Salt Point State Park

The eyebolts used to anchor ships down are still visible at Gerstle cove. This is where sandstone and wood were loaded onto cargo ships. At first, they used wire cables anchored to the cliffside to load wood and stone onto the ships. Two chutes were eventually made; the Miller chute and the Funcke & Co. chute. There was a horse-drawn railroad that lead from the Miller sawmills to where the boats were loaded. The sawmill had a daily capacity of 18,000 board feet (42.48 m³).

Bishop pine at Salt Point

Brush and grasslands cover the ground on the marine terraces; at higher elevations (approximately 100 to 300 feet (30 to 91 m) in elevation) Douglas fir forest dominates. At slightly higher staircase levels (about 300 to 500 feet (91 to 152 m)), a mixed fir forest of bishop pine and Douglas-fir is present intermixed with second growth coast redwood, madrones and tanoak. At 1,000 feet (305 m) there is a large open prairie where animals such as elk previously grazed. In addition, at an elevation of about 550 feet (168 m) within Salt Point State Park is a pygmy forest including the Mendocino cypress, bishop pine and Arctostaphylos. The reason these trees do not attain their normal height is due to the highly acidic soils with minimal nutrients and a hardpan layer close to the surface.

The native animals that roam the land include the black-tailed deer, raccoon, coyote, bobcat, gray fox, badger, striped skunk, and dozens of varieties of rodents such as squirrels, chipmunks, and the field mouse. Bears and cougars occasionally range the area, although visitors rarely see them.

The forest, grassland, and ocean shore area host a huge variety of birds, including pelicans, ospreys, woodpeckers (including the pileated woodpecker), and oystercatchers. Steller's jay and ravens are common in unattended campsites in search of food.

Tide pools

The ocean off Sonoma County averages 52 degrees F, with the warmest temperature recorded in 2014 at 57.2 °F and the coldest in 2007 at 50.9 °F.[1] The coast of Sonoma County is known for its slow-growing red abalone. It takes this abalone 10 years to reach a diameter of 7 inches (180 mm). Harvested by divers for decades, abalone can no longer be harvested due to a long-term closure.[2] Sport fishermen catch Lingcod, Kelp greenling, Cabezon (fish), and rockfish between the months of April and December. Between the months of December and April, it is possible to see gray whales migrating south to Baja California for breeding.

Stewarts Point State Marine Reserve & Stewarts Point State Marine Conservation Area, Salt Point State Marine Conservation Area and Gerstle Cove State Marine Reserve adjoin Salt Point State Park. Like underwater parks, these marine protected areas help conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems.

Sandstone with tafoni

The rocks of Salt Point are sedimentary, mainly sandstone. All of these rocks are tilted, exposing older rocks. The rocks at the north end of the park's coast are younger than the rocks at the southern end. Salt Point is named for the tafoni where the ocean water crystallizes in the honeycomb like crevices. This tafoni is caused when the salt crystals interact with the sandstone making parts of the sandstone harden while other parts soften.

The layers of sedimentary rock show evidence of a deep-sea fan. A deep-sea fan is caused when there is dense, turbulent sediment filled water flowing down a submarine canyon. This highly dense water is called a turbidity current. Something that may cause a turbidity current are earthquakes or storms that create a submarine slide. When this sediment filled water leaves the end of the canyon it spreads out in a fan like shape. The sediment is thinner and thinner the farther away the sediment is from the submarine canyon. All of these layers of sedimentary rock are created thousands of feet below the ocean's surface but now the layers are visible above the surface of the water. This is because the Pacific plate and the North American plate are moving against each other; since the oceanic plate is lower, it is being forced below the continental plate in a process called subduction. While the oceanic plate is being subducted, the continental plate is scraping off the top layers of the oceanic plate slowly bringing them to the surface.