Sonoma Valley

Known as the birthplace of the California wine industry,[1][2] the valley is home to some of the earliest vineyards and wineries in the state, some of which survived the phylloxera epidemic of the 1870s and the impact of prohibition in the early 20th century.

The area includes the incorporated city of Sonoma and part of the city of Santa Rosa, as well as numerous unincorporated communities, including Kenwood and Glen Ellen near Santa Rosa and, near Sonoma, El Verano, Boyes Hot Springs, Fetters Hot Springs, and Agua Caliente.

Within two generations of the Spaniards' arrival, however, the indigenous societies of the region were dispossessed of their land and decimated by diseases to which Europeans were resistant.

[5] Vallejo later transferred his allegiance with US statehood (1850), and with his amassed land holdings guided the development of the town and dispensed large ranches throughout the valley.

Boyes Hot Springs and Agua Caliente were popular health retreats for tourists from San Francisco and points beyond until the middle of the 20th century.

The phrase "Valley of the Moon" was first recorded in an 1850 report by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo to the California Legislature.

The Jurassic-Cretaceous Franciscan Complex includes crumpled, uplifted terranes that have resulted from the subduction of the former oceanic Farallon Plate under the North American continent.

Gravels in the Petaluma Formation did not come from rocks located in Napa, but have been sourced to mountains east of San Jose, California.

Kroeber, A. L., Handbook of the Indians of California (New York 1976 - reprint of Bulletin 78 of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution 1925)