Santa Cruz’s cultural identity and economic well being are tied up with tourism and surfing in the beautiful Monterey Bay. Monterey Bay is an important marine ecosy...
Have you ever wondered why much of the Westside of Santa Cruz and all the agricultural fields just north of it are so flat, or why many of the hills climb upwards like a...
The end of the year is a good time to look forward but also to look back and reminisce. Why not look back a few hundred years while soaking in one of California’s many ho...
All of downtown Santa Cruz is essentially built on the natural floodplain of the San Lorenzo River. Structures to control flooding along the river have been built since t...
Picture the Grand Canyon under water. Then you’ll have the right scale in your mind when thinking about the Monterey Canyon in California. It is truly a huge underw...
On the rolling fields of the lower UCSC campus lies a geological mystery that still puzzles scientists to this day. Dubbed “Mima Meadow,” it is a terrain covered in small...
Many Californians know eucalyptus trees were brought to California in the late 1800s for lumber. They were planted extensively from the 1870s through the early 1900s. In...
Storms and high winds along coastlines can produce large masses of sea foam. It can form foamy rafts on the water and pile up on beaches, rocky shores, and cliffs. Sea fo...
Along Highway 1, sandwiched between the elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park and the colorful kite surfers at Waddell Beach, is a 1.4-mile stretch of coastline called t...
Settlement in Santa Cruz has always been centered around the San Lorenzo River. In 1876, when the railroad began bringing tourists for fun in the sun, they came to Santa...
