Pioneering engineering geologist J. David Rogers has died. When he lived in the Bay area he contributed to NCGS events.

September! Our first meeting of the 2025-26 season comes up on the 24th. Why not join us?

THE PLANE THAT’S COLLECTING ALL NEW LOW TIDE LIDAR FOR THE SAN FRANCISCO ESTUARY WETLANDS REGIONAL MONITORING PROGRAM IS IN THE AIR!!!

This is horrifying and yet another reminder of why we can't abandon fossil fuels quickly enough. The Elwha River is a triumph of restoration, with salmon returning after over a century's absence since major dam removals 12 years ago. The spill is on a tributary 1.5 miles from the river's main stem.

NCGS member Gary Prost has a book coming out!

NCGS member and webmaster

Great new open access paper - “Newly Identified Creeping Strand of the Concord Fault, San Francisco Bay Area”. I was able to go check out the area with the authors last summer. Super neat! Link - pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/srl/arti...

In Harpers, a well-sourced (Lyell and Darwin) meditation on geological deep time vs human time. archive.ph/lpruL

Our 2009 Gold Country field trip passed the rock shop west of Mariposa, where the field trip leader said he'd found a small gold nugget in the roadcut to the east. A recent visitor found no gold but lots of beautiful rocks. ncgeolsoc.org/past-field-t...

Our June speaker, from the FORGE geothermal project in Utah, will give us lots of background on the exciting developments in this thread.

See our fall lineup of speakers at ncgeolsoc.org From Sept to Nov we'll learn about a new kind of explosion structure, what sea-level rise means for groundwater, and what an odd quake in 1954 looks like from today's science.

Just added to our Past Field Trips page is David Howell's handout for our 2016 trip to two premium wine destinations in the Napa Valley with notable geology. ncgeolsoc.org/past-field-t...

Our May Speaker, Walter Alvarez, gave a lucid personal picture of his wild surmise that a Pliocene inland sea once occupied the middle of the Sahara. He published a drier version <2 years ago in this open-access paper.

NCGS member Gary Prost‘s new book, Rocks and Riches, introducing selected California geology sites everyone should visit, will be released by Heyday Books on July 22nd. Pre-order it here.

Mining geologist wanted for a big Zn-Au-Ag-Cu project near Mariposa! details in the alt text.

Don't miss this video of the M 7.8 Myanmar earthquake as it moved the ground several meters at once.

We're taking reservations for our May 28 dinner meeting featuring UC Berkeley's Walter Alvarez, who will recount an excellent story of discovering (or rediscovering) an ancient giant lake where the Sahara Desert lies today, its traces still visible in the landscape. ncgs.regfox.com/ncgs-dinner-...

Our website has pictures now in the home page News section. This is one of our latest scholarship winners, whose poster presented last week at the GSA Cordilleran Section meeting acknowledged NCGS.

NCGS members Gary Prost and Mark Petrovsky will lead a Geology Walk twice during the El Cerrito Hillside Fest next month, May 3 and 4. Here's the flyer.

Less than a week til our March meeting, where UC Berkeley's Felipe González-Cataldo will take us deep into planetary interiors to address "matter at extreme conditions." From Orinda BART, cross the second bridge and walk thru the Pine Grove Business Center grounds to save yourself an uphill trudge.

The rest of the spring speakers are now up on the website: ncgeolsoc.org

Dr. Alvarez is our May dinner speaker. bsky.app/profile/laur...

Early registration ends Wednesday for the GSA Cordilleran Section meeting in Sacramento April 1-4 www.geosociety.org/GSA/Events/S...

NCGS member Don Medwedeff gave a presentation about the geology of Mount Diablo to the Museum of the San Ramon Valley last year that's been viewed 2000 times. museumsrv.org/the-geology-...

We have filled a longstanding vacancy in our slate of officers: Joe Iovenitti, our new Outreach Chair, will take on our efforts to reach and serve the public, a responsibility geologists cannot neglect. He'll also help us reconceive our K-12 teachers program.

Each year the NCGS awards $2000 scholarships to graduate students working on projects related to Northern California geology. This year we gave awards to Ryan Lynch (UC Davis) and Sarah Shi (UC Berkeley). See the details on the Scholarships page. ncgeolsoc.org/scholarships/

New on the Past Field Trips page is the PDF guide for our 2015 visit to the conglomerate outcrops at San Luis Reservoir. ncgeolsoc.org/past-field-t.... Our leader, Dr. Todd Greene of CSU Chico, published a big paper on this locality in Geosphere in 2017. pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geospher...

This is not good. bsky.app/profile/jasc...

Our January meeting is coming up on the 29th. Details in the newsletter or the website.

You may get an unexpected goodie in a place like this. In my case it was an actinolite hand specimen.

Our NCGS Gold Country field trip in 2009 visited the remarkable Columbia karrenfeld, a natural marble washboard that collected several large fortunes worth of gold nuggets but now hosts historic tourist sites and a large marble quarry.

In 2015 NCGS members enjoyed a day trip to The Geysers.

Phillip Garbutt holds "The Whopper" during NCGS's 2002 field trip to the Sixteen To One Mine (ncgeolsoc.org/sierra-butte...)

Dr. McBride (@disastrouscomms.bsky.social) was our March 2019 speaker. x.com/USGS/status/...

A hand specimen of phyllite from the Salt Springs Slate, collected during our October field trip on the Amador Central Railroad.

Hi folks! We'll be announcing Society stuff here and also reposting geological tidbits related to Northern California, a region liberally defined. Next meeting is in January, so expect low levels of activity. Course, you can ask questions. Any questions?