Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City

A San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller

Read the rocks as only a geologist can, with this deep drill-down into Oakland's geological history and its impacts on the city's urban present.

"This book has turned me into a newcomer to my own city, but has also changed the way I will view any landscape. I can think of few greater gifts than that."--Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing

"Spending time with Andrew Alden is like giving yourself x-ray eyes." --Roman Mars, host and creator of 99% Invisible

Beneath Oakland's streets and underfoot of every scurrying creature atop them, rocks roil, shift, crash, and collide in an ever-churning seismological saga. Playing out since time immemorial, the deep geology of this city has chiseled and carved its landforms and the lives of everyone--from the Ohlone to the settlers to the transients and transplants--who has called this singular place home.

In Deep Oakland, geologist Andrew Alden excavates the ancient story of Oakland's geologic underbelly and reveals how its silt, soil, and subterranean sinews are intimately entwined with its human history--and future. Poised atop a world-famous fault line now slumbering, Alden charts how these quaking rocks gave rise to the hills and the flats; how ice-age sand dunes gave root to the city's eponymous oak forests; how the Jurassic volcanoes of Leona Heights gave way to mining boom times; how Lake Merritt has swelled and disappeared a dozen times over the course of its million-year lifespan; and how each epochal shift has created the terrain cradling Oaklanders today. With Alden as our guide--and with illustrations by Laura Cunningham, author of A State of Change--we see that just as Oakland is a human crossroads, a convergence of cultures from the world over, so too is the bedrock below, carried here from parts still incompletely known.

ISBN-13: 9781597145961

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Heyday

Publication Date: 05-02-2023

Pages: 256

Product Dimensions: 5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

Andrew Alden is a geologist and geoscience writer who has worked for the US Geological Survey and reported for KQED and Bay Nature. Long fascinated with rocks and landscapes, Alden found inspiration for his debut book, Deep Oakland, in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which, as he writes, “ripped the city open and revealed to us its heart and character.” Through his writing Alden raises awareness for what he calls the deep present: the appreciation of the ancient underpinnings that shape the modern-day surroundings of daily life. His website is oaklandgeology.com.

Read an Excerpt

FROM THE PREFACE

People are naturally drawn to natural things. Given a chance, they’re ready to listen to birds, to reckon trees, to attend to all kinds of living creatures. Many are called by the clouds and winds and stars. Fewer are drawn downward: listeners to landscape, reckoners of rocks. Nevertheless, we’re all shaped by the geological as well as biological forces of the Earth.

Every city sits where it does for geological reasons, which may include the availability of underground and surface water, ready access to natural sources of wealth, terrain suitable for rail lines and highways, navigable rivers and ports for shipping, amenable climate and exceptional scenery.

Regarding a city in terms of its geology—seeing it from the ground down—is not the usual way. Until well into the twentieth century, geologists weren’t consulted before cities were founded. But sooner or later, growing cities hit limits imposed by their geology, and how they respond affects whether they thrive or founder. The longer I exploreOakland, the more I see how its unusually rich geological setting steered its history and constrains its prospects.

Beyond Oakland’s value as a case study, if you’re here, you’re in the midst of an underappreciated teaching tool, a textbook for a wide range of geological concepts. It has features its managers might better heed and others its residents might treasure.

When I say the word geology, most people think I mean rocks, but it’s about much more: the work of streams, the formation and movements of sediment, the rise and fall of mountains, the changes of living things as age succeeds age. By geology I really mean how the Earth works—how planets work. Geology is the study of worlds made of rocks. The Earth is active, geologically alive, and every place on it takes part. Geology opens one’s eyes to a secret world that lies beneath and all around us. Knowing some geology is like having a key to the house that opens up a vast extra room. Here I hope to introduce the ways of Earth to you.

Why does Oakland geology matter? Every town and city has its own geological setting. Oakland is a special city that owes its origin and character to a remarkable setting, making it not just a beautiful place but a good one to learn the basics of geology. The Oakland Hills tempt me every day to visit them, and when I do they dazzle me with views as well as rocks. By my estimate, Oakland has more kinds of rock—red, white, blue, and green—than any other city in America. That’s my idea of a tourist attraction. Once acquainted with the subject, anyone can turn to their own hometown and see it with new eyes. Turning on one’s geologist eyes is something like snorkeling: the surface world with all its sound and motion drops away, and an entirely different world swims into view.

Table of Contents

1 The Hayward Fault

2 Lake Merritt

3 Downtown

4 Mountain View Cemetery

5 The Piedmont Block

6 The Fan, or the Second Level

7 Indian Gulch

8 The Bay Shore and Flats

9 Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve

10 Leona Heights and the Southern Oakland Hills

11 The Ridgeline

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author