The Santa Lucia Mountains or Santa Lucia Range is a mountain range in coastal California, running from Monterey southeast for 105 miles (170 km) to San Luis Obispo. The highest summit is Junipero Serra Peak, in Monterey County. It is part of the Pacific Coast Ranges.
Toponymy
The first
European to document the Santa Lucias was
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542 while sailing northward along the coast on a Spanish naval expedition. Cabrillo originally named the southern portion of the range the
Sierras de San Martín, as he was passing the area on 11 November, the feast day for
Saint Martin. He named the northern part
Sierras Nevadas because there was snow on it.
The present name for the range was documented in 1602 by Sebastián Vizcaíno, who had been tasked by the Spanish to complete a detailed chart of the coast. Passing by the range on 14 December, he named the range Sierra de Santa Lucia in honor of Saint Lucy of Syracuse..
Geology
The rock of the Santa Lucias is dominated by
granitic basement of the
Salinian Block, between the
San Andreas Fault and
Sur-Nacimiento Fault. According to
plate tectonic theory, the core of the Salinian block formed as part of the same
batholith which forms the core of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains and the
Peninsular Ranges of
Baja California. It was broken off the
North American Plate and transported north by the action of the
San Andreas Fault from an original position. It is predominantly
Mesozoic granitic and pre-
Cretaceous metamorphic rocks. There is some Cretaceous
sedimentary rock of the Great Valley Sequence, considerable
Miocene marine sediments, and some other
Tertiary sediments. Units west of the Sur-Nacimiento fault are dominated by rocks of the
Franciscan Assemblage.
Flora
The west slope of the range facing the
Pacific Ocean is moist with good
forest growth including
Coast Redwood,
Douglas fir,
Ponderosa Pine,
Pacific Madrone and the
local endemics Santa Lucia Fir (Abies bracteata) and
Gowen Cypress (Cupressus goveniana var. goveniana), while the east side is drier, with
chaparral and open woods of
pine (including
Coulter Pine and
Gray Pine) and several species of
oak. These mountains are home to the southernmost native stands of redwood trees, since the climate gets drier towards the south. This range is the only known habitat of the
Vortriede's spineflower.
Major peaks
Junipero Serra Peak, . Cone Peak features one of the steepest coastal elevations in the lower 48 United States, rising nearly a mile (1,609 m) above sea level, only three miles (5 km) from the Pacific Ocean.
Mount Angeles in the
Olympic mountains rises 6,450 feet from the sea in eight miles.
Ventana Double Cone,
Mount Carmel,
Wine
The Santa Lucia Highlands
American Viticultural Area, a producer of
California wine, is located in the region.
References
External links
Ventana Wilderness Alliance — Dedicated to the protection, preservation, enhancement and restoration of the wilderness qualities and biodiversity of the public lands within California's northern Santa Lucia Mountains.
Category:California Coast Ranges
Category:Mountain ranges of Northern California
Category:Geography of Monterey County, California
Category:Geography of San Luis Obispo County, California
Category:Monterey Ranger District, Los Padres National Forest
Category:Los Padres National Forest
