Qualla: Bodega Head: Where Two Plates Meet https://qualla.com/bodega-head en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-head-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Bodega Head: Where Two Plates Meet https://qualla.com/bodega-head Bodega Head: Where Two Plates Meet: Introduction https://qualla.com/bodega-head/ Photo credit David Miller, CC BY-SA 3.0. The granite under your feet does not belong here. Bodega Head is made of rock torn from the same geological province as the Sierra Nevada Mountains, ripped away when the San Andreas Fault came into existence roughly 20 million years ago and carried hundreds of miles northward on the Pacific Plate. The mainland just across the harbor -- visible, close enough to shout to -- is made of entirely different rock, oceanic crust from the Franciscan Complex. The San Andreas Fault runs between them like a seam in the earth, and this small, wind-battered promontory on the Sonoma Coast sits squarely on the wrong side of it. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Bodega Head lurched northward relative to the town, dragging the harbor with it. It is still moving.

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Image: David Miller | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-head-wp/9qb3-bodega-head-where-two-plates-meet-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Bodega Head: Where Two Plates Meet: A Fragment of the Sierra https://qualla.com/bodega-head/ Photo credit Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bodega Head is the northern tip of the Salinian Block, a vast geological province whose core shares its origins with the Sierra Nevada. The same continental granite that forms Yosemite's walls and Half Dome's face is exposed here on this windswept headland, hundreds of miles from...

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Image: Frank Schulenburg | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-head-wp/9qb3-bodega-head-where-two-plates-meet-a-fragment-of-the-sierra.mp3 0:06 2 full Bodega Head: Where Two Plates Meet: Sharks, Whales, and the Red Triangle https://qualla.com/bodega-head/ Photo credit Candy565, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bodega Head is one of the three vertices of the Red Triangle, the stretch of Pacific coast between Bodega Bay, the Farallon Islands, and Monterey Bay where more great white shark encounters occur than almost anywhere else on Earth. The sharks are drawn by the colonies of pinniped...

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Image: Candy565 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-head-wp/9qb3-bodega-head-where-two-plates-meet-sharks-whales-and-the-red-triangle.mp3 0:06 3 full Bodega Head: Where Two Plates Meet: Drake's Possible Landfall https://qualla.com/bodega-head/ Photo credit Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0. Campbell Cove, tucked into the eastern side of Bodega Head where the promontory shelters Bodega Harbor, is a candidate for Sir Francis Drake's 1579 landing site. Drake spent five weeks somewhere along the Northern California coast, careening his ship the Golden Hind and claiming ...

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Image: Frank Schulenburg | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-head-wp/9qb3-bodega-head-where-two-plates-meet-drakes-possible-landfall.mp3 0:06 4 full Bodega Head: Where Two Plates Meet: A Laboratory at the Edge https://qualla.com/bodega-head/ Photo credit Stepheng3 (talk), Public domain. The University of California, Davis operates the Bodega Marine Laboratory on the headland, part of the UC Natural Reserve System's Bodega Marine Reserve. The location is ideal for marine biology: the rocky intertidal zone, sandy beaches, mudflats, and open ocean are all within wa...

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Image: Stepheng3 (talk) | Public domain

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-head-wp/9qb3-bodega-head-where-two-plates-meet-a-laboratory-at-the-edge.mp3 0:06 5 full Bodega Head: Where Two Plates Meet: The Reactor That Never Was https://qualla.com/bodega-head/ Photo credit Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the late 1950s, Pacific Gas & Electric proposed building a nuclear power plant on Bodega Head. The site seemed promising: remote, sparsely populated, with access to ocean water for cooling. But the San Andreas Fault ran directly beneath the base of the headland, and the 1906 e...

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Image: Frank Schulenburg | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/3/bodega-head-wp/9qb3-bodega-head-where-two-plates-meet-the-reactor-that-never-was.mp3 0:06 6 full