
dark zones and various communities depending on wave dynamics, nutrient input, light levels, and 
bottom substrate. See the overview of Sea Cave Fauna below. 
