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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


California Nature:  San Francisco Bay


San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean.

Technically, both rivers flow into Suisun Bay, which flows through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay, which connects at its south end to San Francisco Bay, although the entire group of interconnected bays is often referred to as “San Francisco Bay”.

San Francisco Bay is located in California, and surrounded by a contiguous region known as the San Francisco Bay Area (often simply "the Bay Area"), dominated by the large cities San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. The waterway entrance to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean is called Golden Gate. Across the strait spans the Golden Gate Bridge.
a view of Alcatraz from the San Francisco bay The Bay covers somewhere between 400 and 1,600 square miles, depending on which sub-bays, estuaries, wetlands, and so on are included in the measurement. The main part of the Bay measures 3 to 12 miles  wide east-to-west and somewhere between 48 miles  and 60 miles north-to-south.

From the mid-19th century through the late 20th century, more than a third of the original bay was filled and often built on. The deep, damp soil in these areas is subject to liquefaction during earthquakes, and most of the major damage close to the Bay in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 occurred to structures on these areas.

There are four large islands in San Francisco Bay. Isolated in the center of the Bay is Alcatraz, the site of the famous federal penitentiary. Mountainous Yerba Buena Island is pierced by a tunnel linking the east and west spans of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge.

Attached to the north is the artificial and flat Treasure Island, site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. Closest to shore, Angel Island was known as "Ellis Island West" because it served as the entry point for immigrants from East Asia. Raccoon Strait, between Tiburon and Angel Island, is the deepest part of the Bay. The federal prison on Alcatraz Island no longer functions, and the complex is now a popular tourist site.

Alcatraz Island offers a close-up look at the site of the first lighthouse and US built fort on the West Coast, the infamous federal penitentiary long off-limits to the public, and the 18 month occupation by Indians of All Tribes which saved the tribes. Rich in history, there is also a natural side to the Rock, which offers gardens, tide pools, bird colonies, and bay views beyond compare.
The San Francisco bridge seen through the fog in California nature The history of Alcatraz is surprising to those that only know the Hollywood version. Civil War fortress, infamous federal prison, bird sanctuary, first lighthouse on the West Coast, and the birthplace of the American Indian Red Power movement are a few of the stories of the Rock.

In 1964, and again in 1969 American Indians - many whose tribes were being terminated by federal policy, laid claim to Alcatraz Island. Their 18 month occupation would cause a great change in federal policy towards American Indians that would save the tribes. On November 9, 1969, Richard Oakes, a Mohawk Indian, and a group of Indian supporters set out in a chartered boat, the Monte Cristo, to symbolically claim the island for the Indian people. On November 20, 1969, this symbolic occupation turned into a full scale occupation which lasted until June 11, 1971.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s (GGNRA's) far-reaching boundaries are home to more species that are listed by the federal government as threatened or endangered than any other national park site in the continental United States.

Mile-long Baker Beach lies at the foot of rugged serpentine cliffs west of the Golden Gate. Large waves, undertow and rip currents make the beach unsafe for swimming, but it provides panoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin Headlands and Lands End. You can fish or check out the shore life along the beach and rocky shoreline.

San Francisco Bay is thought to represent a down-warping of the Earth's crust between the San Andreas Fault to the west and the Hayward Fault to the east. During the last ice age, the basin now filled by the bay was a large linear valley with small hills, similar to most of the valleys of the Coast Ranges. The rivers of the Central Valley ran out to sea through a canyon that is now the Golden Gate. As the great ice sheets melted, sea level rose 300 feet over 4,000 years, and the valley filled with water from the Pacific, becoming a bay. The small hills became islands.
 
 
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