I've been putting together this photo introduction to the geology of the California coast, and I realized that the Franciscan is the key to it all. Northern California is defined by the Franciscan Complex rocks lining the coast; they peter out just north of San Luis Obispo, and except for a few bits of granite and Tertiary sediments, the northern California coast is dark, rugged, isolated and rocky offshore. The southern California coast is light, rugged, and isolated but there are few rocks offshore and there's the huge beaches of Los Angeles that set the tone for the region. But the fog covers north and south alike. This set of pictures goes from Trinidad to San Diego, and there's fog, or the promise of fog, in most of them.
_{Baker Beach, San Francisco — Geology Guide photo}

Not long ago, the mountains of California were on fire. This week, they're sending mudslides down on the villagers. Those two things are not always just a coincidence, because fires strip the ground of the shrubbery, duff and undergrowth that protect the soil from rain and runoff. Unprotected, those soils wash away when rains do come. It's all part of the great cycle, but that is scant comfort for anyone close to the mud or, in the case of Independence, California, anyone trying to drive US route 395 through town. In any case, the link of fire to flood is illustrated in the Landslides Gallery.
_{Geology Guide photo}