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The beach: for enthusiasts of sun, surf and unusual geology, this is the place
Author(s) -
Painter Deborah
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.188
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1365-2451
pISSN - 0266-6979
DOI - 10.1111/gto.12064
Subject(s) - geology , downtown , archaeology , pleistocene , battle , public park , paleontology , geography , environmental planning
The Carpinteria State Beach is a little known public park in Carpinteria, near Ventura, California, USA. Miocene‐age conglomerates and sandstone bluffs along the Pacific Ocean beachfront have featured continual natural oil seeps since the Pleistocene epoch. While not as famous as the La Brea Tar Pits of downtown Los Angeles, the park is the only public beach in North America where such a geological phenomenon is readily seen. Long used by the Chumash Indians for the asphaltum used to waterproof their seagoing canoes, asphaltum came into general use in the late nineteenth century. The beach is the former site of an industrial plant, devoted to removing and processing the asphaltum to yield many commercial products. Before it became a state park it served as a travel camp and a camp for World War II GIs suffering from battle fatigue.