Exploring the Berryessa Region

A Geology, Nature, and History Tour

Exploring the Berryessa Region tells the story of a landscape, just west of Sacramento and north of San Francisco, born through plate tectonic forces. The Berryessa Region anchors the southern end of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and holds geologic wonders including subduction zones, thrust faults, ophiolites, turbidites, mud volcanoes, and pull apart basins. These features nurture world-renowned biological diversity which, over time, has fostered a rich history of human cultures—including Native Americans. Today recreational opportunities draw new visitors with hiking, camping, birding, botanizing, horse riding, boating, and managed off-highway vehicle use. Regional ecosystem services include water, forests, and ranchlands.

Full of rich details, this book helps visitors explore this fascinating region by car and discover how regional diversity developed. Readers can use the mile by mile descriptions as a field guide to explore these geological, ecological, and historical features for themselves.

Inside the pages:

• Mile by mile driving descriptions showcasing geologic highlights
• 70+ full-color figures and maps
• Lively sidebars exploring region natural and cultural history
• Introduction to regional geological concepts

Watch the Authors Discuss the Book on YouTube

Book Reviews

“Where a transform fault develops any kind of bend — which is not uncommon — the bend will pull apart as the two sides move, opening a sort of parallelogram, which, among soft mountains, will soon be vastly deeper than an ordinary water-sculpted valley. Lake Berryessa lies in a pull-apart basin, and so does Clear Lake.” … Those two sentences are mine, legally, but they belong, in a much deeper sense, to Eldridge Moores, who taught me their meaning beside Lake Berryessa.
– John McPhee, author of Assembling California

This is a beautiful example of what a community can do to protect, support, and explain a local region— in this case one of the most complex and interesting geologic and biological hotspots on the planet. It’s a guide for good actions of all kind, physical, political, spiritual. I know Eldridge Moores would have loved it, and now like him it can be an inspiration to us all.
– Kim Stanley Robinson, Science Fiction writer examining Nature and Culture. Hugo and Nebula award winner.