Astro 28K: Field Astronomy at Carrizo Plain National
Monument
Apr 11-13, 2008
Post-Trip Photo Page
Check out the Post-Trip Highlights of the Spring
2004 Trip and Spring 2006 Trip
This class will focus on a lunar grazing
occultation, and on the unique geology of this newest National
Monument in California, and put it all into an astronomical context. The San
Andreas fault zone has created a wide, semi-desert valley which harbors one
of the last large tracts of rare native plants and animal ecologies in California.
Because of this, the Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service bought
this land and preserved it, primarily for the endangered species and not for
visitors - perfect for crowd-shy astronomers!
Carrizo
Plain National Monument is most famous for those pictures you've probably seen
of dramatically offset creeks and drainage due to the San Andreas Fault. 
It
also has spectacular wildflower displays in the early spring. Soda
Lake, an alkali lake created by uplift due to the fault, has surrounding
marshlands and abundant rare and native wildlife. There are few trees and horizons
are good. Carrizo provides a good setting to demonstrate and discuss crustal
processes common to the inner planets as the area is a graben formed by the
actions of the San Andreas Fault; one of the great tectonic plate boundaries
on our planet.
The beauty of this land, especially in the spring time, has inspired both ancient
peoples of the Chumash tribe, who left fascinating inscriptions at Painted Rock
Sacred Site near our camp, as well as modern
poetry. Learn more about the Chumash inscriptions here,
here,
here, and see some of the markings on Painted Rock itself here.
My friend and photo workshop colleague Dave Wyman took incredible images during
his photo workshop
here in the Spring of '03, including the image at upper left. Early
April should be near the peak of the wildflower season. There are lupine, California
Poppy, and a wide range of other flowers which will carpet the hillsides and
flat lands. Learn more about this little known treasure of California
here, here,
and here,
and at the Sierra Club's page here.
A geologic tour can be found
here. Dave Wyman's Image Quest photo workshops have produced
some beautiful images from Spring, seen here.
Astronomical Highlights
Evening skies in early Spring will give us views of the Orion star formation
region, the brightest open star clusters in the sky, and a cresent moon to enable
us to study the geology of the moon. This link shows the lunar
occultations occuring during our weekend.
A
Grazing Lunar Occultation: We will be observing a lunar grazing occultation
on Friday evening's 43% cresent moon. The moon's northern edge will just graze
an 8th magnitude star in Gemini, making the star disappear and 
reappear
hopefully many times as it is covered and uncovered by the mountains and valleys
on the dark side of the moon. The graze happens at 10pm sharp, time enough for
us to finish dinner, clean up, and get down to to set up stations near the San
Andreas Fault, just east of Soda Lake (see map at right). The 8.6 magnitude
star will be bright enough for visual observers, and will be easy for all of
us to observe with our PC164c video camera and TV monitor. Lunar grazes are
pretty cool to watch. Check out this Quicktime .mov
file of a bright graze Sept
17, 2003, speeded up by a factor of 6. The moon this night will
also make a close conjunction with Mars - the two are only 1 degree apart and
are worth a photo.
Here are the graze predictions, for
my reference. Another Google Earth map of the graze path is
here. And the profile for the graze is shown at right.
Day Trip Highlights
Shortly after dawn early risers are welcome to join me for an optional session
of landscape photography from camp. Early morning light on Soda Lake, 
the
dramatic Temblor Mountain range across the plain, and macro photography of native
grasses and flowers in morning light should make for beautiful images. Later,
after I cook up one of my famous crepe
breakfasts for the crew, we'll examine the sun using our solar
filter, and hopefully Karl will be able to bring along De Anza College's new
solar H-alpha filter telescope. Then we'll go to the visitor's center to learn
more about the Plains and get access to the trail to Painted Rock. We'll then
take two self-guided geologic tours to explore the offset stream beds and surface
traces of the San Andreas Fault, calculating creep rates and relating to our
earlier experiences with the fault at Pinnacles National Monument. The wildflower
season will be in full bloom. Check
here for the latest reports on the wildflowers.
Pleistocene Comet Impact Wipes out the Clovis Indian Culture and
the Great Mammals of North America!
In 2007, geologists discovered evidence from two dozen sites around North America,
of a giant comet impact which hit at the end of the last Ice Age in North America,
13,000 years ago. Just like the dinosaur killing event 65 million years ago,
this impact left a dark layer of carbon spherules, micro-diamonds, and iridium-rich
debris, combined with the ash of massive wildfires which burned the continent
to the ground. This evidence is also visible in California. However, as of the
writing of this webpage, no mainland sites have been searched (2 sites in the
Channel Islands have provided evidence so far). I've thought about where evidence
might be found on the mainland, and Carrizo Plain has some uniquely favorable
characteristics - it is a depositional region with semi-desert aridity, it is
cleanly sliced by the active San Andreas Fault, and micro-basins might be expected
to show, in the right spots, this 13,000 year old deposit in off-set stream
bed or sag pond locations. I'll do some more work on where would be best, and
I would like to bring along my geologist hammer and a shovel or two and see
if we can find and collect evidence of this layer here. If we're successful,
it will be very important science! Read a paper on this event
here.
Camping
The
Selby Rocks (left) are close to our planned campsite. In order to have good
horizons we will not be camping in either of the two primitive campgrounds in
the park (which are kind of boring, actually). Instead, we will be camping on
BLM land in the Caliente Mountains with wide views of the plains and the Temblor
Range across the plains. Plan to bring your own water as there will be none
at Carrizo. We'll bring tables from the observatory, but you should bring beach
chairs. Official bathroom facilities will be 1 mile away, but of course there
are plenty of bushes for the adventurous. If you did not attend the pre-trip
meeting Wednesday, here are the directions to get to our campsite...
Directions to camp. Get on Hwy 101 and drive south
to Paso Robles. IMPORTANT! This is a MANDATORY gas stop! This is the last gas
station you'll see until your return drive through Paso Robles on Sunday - that's
200 miles roundtrip. So whether you need it or not, get gas here, now. Then
head east 16 miles on Hwy 46 to Shandon. At the Shandon turnoff, go into the
little town and turn right (south) on Truesdale Rd. Stay on it heading south
and it'll join with Shell Creek Rd, which you continue on for another 15 miles
or so until it T's with Hwy 58. Go left (east) until you enter Carrizo Plain
(you'll see signs for "Carrisa Plain" and "Carissa Fellowship
Church") and it'll be obvious you're out of the hill country and in the
plains. Turn right onto Soda Lake Road, where there's a sign for "Carrizo
Plain National Monument". Drive south through the sparse community of California
Valley and into the National Monument, past Soda Lake and note the dirt road
to the Goodwin Education Center (The Visitor Center) on your right. 1 mile after
Goodwin you'll see a sign "Selby Camp/Caliente Ridge". Turn right
onto this dirt road and drive about 4 miles, into the Caliente Range foothills
and you'll come to a fork in the road right where there's an old abandoned ranch.
To your left will be "Selby Camp" but you will stay to the right "Caliente
Ridge" and go through an open gate. Note your odometer! You now go precisely
1.15 miles up this road winding into the hills and you'll come to a fairly flat
area with parking and we'll be right there. Here's a link to the topozone.com
topographic map of our campsite - Camp is the "x" in the middle.
Play with Topozone's controls to see a wider view and how the dirt road to camp
looks. We're not in a campground, so bring your own water and pack it in/pack
it out!
Other Photos from Carrizo Plain...
Soda Lake nature walk, and
another view at Soda
Overlook looking towards the Caliente
Range. 5,200 ft Caliente Peak is the highest peak
in this picture.
In the late afternoon a final rain shower produced a beautiful
rainbow in this picture taken from our campsite. Note the San Andreas
Fault scarp catching the setting sun's rays across the middle of this picture.
We'll be exploring the scarp on Saturday. Another picture of the rainbow is
here. Weather for our weekend
trip is expected to be warm and clear.
and, here is the view from our campsite
looking towards Soda Lake.
Late Breaking News...
* We are permitted to have a fire. It must be within a fire ring, and we need
a permit. However, we need to get the permit from the visitor's center and the
visitor's center (the Goodwin Education Center) is only open from 9am-4pm. If
someone gets there before 4pm on Friday, please stop by the Goodwin Center and
get a fire permit. If not, then we can always skip the fire on Friday and get
the permit when we go down there on Saturday. After all, we'll be pretty busy
Friday night with grazing anyway.
* Simmler Road (the road that goes between the two halves of Soda Lake) is
in good shape and will be our graze road. So, if you arrive at 8:45pm and want
to skip going up to camp, just join us on Simmler Road. I'd say, just drive
a bit onto the road (nice wildflowers there) and wait for me to drive by and
guide you to the site, or if you're closer to 9pm or later, then just drive
along that road until you find us. We'll be no farther than the far end of the
lake or a bit farther; that's maybe 3 miles? or so.
* The water at Selby Camp doesn't pass State requirements for minerals and
is "not potable". But it's probably just fine for cleanup. FYI. Otherwise,
there is no water in the park, not even a drinking fountain at the Goodwin Center.
Bring your own certainly for drinking!
* Weather forecast - warm days in the high '70's, cool nights.
* This is a "Good" year for wildflowers (unlike last year, which
was poor, and unlike 2005, which was amazing). There'll be more than the usual
tourists out/about photographing the flowers. Not many campers probably.
* I have more handouts for you when you arrive; on grazes in general and our
graze in particular, including the profile and where the star will be (see pix
above too), and also a handout on planetary science and local and California
Geology.
Our Tentative Schedule
Friday
Before 6pm: Get your carpools together and drive down. Plan
to arrive before 6pm: Arrive at the campsite and set up tents, kitchen. I'll
be leaving about 1:30 pm and arrive by 6 pm is my guess.
7pm: Start dinner. I'll be fixing a hearty meal, with your help. Enjoy the
sunset light on the beautiful plains below us.
8:30pm: clean up, have a star hop w/ laser pointer, and prepare for carpooling
back down to the plain for the big lunar graze!
10:00-10:05pm - Observe the graze from 2 or perhaps 3 stations we'll set up
just north of Soda Lake. After the graze we re-convene (we'll be less than a
mile apart in our different stations) and review data, perhaps get GPS readings,
and then head back up to camp.
11pm - we'll decide if we want to set up scopes for more viewing, or weather
you've had it for the day.
Saturday
I'll get up by 7:30am and start fixing the batter for my famous French Crepes
breakfast.
8:15-9pm Breakfast, then cleanup. Consolidate cars
10:00am-12:00 noon: Visitors Center, and tour the Chumash sacred site at Painted
Rock.
2:00pm-6pm: Study the San Andreas Fault near Wilson Creek, go to the Soda Lake
overlook and access points, search for good spots to find Pleistocene Impact
Debris Layer (if we're very lucky!).
