Geo-Home

Antonio F. Garcia, Professor of Geology in the Cal Poly SLO Physics Department

Sampling in the Mudd Hills for OSL dating, March 2023. Thanks to Nate Onderdonk.

Rokki, me, and Ezri (below the deck) in Cambria, Summer 2022

View to the north of the southernmost part of the Carrizo-Plain segment of the San Andreas fault zone. The fault zone is partly denoted by the southwest facing linear scarp in shadow and the linear trough adjacent to the scarp, which includes a sag pond floored by white salts. The Elkhorn Hills are northeast/to the right of the scarp, and the Elkhorn Plain is northeast/to the right of the Elkhorn Hills.

Early morning light in Gillis Canyon, northwestern Temblor Range, San Luis Obsipo County, California: fluvial gravel of the December 1861-January 1862 storm bed constitutes the tread of the terrace that is inset into a debris-flow fan. Please see Dr. Shannon Mahan's presentation at the Geological Society of America conference in November 2015 (Baltimore, MA) for more details. Thanks to the MacMillen family for their generosity, and to Dennis Pegelow for guidance.

View to east of the Temblor Range and debris-flow deposits on the Elkhorn Plain. The debris flows were caused by thunderstorms in the Temblor Range on 10 June 2015.

View upstream of the inner gorge of the canyon of Bitter Creek. August 2014.

View upstream of the inner gorge of the canyon of Bitter Creek. March 2010.

GEOL 401/Field-Geology Methods students measuring the trend and plunge of fold hinges and strike and dip of bedding in the Monterey Formation on East Cuesta Ridge, 20 January 2018

The first overlook on the first field trip of the Fall 2013 Geomorphology course, Mission Canyon, Santa Ynez Mtns., Santa Barbara County. Photo by Nico Navarro

Many students, many fill-cut terraces: Spring 2015 Geomorphology class in the part of San Lorenzo Creek's drainage basin that was captured by Pancho Rico Creek. The fill-cut terraces are carved in the c. 20 ka fill that overlies the strath and buttress unconformity in the photo below. Photo by Tess Fillman.

View across a Pancho Rico Creek tributary to a c. 20 ka alluvial fill upon a strath, which are both inset into the paleodrainage divide that formerly separated the Pancho Rico and San Lorenzo Creek watersheds. This is a farther-downstream reach of the the same stream that carved the fill-cut terraces in the photo above.

View to southeast from Cone Peak, Santa Lucia Mountains, Monterey County, California.

Summer 2005: Mica the incredible strath hound identifies her quarry in Pancho Rico Valley,

California Coast Ranges (Monterey County).

Personal information:

First generation Cuban-American, born in Miami, Florida, on 11 December 1965.

Fluent in English and Spanish since childhood.

Education:

2001: PhD in Geological Sciences, The University of California, Santa Barbara.

1996: MS in Earth and Planetary Sciences, The University of New Mexico.

1994: BS in Geology, San Jose State University.

1988: BA in Fine Arts, University of California, Los Angeles.

Publications, Manuscripts In Preparation, Recent Presentations

Garcia, A.F., and Mahan, S.A., in press. Storm-driven sedimentation and dynamics of a sediment slug in an ephemeral stream: influence on sediment-routing systems within source areas. Geosphere.

Onderdonk, N., Garcia, A.F., Kelty. C., and Tyler, E., 2022. Topographic development of a compressional mountain range, the western Transverse Ranges of California, USA, resulted from localized uplift along individual structures and regional uplift from deeper shortening. Geosphere. https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02505.1

Garcia, A.F., Dean, D.M., and S.A. Mahan, 2017, Deducing geomorphic process and the character of paleoclimate from surficial geology and geochronology based on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 49, No. 6 doi: 10.1130/abs/2017AM-298356 (Invited talk, Geological Society of America Nation Conference).

Mahan, S. A., García, A. F., and Dean, D. 2015. A Model of Holocene Terrace Production in the Central Coast Ranges of California. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs Vol. 47, No. 7.

García, A. F., and Mahan, S. A., 2014. The notion of climate-driven strath-terrace genesis assessed via dissimilar stream-process response to late Quaternary climate. Geomorphology v. 214, p.223-244. (Please contact me for a <.pdf> file copy of this article [email address is below]).

García, A. F., and Mahan, S. A., 2012. The influence of upper-crust lithology on topographic development in the central Coast Ranges of California. Geomorphology v. 138, p. 243-262. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2011.09.009. (Please contact me for a <.pdf> file copy of this article [email address is below]).

García, A. F., and Mahan, S. A., 2009. Sediment storage and transport in Pancho Rico Valley during and after the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, Coast Ranges of central California (Monterey County). Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, v. 34, p. 1136-1150. (Please contact me for a <.pdf> file copy of this article [email address is below]).

Stokes, M., and García, A. F., 2009. Late Quaternary sedimentation and erosion patterns along the Rancho Marino coastal range front, Cambria, central-southern Pacific Coast Ranges, California, USA. Journal of Quaternary Science v. 24, p. 728-746. DOI: 10.1002/jqs.1243. (Please contact me for a <.pdf> file copy of this article [email address is below]).

García, A. F., 2006. Thresholds of strath genesis deduced from landscape response to stream piracy by Pancho Rico Creek in the Coast Ranges of central California. American Journal of Science, v. 306, p.655-681. (Please contact me for a <.pdf> file copy of this article [email address is below]).

García, A. F., and Stokes, M., 2006. Late Pleistocene highstand and recession of a small, high altitude pluvial lake, Jakes Valley, central Great Basin, USA. Quaternary Research, v. 65, p. 179-186. (Please contact me for a <.pdf> file copy of this article [email address is below]).

García, A. F., Zhu, Z., Ku, T.L., Chadwick, O.A., and Chacón Montero, J., 2004. An incision wave in the geologic record, Alpujarran Corridor, southern Spain (Almería). Geomorphology, v. 60, p. 37-72. (Please contact me for a <.pdf> file copy of this article [email address is below]).

García, A. F., Zhu, Z., Ku, T.L., Sanz de Galdeano, C., Chadwick, O.A., and Chacón Montero, J., 2003. Tectonically driven landscape development within the eastern Alpujarran Corridor, Betic Cordillera, SE Spain (Almería). Geomorphology, v. 50, p. 83-110. (Please contact me for a <.pdf> file copy of this article [email address is below]).

García, A. F., 2001, Quaternary stream incision and topographic development in the eastern Alpujarran Corridor, Betic Cordillera, southern Spain (Almería) [Ph.D. thesis]: Santa Barbara, The University of California, 214 p.

Pazzaglia, F.J., García, A. F., Pederson, J.L. and Toya, C., 1998, Geology of the Jemez Pueblo 7.5' quadrangle, Sandoval County, New Mexico, New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Open-file Geologic Map OF-GM 14, scale 1:24,000.

García, A. F., 1996. Active tectonic deformation and late Pleistocene and Holocene geomorphic and soil profile evolution in the Dosewallips River drainage basin, Olympic Mtns., western Washington State [MS thesis]: University of New Mexico.

García, A. F., 1995. Development of corrugations on off-road motorcycle trails, San Benito County, California. California Geology, May/June, v. 48, no. 3, p. 72-78. (Please scroll to page bottom for link to <.pdf> file)

courses I teach

GEOL 102, Introduction to Geology

GEOL 201, Physical Geology

GEOL 203, Fossils and the History of Life

GEOL 241, Physical Geology Lab

ERSC 323, Geomorphology

GEOL 330 Principles of Stratigraphy

GEOL 401, Field-Geology Methods

GEOL 402, Geologic Mapping

2006 Geomorphology Class on a Tahoe Moraine, Mono Basin (A.F. Garcia shown with rabbit ears).

Geology field methods (GEOL 401) at the Mud Hills, Winter 2009.

Fall 2011 Geomorphology class at the Pancho Rico Creek capture site.

Spring 2015 Geomorphology class. View of correlative, pre-capture strath terrace treads (surface the class is on and surface on the right side of the gorge in the back-middle ground) along the part of San Lorenzo Creek's drainage basin that was captured by Pancho Rico Creek. The terrace where the class is posing is the same terrace in the 4th photo from the top of this web page which has a well exposed buttress unconformity. Photo by Aleks Wydzga.

Winter 2016 Field-Geology Methods (GEOL 401) students studying mafic enclaves and pegmatite dikes in a granodiorite host at Soberanes Point, Big Sur Coast, California.

Thanks to SJSU's Dr. Robert Miller of for the rocks

Spring 2016 Principles of Stratigraphy class in Darwin Canyon. Thanks to SJSU's Prof. Emeritus Cal Stevens for the rocks. Photo by Marcus Richmond's camera.