Salinas Basin - 2010
The Stanford University Basin and Petroleum System Modeling Industrial Affiliates traveled to the Salinas basin for the 2010 field trip. The granitic-metamorphic basement of the Salinas basin is part of a larger block of arc basement, the Salinian block. Although somewhat controversial, the dominant current view holds that this basement block originally was a continuation of the southern Sierra Nevada arc terrane, and has been translated to its present position by episodes of strike-slip faulting. The field trip stops featured the following: Arroyo Seco; basin tectonics as demonstrated by the strike-slip on the Reliz fault; diatomite exposure overlain unconformably by Pliocene sediment; tar sand outcrop; sedimentary fill thickness of Salinas basin; basin tectonics showing late stage shortening and basin inversion; migration and trapping of oil in the Salinas basin, and an overview of the San Ardo oil field.