Santa Lucia Mountains Totally Explained

Everything about The Santa Lucia Mountains totally explained

The Santa Lucia Mountains or Santa Lucia Range is a mountain range in coastal California, running from Monterey southeast for 105 miles (170 km) to San Luis Obispo. The highest summit is Junipero Serra Peak, 5,862 ft (1,786 m), at in Monterey County. It is part of the Pacific Coast Ranges.

Toponymy

The first European to document the Santa Lucias was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542 while sailing northward along the coast on a Spanish naval expedition. Cabrillo originally named the southern portion of the range the "Sierras de San Martín", as he was passing the area on 11 November, the feast day for Saint Martin.
The present name for the range was documented in 1602, when another Spanish voyage, this time lead by Sebastian Vizcaíno, tasked with completing a detailed chart of the coast. Passing by the northern portion of the range on 14 December, he named the range "Sierra de Santa Lucia" in honor of Saint Lucia.

Climate

Like all other Pacific Coast Ranges, these mountains are close enough to the Pacific Ocean and high enough to force incoming moisture upward, making the west side wet and fit for conifers to grow. This creates a rain shadow over Salinas Valley to the east, which is considerably drier. The higher peaks receive some snowfall during the winter.

Geology

The rock of the Santa Lucias is dominated by granitic basement of the Salinian Block, between the San Andreas Fault and Sur-Nacimiento Fault. According to plate tectonic theory, the core of the Salinian block formed as part of the same batholith which forms the core of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Peninsular Ranges of Baja California. It was broken off the North American Plate and transported north by the action of the San Andreas Fault from an original position. It is predominantly Mesozoic granitic and pre-Cretaceous metamorphic rocks. There is some Cretaceous sedimentary rock of the Great Valley Sequence, considerable Miocene marine sediments, and some other Tertiary sediments. Units west of the Sur-Nacimiento fault are dominated by rocks of the Franciscan Assemblage.

Flora

The west slope of the range facing the Pacific Ocean is moist with good forest growth including Coast Redwood, Douglas fir, Ponderosa Pine, Pacific Madrone and the local endemics Bristlecone Fir (Abies bracteata) and Gowen Cypress (Cupressus goveniana var. goveniana), while the east side is drier, with chaparral and open woods of pine (including Coulter Pine and Gray Pine) and several species of oak. These mountains are probably home to the most southern stand of redwood trees, since the climate gets drier towards the south. This range is the only known habitat of the Vortriede's spineflower.

Major peaks

Junipero Serra Peak, 1,786 m (5,862 ft), at
Cone Peak, 1,571 m (5,155 ft), at . Cone Peak features the steepest coastal elevation in the lower 48 United States, rising nearly a mile (1,609 m) above sea level, only three miles (5 km) from the Pacific Ocean.
Ventana Double Cone, 1,479 m (4,853 ft)
Mount Carmel, 1,346 m (4,417 ft)

Wine

The Santa Lucia Highlands American Viticultural Area, a producer of California wine, is located in the region.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Santa Lucia Mountains'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://santa_lucia_mountains.totallyexplained.com">Santa Lucia Mountains Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.