California The Geography of Diversity

9780767413459

0767413458

1. Lotus Land Revisited Travelogue Tales and Romantic Musings California Through the Eyes of the Spaniards -Early American Images -Literary Visions -A Taste of Today Diversity in Perspective -Environmental Diversity -Cultural Diversity -Population Trends Isolation or Uniqueness 2. The Unstable Landscape A Quartet of Deadly Temblors: The San Fernando, Whittier Narrows, Loma Prieta, and Northridge Quakes Faults, Folklore, and Fact California Adrift -Plate Tectonics -A Bermuda Triangle for California and Rerouting of the San Andreas? 3. Landorm Provinces and Their People The Peninsular Ranges -The Interior Highlands -The Los Angeles Basin -The Islands The Transverse Ranges -Onshore -Offshore The Coast Ranges -The Northern Faults -Valley Settlement -Landlocked Counties The Klamath Mountains -Erosion and Deposition -Getting Away from It All The Southern Cascades and Modoc Plateau -Lava Almost Everywhere -People Almost Nowhere The Great Basin and Southeastern Deserts -A Focus on Death Valley -Reservation and Rancheria Roulette -A Manmade Sea -Thinly Populated Deserts -Basin Settlement and Transient Tourism The Sierra Nevada -Ancestral Formations -Granitic Intrusion -Block Faulting -Pleistocene Glaciation -Recreation and Retirement The Great Central Valley -Fold and Fill -California's Cornucopia 4. From Droughts to Downpours The Lure of Mild Climate -The Legacy of Horace Greeley -Midwestern Graffiti -The Grapes of Wrath -The Resort Mentality: A Place in the Sun Climates, Microclimates, and Controls -Altitude and Air Masses -Latitude and West Coasts -Oceanic Influences -Air Pressure and Winds Weather Modification -Unintentional: Smog -Intentional: Rainmaking 5. Water: The Controversial Resource Water Resources: An Uneven Hydrography Water Use and Droughts Impacts of Stream Diversion on Mono Basin The Western (Californian) Revolution in Water Law -Common Law Riparian Rights -The Doctrine of Prior Appropriation (the Colorado Doctrine) -The California Doctrine: A Marriage of Convenience The City's Search for Water: Los Angeles and the Owens Valley War -Mulholland's Dream -The Owens Valley War Businessmen Versus Naturalists: The San Francisco Water Controversy More Water for Southern California from Somewhere Else The CVP: A Boon to Agriculture Water Conservation and Reuse The Pacific and the Columbia: Prolific but Unlikely Water Supply Alternatives 6. Energy: The Assumed Resource Lifestyle Change: Can California Maintain Its Mystique? -Is the Mobile Culture Affordable? -Is the Poolside Goddess a Thing of the Past? -Can Californians Become Energy Spartans? Energy and Electricity: Consumption and Supply Hydropower Oil and Natural Gas Coal Geothermal Power Nuclear Power Solar Energy Wind Power Deregulation, Conservation, and the Environment 7. From Redwoods to Sagebrush Principal Biomes -Coniferous Forests -Woodlands -Grasslands and Marshlands: The Central Valley as an Aboriginal Environment -Desert Shrublands -Chaparral and Coastal Shrublands -The Littoral The Success of Exotics 8. The Historical Geography of California The Original Californians European Exploration -Spanish Dominance -Mission Settlement Patterns The Mexican Period -The End of the Mission -The Romance of the Rancho Foreign Incursions and Early Statehood -Mountain Men, Sailors, Pioneers, and Heroes -The Gold Rush -The Decline of the California Indian Population -The Ri