Special Note - Before we get started... you
will notice that dogs are not allowed at this cache site. The sign
posted nearby does not explain the reasoning.
Dogs
Many of Monterey County's nearby beaches are closed to our K9
friends. This is because Snowy Plovers live here and uncontrolled
dogs can be disruptive to the endangered Snowy Plover nesting
ground. A Snowy Plover will permanently abandon a nest leaving
unhatched eggs if disturbed.
Now, back to our mission...
You are standing between the Pacific Ocean and Bennett Slough.
It is cold and there is ice and snow around you. It is 20,000 Years
Before Present (YBP). The sea level stands nearly 400 feet below
the point where it will stand in the year 2009 AD. Monterey’s
shoreline is 5-8 miles west of your present location, except where
the Monterey submarine canyon approaches much closer to current
shoreline and the Elkhorn channel. Elkhorn is a freshwater river.
Moro Cojo also a freshwater system.
Photography by Karen1327
18,000 YBP - Two thousand years later, Ice sheets begin
melting and seawater rises rapidly. This pattern continues for ~
12,000 years, with some variation in sea level rise over time.
10,000 YBP - Ocean water enters river channels on the
California coast, including Elkhorn Slough. Rate of sea-level rise
exceeds rate of sediment accumulation in these tidal inlets.
Oysters colonize mouth of Elkhorn Slough.
8,000 YBP - Native Americans arrive in Elkhorn Slough
region. Archaeological site includes fossils of northern seal pups,
indicating a local rookery, perhaps on the Moss Landing spit.
Humans may have driven this species to local extinction.
6,000 YBP - Near Hudson’s Landing, where Schwartz
found salt marsh beginning to colonize landward edge, West found
ditchgrass (a pondweed which thrives in salinities between 9 and 20
ppt), willows, cattails, and pickleweed appearing to coexist;
suggests a brackish environment in the upper slough. West 1988
Mouth of Elkhorn Slough becoming narrower, based on data from
oyster fossils. Oysters and clams colonize Bennett Slough.
4,000 YBP - Elkhorn Slough salt marsh approximately half
the extent of what it will be by early 1900s; benthic foraminifers
found in this marsh layer indicate assemblage resembling ones found
today in Elkhorn Slough. Broad mudflats flank main channel.
3,000 YBP - Native Americans occupy a site near the mouth
of Elkhorn Slough (this site had been occupied in the past, from
8,000 to 6,500 YBP). Archaeological data reveal this group
regularly hunts sea otters, fur seals, and harbor seals. Less
frequently, Stellar sea lions and California sea lion bones appear
in midden. Otters and seals may have been found in the local
sloughs or in Monterey Bay. Sea lions were probably restricted to
the bay.
2,000 YBP - McClusky Slough dominated by salt marsh, but
beginning to diminish in size. Broad salt marshes exist throughout
Elkhorn Slough. Sedges and cattails disappear at Hudson’s
Landing and are replaced with combination of ditchgrass and
pickleweed, indicating a brackish environment in upper slough. Clay
deposited at mouth of Elkhorn Slough – indicating a
relatively quiet water estuary with, perhaps, an indirect opening
to the sea.
1769 AD - First European account of north Monterey Co
wetlands. Father Crespi and Miguel Costanso place the mouth of the
Salinas River near Moss Landing, and describe the river as an
estuary that is tidally influenced and brackish to almost the
Blanco Crossing, approximately 9 miles southeast of Moss Landing.
Near its mouth this estuary is “very full” and deep
1830s - Maps made of Mexican land grants show Elkhorn
Slough and Moro Cojo as “esteros’ with salt ponds. They
share a mouth with the Salinas, and the location of this mouth is
variable. Diseños The Salinas River “runs almost
dry” in the summer, but becomes “impassible”
during the rainy season, and it often overflows most of the lower
Salinas plains in winter. One resident on the lower Tembladero has
to be rescued by boat from the roof of his adobe – he
“disliked saltwater . . .[and he feared he] might have to
take a cruise on [the adobe’s roof] in Monterey bay, by way
of the Salinas river against his will.”
1850s - The sloughs near the mouth of the Salinas River
are deep enough “to float a medium sized vessel to the Bay of
Monterey,” although sand bars at the river’s mouth are
a major obstacle in 1854. A State contracted geologist suggests
building a breakwater at the Salinas river mouth to improve the
area and make these waters navigable, especially since the State
will end up with jurisdiction of these “over-flowed and
saline lands.”
1872 - Railroad constructed in Elkhorn Slough,
restricting tidal flow to many of the eastern wetlands.
1876 - A passenger on the train through Elkhorn Slough
remarks on its “worthless salt marsh lands” and its
hundreds of pelicans, and great flocks of ducks, gulls, and other
birds.
1875 - Reclamation of local tide lands begins. In October
1875, “a levee has been thrown up to a height of five feet
[at mid-Moro Cojo]. . .extending from the higher land lying west of
the slough to the railroad bridge, a distance of half a mile. . .
We think [it will] effectually protect from the tide about 120
acres of land that otherwise would be profitless for any purpose. .
. Mr. Castro intends doing further work of this kind where
practicable. . .”
1906 - Directly across the slough you will find the
Pacific Coast Steamship Company building which was built in
1906 following the San Francisco earthquake. This property has many
well-known names associated with it. The simple colonial revival
style is in vernacular pyramid cottage form used just after the
turn of the century mostly in "company towns". The porch front is
simple Tuscan order. The two downstairs front windows are Queen
Anne cottage style. The simple fireplaces include bricks salvaged
from damaged buildings in the 1906 earthquake made by the Sante Fe
masonry. This building has been fully renovated and recently opened
as a bed and breakfast, The Captain's Inn by
Captain Yohn and Melanie Gideon. The effort to save this building
has been awarded a historic preservation award from the Moss
Landing Chamber of Commerce.
2010 - You find a Geocache on this spot.
Thank you - Andrea Woolfolk, National Estuarine Research
Reserve
CONGRATULATIONS Indigo Moon 10 - "Quick find on a
BEAUTIFUL autumn day."