Monterey Canyon

The canyon's depth and nutrient availability (due to the regular influx of nutrient-rich sediment) provide a habitat suitable for many marine life forms.

While the erosion process of turbidity current erosion which once carved out the submarine Monterey Canyon is well known, the cause of the great depth and length of this canyon, obviously carved out millions of years ago, and the unusually large size of the sedimentary deposit (fan) at its underwater mouth 95 miles West of Monterey, have all been a cause for some speculation.

Recent research supports the latter due to the chemistry in iron-manganese deposits on seamounts near the Canyon indicating a sediment origin of southern Sierra Nevada or western Basin and Range.

[3] Reconstructions of ancient land configurations via plate tectonic theory indicate that the canyon has moved north to its current location via the horizontal slip-action of the San Andreas Fault and would have been approximately where Santa Barbara is located when both the San Andreas Fault and the Gulf of California came into being.

Once these deeper core samples have been properly analyzed and traced back to their original sedimentary sources, the answers to such speculations as to which river might have provided the high level of turbidity current flows which are believed to have most probably been required to carve out such a deep and long canyon, with such a huge sedimentary deposit (fan) at its mouth will all hopefully be finally resolved.