In order to claim a find on this earth cache, one must send the answers to the following questions to me within 3 days. If I do not recieve your answers within 3 days I will delete your Found It with no further warning.
Questions:
1. Looking at the source spot of the seep, what do you see it doing?
2. What is the color of some of the nearby rocks?
3. Looking around do you see any Sediment shifts?
4. Which way are these pointing?
I've been coming back here for years, and am now seeing lots more families. As we run into them I thought it would be fun to both explain and to be able to teach kids and others about the area. Send an e-mail with the answers to the questions below, have fun.
Oil and gas seeps are natural springs where liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons (hydrogen-carbon compounds) leak out of the ground. Whereas freshwater springs are fed by underground pools of water, oil and gas seeps are fed by natural underground accumulations of oil and natural gas.
This is a vertical slice through the Earth's crust, showing folded layers of sedimentary rocks holding oil and gas in the crest of an underground fold. Sometimes oil leaks out of the fold and forms a natural oil seep at the land surface.
Oil that leaks to the Earth's surface is eventually transformed from a clear fluid to a tar-like substance called asphaltum. The lighter components of the oil are lost to evaporation, and the remaining heavier oil is oxidized and degraded by bacteria until it becomes sticky and black.
Asphaltum from this and similar seeps may have been collected by the Chumash Indians to caulk their canoes.
Back further in the Canyon is a Freshwater spring that runs most of the year.
The Llajas (Ya Has) Formation
The term “Llajas” was originally an informal name used to designate the marine siltstone, sandstone, and conglomerate underlying the Sespe Formation and cropping out in the vicinity of Las Llajas Canyon.
In outcrop, the Llajas formation consists of a basal conglomerate overlain by a thick section of interbedded siltstone and sandstone. Overlying the conglomerate is light brown to gray siltstone, sandy siltstone, and fine-grained sandstone. Guauconite is common in sand inter-beds in the middle of the formation, and worm impressions and fossil fragments are abundant throughout the formation.
As you hike around this area, look down along the river beds and see all the fossils and if you’re lucky a Sharks tooth! Sharks teeth sometimes are found within “Turbidite sands” which are found in the Llajas Formation. Fossils are abundant in the area.
Simi Valley and the accompanying preservation of the fossilized remains of the particular kinds of animals found in these strata, reflect major vertical shifts of the earth’s crust in the area relative to sea level. These shifts resulted in sometimes the older Formations being on top of the younger Formations.
The Sespe Formation (Early middle Eocene to late Oligocene Epochs) and is the oldest rock unit in Simi Valley to contain the remains of land mammals. It overlies the marine Llajas Formation and underlies the marine Vaqueros Formation in Simi Valley.
Reference:
“Simi Valley, a Journey through time. Simi Valley Historical Society and Museum” Published in 1997.
Oregon State University Geology Department
http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/seeps/what.html (The “Natural Oil and Gas Seeps in California” project is a collaborative between the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Department of Conservation.)
Tapo Canyon Oil Development Appraisal, E.H.A. Andrews Geologist, James Jansen & associates Tapo Oil Company lease appraisal
http://www.scvresources.com/geology/newhall.htm
.