Pacific Coast, Torrey Pines

Sandstone Canyon

Sandstone Caves

Sandstone

Sandstone Formations

Sandstone Formations 2

Torrey Pine

Torrey Pines Canyon

Torrey Pines Canyon 2

Torrey Pines State Reserve

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

The general circulation of ocean water in the northern hemisphere of the Pacific is clockwise around the entire ocean basin. Therefore, the overall current off the coast of California and Torrey Pines State Reserve is from north to south and is known as the California Current. This current brings water from the higher latitudes--off Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, and Siberia. This makes for cool water along our coast, especially at depth, and therefore some cool water types of plants and animals are able to live here despite our relatively warm climate.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

The terrain of the Reserve is quite varied. The sand and clay of beaches and lagoons of fifty million years ago have become sandstone and have been raised far above sea level by tectonic forces.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

As the sea rose and fell over the past million years, shelves or marine terraces were cut into the sandstone at various levels and other sediments were deposited on these shelves.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

The Reserve or a large part of it can be considered as a set of shelves or ancient beaches. These shelves and their sediments have in turn been eroded, gouged, stained, and carved by rain and drainage streams.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

Abstract sandstone formations.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

More abstract sandstone formations.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

Torrey Pines State Reserve is a wilderness island in an urban sea. This fragile environment is the home of our nation's rarest pine tree - Pinus torreyana. Once this tree covered a larger area. It now grows only here and on Santa Rosa Island off the coast near Santa Barbara.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

The range of elevations, from sea level and below to 300 feet; soils which vary from silt and mud to sand and eroded sand stone; varying exposures to salt water, fresh water, tides, wind, and fog: all these factors have produced many different environments for living things within the relatively small, two thousand acres of the Reserve.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

The plant communities include coastal strand, coastal scrub, chaparral, Torrey pine woodland, salt marsh, as well as fresh water marsh and riparian. And each of these communities or ecosystems includes its own interdependent web of insect, reptile, fungal, and bacterial life as well as the characteristic plant species by which it is defined.

These photographs were taken in May 2007.

Torrey Pines State Reserve is an unusual place and one that offers a great diversity of things to see.