The Franciscan Mélange at Estero Bluffs
A Walk led by Docent George Mason - November 25, 2001
Photos by Mike Baird

Below are a few candid photos taken during this educational outing.  These rocks formed in a deep ocean trench between 170 and 30 million years ago. Their diversity is astonishing. Meet north of Cayucos at the parking area on the west side of Hwy 1, 1.7 mi. north of the Hwy 1/Cayucos Drive interchange. (Active) 4mi., 3 hrs.  

Click on a thumbnail below to see a larger image.  Images are somewhat self-describing by observing their file names.


Pictured above are Docents Norma Wightman (Left) and George Mason (Right)
The above is a fairly large (2 MB) image intended for use in promotional literature, etc.

Docent George Mason george-mason-animated.jpg (30531 bytes) and ten very interested participants ten-participants-and-docent-george-mason-11-25-01.jpg (20231 bytes) thoroughly enjoyed this outing on Estero Bay
 estero-bluffs-melange.jpg (40528 bytes), just a few miles north of Morro Rock morro-rock-from-estero-bluffs.jpg (13662 bytes).  Chumash Indians made these grinding holes - what better place to prepare the meal chumasg-grinding-holes.jpg (65465 bytes) chumash-grinding-hole.jpg (38004 bytes)?  A veritable mélange or rock formations were observed including this basalt sea stack
basalt-rock-sea-stack.jpg (31155 bytes).  There was evidence of earlier shore lines ancient-shore-layer.jpg (41136 bytes) detail-cliff.jpg (69423 bytes). We saw this sandstone permeated by quartz quartz-in-sandstone.jpg (59689 bytes) quartz-in-stone.jpg (51481 bytes), and this serpentine rock serpentine.jpg (24041 bytes).  A Great Blue Heron perched on a distant outcropping watched over us outcropping-heron-on-rock.jpg (19989 bytes). Docent Norma Wightman norma-wightman.jpg (40518 bytes) conducts similar programs nearby.  Participants Randy randy.jpg (33999 bytes) and Sylvia sylvia.jpg (4729 bytes) provided unbridled enthusiasm.

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