Geology of a Portion of the Eastern Santa Monica Mountains

Citation

Taylor, George Frederic (1929) Geology of a Portion of the Eastern Santa Monica Mountains. Bachelor's thesis, California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/2F8R-Q093. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:12232009-080457016

Abstract

The area described in this report is located in the Santa Monica Mountains about 15 miles west of the center of Los Angeles. Beverly Boulevard and Mulholland Drive running east and west and several roads running north and south make most of the area immediately accessible by automobile. Subdivision roads on the lower slopes of the mountains near Beverly Boulevard offer numerous cuts that are very valuable in exposing formations. Fire breaks on the ridges and trails in many places on the hillsides offer convenient means of travel on foot, although exceptionally heavy brush makes travel off of the trails very difficult and at times impossible. The canyons are very steep sided and often make contact tracing most trying.

The Sawtelle, Topanga Canyon, Van Nuys and Reseda quadrangles of the U.S. Geol. Survey formed the base map for the area and were supplemented by aerial photographs kindly furnished the writer by the Fairchild Aerial Survey. The total area mapped is about 25 square miles.

Considerably more area was covered in the field work than was the original intention of the writer; as a result mapping is more detailed in some parts than others. In the vicinity of Mandeville Canyon, Rustic Canyon and Brown Canyon rather careful field work was done, but in the other parts of the area the work was of a hasty nature. Twenty-five days were spent in the field in all and at least the first ten of these were occupied in getting the general "lay of the land".

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