California Division of Mines and Geology Bulletin 182 Geologic Guide to the Merced Canyon and Yosemite Valley, California

To: EDMUND G. BROWN
Governor of the State of California

DEAR SIR:

I have the honor to transmit herewith Bulletin 182, Geologic guide to the Merced Canyon and Yosemite Valley, California, a collection of four significant papers on the geology and soils of this great park area, and a series of road logs across the Coast Ranges and San Joaquin Valley into the Yosemite. This bulletin is the result of cooperation between the State Division of Mines and Geology and the U.S. Geological Survey and was prepared as the second of two guidebooks whose publication coincides with the Annual Convention of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists.

Description of the geologic features and the road logs extends across the Tracy and Vernalis gas fields of the northern San Joaquin Valley and into the Yosemite Valley via the Sierra Nevada foothills across the southern end of the famed Mother Lode. At the western gateway to the Valley lie historically great gold mines and the barite deposits of El Portal. Photographs have been selected to do full justice to the beauty and grandeur of the Yosemite, our most-visited national park.

Respectfully submitted,

DEWITT NELSON, Director
Department of Conservation

January 11, 1962