Tuleyome Adventures Education Program- How the Land is Continuously Changing

Kara Green • February 13, 2023

If you reside in California, you’ve likely heard of the San Andreas Fault. But did you know that the San Andreas is just one of a series of faults created by the convergence of the North American plate and the Pacific Plate? The Earth’s Crust, broken into many pieces called tectonic plates, are constantly moving, shifting, and colliding. But their borders rarely make straight lines as often portrayed on tectonic maps. Rather, the crust fractures and creates multiple fault lines. At each of these fault lines, pressure can build up and be released in many different ways.


We happen to reside at the center of one of the most interesting geological areas in the world. From an educational standpoint, this is an amazing opportunity! Our nation-wide science standards, the NGSS, ask 4th grade students to understand the geological processes that have helped shape the Earth. That’s a big ask! It can be difficult for a lot of us to wrap our heads around the vast amounts of time and slow, grand processes that go into creating the features of the Earth including mountains, valleys, and volcanoes. So, if you can stand in a place and actually see the results of that process and place your hands on a simulation that replicates the geological space around you, that can be a profound experience. This is exactly what we are doing with the Land Trail at Woodland Regional Park Preserve (WRPP).


When 4th and 5th grade students visit WRPP to attend the land trail, they will not only see the effects from various geological processes, they will get to simulate them using a number of different demonstration tools. Students begin the trail by looking at a geological process that tends to have more immediate effects, specifically erosion. Making predictions beforehand, students will experiment with different soil types and vegetation coverage to see how each is affected by the forces of wind and water. The landscape of WRPP is comprised mostly of clay soils and as students will discover, water tends to pool up on clay soils which lends itself to the wetlands we have at the preserve. They will also find, however, that without the protective cover of vegetation, wind and water are powerful and sometimes destructive forces that can drastically change the landscape of the land.


After the first simulation, students will move out in both space and time to consider how the region in which we live has formed over millennia. Students will use topographical maps of the region, specifically of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, along with their binoculars to identify many of the features in our area. Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is a fascinating geological wonder, home to a lesser-known fault that resides along the border of the 2 plates, the Bartlett Springs Fault. The mountains in this region, which students will be able to spot with their binoculars, were formed hundreds of millions of years ago, during the Jurassic period. And it was formed under the sea.


To gain an understanding of what this process would look like, students will engage in another simulation- a sea mountain creation demonstration table. The activity will allow students to fast-forward through geologic time and watch a simulated version of the plates converging, one submerging under the other, with cooling magma and crust rising out of the sea to form mountains. In the Bartlett Springs area, this phenomenon has led to sea-life fossils dating back to the Jurassic Period and a special type of rock called the Serpentinite rock. Over time, the Serpentinite rock has experienced the same weathering and erosion process students already learned about, leading to a unique soil composition in this region of the monument- Serpentine soils.


Along with locating the features of the region both on the map and through their binoculars, students on this trail will have the opportunity to see sample Serpentinite rocks and soil from the area. The rock type is just one piece of evidence of the geologic history of our region. Another clue is fossil evidence. Finding fossil evidence in a region provides important information about what took place before our time. Students will get to experience this during their simulated excavation dig in which they unearth clues like those found in the Bartlett Springs region.


At the end of trail we will circle back to our first simulation in which we looked at the process of erosion. Throughout our time on the trail we will be focusing on the question: “how has the land changed over time?” What students will ultimately discover during our time at WRPP is that the land has changed significantly and that some of these changes have occurred slowly while others occur quite quickly and have great impact on our daily lives. But humans can have a large amount of influence over some of these changes by choosing how we manage our land.


(Photo from "Remarkable geology sets new Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument apart" by EldridgeM. Moores and Judth E. Moores, Earth Magazine 11/12/15)


-Kara Green (kgreen@tuleyome.org)


Education Associate


RECENT ARTICLES

Policy Corner: Protect our Wildest Areas

August 7, 2026
Our wildest areas are under threat. In June, the Administration moved to weaken protections for our wildest public lands - those designated as wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas, Lands with Wilderness Characteristics, and recommended Wilderness. What do these areas represent? Millions of acres of untrammeled backcountry. The Department of the Interior, US Forest Service and National Park Service initiated the first step in unraveling these protections. They’ve called for a “review” of eight policies, opening the door to weaken protections and paving the way for short-term extractive industries, commercial development, and resource fragmentation at the expense of long-term conservation management of some of our wildest remaining public lands. Nearly 200 million acres of wildlands across the west could be impacted by this review, including approximately 120 million acres of Wilderness Study Areas and wilderness quality lands, and 75 million acres of designated wilderness areas. This includes the nearly 94,000 acres in Cache Creek, Cedar Roughs and Snow Mountain Wilderness areas in Berryessa Snow Mountain Nation Monument right here in our own region. These policies guide how federal agencies identify, manage, and steward designated Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, and lands with wilderness characteristics. Together, they influence the management of millions of acres of federal public lands and translate statutory requirements into day-to-day management decisions. Continuing to protect wilderness qualities is consistent with protecting recreation. In many cases, wilderness-quality land provides the best opportunities for backcountry recreation; a CA outdoor industry responsible for 545,448 direct jobs valued at $38.1 billion. The total value-added worth of CA outdoor recreation is $81.5 billion, 2.2% of our gross domestic product. The Department of the Interior’s actions present a false choice between stewarding wilderness lands and providing opportunities for recreation. Let’s tell the Administration that we oppose these rollbacks and are committed to protecting our wild places. Sign on to the Wi lderness Review- National Sign-on Letter opposing five different actions across the three agencies by August 12th. Together, we can show this administration that we care about protecting these special places today and into the future. Sandra Schubert Executive Director

Donor Spotlight - Sarah Davis

August 7, 2026
I first heard about Tuleyome when I retired early from UC Davis eight years ago. I was looking for local organizations for volunteer opportunities. I discovered Tuleyome and got connected with Bill Grabert and Nate Lillge. I helped them lead hikes and school programs, then took the CA Naturalist course through Tuleyome. My capstone project was to lead a backpacking trip into the Cache Creek wilderness, which I did just as COVID was descending on us. I was, and still am, impressed at how such a small local non-profit has both ensured preservation of important wild areas and invested heavily in outreach to local schools. Working with kids from Lake County in the Redbud area was eye-opening and extremely gratifying. Some of them had literally never been on a hike in spite of growing up so close to all that spectacular wild land! I donate to Tuleyome to help them keep up the great work!!! I’ve spent countless days hiking in and enjoying the Cache Creek area; what a gem of a local resource! And, only last spring was I able to get up to Snow Mountain…so glad it’s preserved and accessible for camping and hiking. Wow! A wilderness area near my home - that’s amazing. I’m incredibly grateful for Tuleyome’s hard work that resulted in preservation of these important wild places, and I look forward to seeing what’s next.

Monumental Questions - What Makes California Newts Special?

By Kristie Ehrhardt • August 7, 2026
Driving around the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument one rainy day revealed a network of dirt roads that were slick as snnn… well, you probably know. The wet weather made driving less than optimal for the Subaru we were in but for our amphibian friends, the low-riding California newt, the warm, misty conditions were sublime. California Newts ( Taricha torosa ) are endemic to California, which means that they are extra special because they are only found here. They occur below 6,000 feet along the Coast Ranges from Mendocino County south to San Diego County. They are also found in the foothills and western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in the San Joaquin Valley with a few isolated populations in southern San Diego County. They utilize both wetland habitat including natural and artificial pools and ponds, reservoirs, creeks and streams for breeding during winter and spring, and upland areas such as chaparral and woodland habitats where they spend summer and fall. California Newts have stubby little toes attached to short, stocky legs. Adults range from about two and three quarters inches to about three and a half inches long, not including the tail. Their bellies and undersides of their neck and chin are bright golden yellow to orange with a reddish-brown to slate gray back. California Newts reproduce from late fall to early summer depending on rainfall amounts and habitat conditions. Adults migrate from their upland refugia to their preferred wetland to breed. Eggs are attached to submerged vegetation or under rocks and females can lay up to six masses of nearly 50 eggs a day. The eggs hatch in two to six weeks depending on water conditions and temperature. Larvae are aquatic and have gills and fins. After several months the larvae begin to exit the pond and set about metamorphosing into adults and do not return to the pond again until they are ready to breed. Larvae eat small aquatic invertebrates and organic matter; adults eat insects, slugs, snails and worms as well as other amphibian eggs and larvae. Adult California Newts are highly toxic. Like other members of the genus Taricha , adults have glands on their skin that secrete the potent neurotoxin tetrodotoxin - the same toxin that is found in harlequin frogs and pufferfish. Side note, this makes them poisonous rather than venomous (like rattlesnakes). Tetrodotoxin is hundreds of times more toxic than cyanide and potent enough to kill most vertebrates. The toxin affects sodium channels and makes it so neurons are unable to fire which results in lethal muscle paralysis. One of the only predators of adult California Newts are garter snakes. Garter snakes are one of the very few organisms that have evolved to develop a resistance to the tetrodotoxin produced by the newts. Garter snakes can ingest the toxic newts with limited effects which has created an evolutionary arms race (coevolution). As the garter snakes develop stronger immunity to the toxins only the most poisonous news survive which in turn results in future generations of news with even stronger toxins. This leads to a population of garter snakes that have developed a resistance to the stronger toxin levels and and on it goes. Loads of them were bumbling along the edges of the wet dirt road that rainy day. We made several stops to relocate those that were attempting to cross but seemed to stall out in the middle, always placing them facing the direction they were aimed. I don’t know if they were heading out to their natal ponds to mingle and breed, or on their way back to nap in their upland refugia but they were definitely enjoying the day. The California Newt is currently a California Species of Special Concern due to habitat loss and invasive non-native species introduction which makes seeing so many of these little stumpy legged tetrapods enjoying the Monument even even more groovy!