Santa Maria Basin 2017

We visited the onshore Santa Maria Basin, a roughly triangular-shaped sedimentary basin located north of the Santa Barbara-Ventura Basin and south of the Pismo Basin. The Santa Maria Basin is bound on all sides by fault zones: the Santa Ynez River forms the southern border, the Santa Maria River comprises the northern margin, and the Hosgri fault offshore marks the western boundary. Wedged between the Coast and the Transverse Ranges, the geologic configuration of petroleum units in the Santa Maria Basin is thus closely tied to the tectonic history over the past ~20 m.y.