A Report on the Geology of a Portion of the Whittier Hills, Southern California

Citation

Lohman, Stanley William (1929) A Report on the Geology of a Portion of the Whittier Hills, Southern California. Bachelor's thesis, California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/RJ6Y-3235. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:12042009-101208669

Abstract

The area described in this report occupies a block of approximately 20 square miles, the northwest corner of which is 10 miles east of the center of Los Angeles. (See Figure 1) The southwest corner of the area is occupied by the city of Whittier. The area is situated at the intersection of four quadrangles, including the southeast corner of the El Monte Quadrangle, the southwest corner of the Puente Quadrangle, the northwest corner of the La Habra Quadrangle, and the northeast corner of the Whittier Quadrangle. Most of the area is occupied by the Whittier Hills which form the northwest corner of the Puente Hills. The rest includes portions of the San Gabriel Valley and the coastal plain.

This piece of work was undertaken as a thesis problem at the California Institute of Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science. It was originally intended to be highly detailed, but because of the size and complexity of the area it was found necessary to confine most of the attention to the broader geological features.

Twenty-five days were spent in the field during the period from early January to June, 1929. A small fraction of this time was devoted to general reconnaissance, but most of the time was spent in mapping areal geology. This amount of time was quite inadequate for a thorough understanding of the problem, for many of the conditions encountered are subject to more than one interpretation.

The field map used was made from portions of four U.S.G.S. topographic maps covering the above mentioned quadrangles. Fortunately all of these maps have a scale of 1/24000, with 5 and 25 foot contour intervals. This made location by topography relatively easy, for the maps are very accurately made. Locations for plotting data were determined by Brunton Compass sights, by aneroid barometer readings, and by topography, in varied combinations.

Thesis Files