Geological history of Point Lobos than it is now (because more water was in the polar ice-caps and continental glaciers). Deep submarine canyons were cut in the Monterey Bay area, as an extension of the Salinas River. During late Cenozoic Era, because of sustained transpression of the Pacific Plate onto the American Plate along the nearby San Andreas Fault Zone, there was continued uplift of the entire coastline of California, so that erosive action of marine waves cut these terraces in the Monterey Bay area. Those Pleistocene marine terraces are composed of clay, silt, sand and gravel with a basal unconformity of gravel on top
Dilatancy (granular material) Dilatancy (granular material) Dilatancy is the volume change observed in granular materials when they are subjected to shear deformations. This effect was first described scientifically by Osborne Reynolds in 1885/1886 and is also known as Reynolds dilatancy. Unlike most other solid materials, the tendency of a compacted dense granular material is to dilate (expand in volume) as it is sheared. This occurs because the grains in a compacted state are interlocking and therefore do not have the freedom to move around one another. When stressed, a lever motion occurs between neighboring grains, which produces a bulk expansion of the material.