"愚公移山" (Foolish Old Man Moves A Mountain) is a well-known Chinese fable story. "愚公" finally accomplished the task of "移山" with a help from the "Heaven God".
Pinnacles National Park, located at east of Salina Valley in Central California, is the product
of another kind of "移山" (moving a mountain). Unlike "愚公移山" , it was done by the great Forces of Nature. It is an example of "Tectonic Plate Movement", a geological term.
Plates Slide Past One Another
Plates grinding past each other in opposite directions create faults called transform faults. Powerful earthquakes often strike along these boundaries. The San Andreas Fault is a transform plate boundary that separates the North American Plate from the Pacific Plate. This fault system is largely responsible for the devastating earthquakes in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
(From Google Images)Plates grinding past each other in opposite directions create faults called transform faults. Powerful earthquakes often strike along these boundaries. The San Andreas Fault is a transform plate boundary that separates the North American Plate from the Pacific Plate. This fault system is largely responsible for the devastating earthquakes in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The rocks on the Pinnacles National Park are believed to have originated in Neenach Volcano 23 million years ago, near present-day Lancaster, Southern California.
The San Andreas Fault, a crack in the earth that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Mendocino coast north of San Francisco, had once split the original volcano. Thanks to the
movement of the Pacific Plate, it took with it two-thirds of the Pinnacles' volcanic mass toward the north at a rate of 0.59 inches per year to where it is now, 195 miles north of its birthplace.
A Day With SNC
March is known to be the best time to visit Pinnacles National Park for its mild climate and beautiful spring landscape.
On the day before the First Day of Spring, we again visited this new (established in January 2013) and unique National Park for the third time. But, this time we toured the place with my NTUMC1968 classmate SNC and his lovely wife.
Professor SNC has just come from Taipei with his wife to attend a special event in the Bay Area.
He has long indicated to me that he would very much like to pay a visit to Pinnacles National Park the next time he comes to the US.
It was a beautiful early spring day. While we were intending to visit the west side of the park, the GPS device however guided us to the east entrance.
https://youtu.be/_xbKFBFX1Q8
Pinnacles National Park Film (YouTube video)
Yeh Tze
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