An interesting set of bluffs here, where Prof. Chipping, emeritus Cal Poly, would often take students and visiting colleagues to geologize. Even for lesser mortals, it's really interesting. Without cracking his report (his field trip walking guide, which is on order), here's what's going on: This mess of rocks represent the scrapings (just like scraping off leftovers from a messy pan) as the Pacific Plate was forced under the North American plate in late Cretaceous time. Visible here, and all dipping steeply west (we're looking south, towards Morro Rock, at top right) are, left to right (east to west): green gunge-- some sort of bedded metavolcanic greenstone. Deep red thin-bedded radiolarian chert, a deepwater-marine rock. More thin-bedded greenstone. In the distance, rising from the beach is a big "knocker" of reddish radiolarite, precariously leaning to the west. If you look closely, it's concordant (same dip) with the rocks above. This sort of rock is known to seismologists as a "Precariously Balanced Rock" (PBR), and is decent evidence that no large seismic event has happened here in the last 15,000 years or so.
An interesting set of bluffs here, where Prof. Chipping, emeritus Cal Poly, would often take students and visiting colleagues to geologize. Even for lesser mortals, it's really interesting. Without cracking his report (his field trip walking guide, which is on order), here's what's going on: This mess of rocks represent the scrapings (just like scraping off leftovers from a messy pan) as the Pacific Plate was forced under the North American plate in late Cretaceous time. Visible here, and all dipping steeply west (we're looking south, towards Morro Rock, at top right) are, left to right (east to west): green gunge-- some sort of bedded metavolcanic greenstone. Deep red thin-bedded radiolarian chert, a deepwater-marine rock. More thin-bedded greenstone. In the distance, rising from the beach is a big "knocker" of reddish radiolarite, precariously leaning to the west. If you look closely, it's concordant (same dip) with the rocks above. This sort of rock is known to seismologists as a "Precariously Balanced Rock" (PBR), and is decent evidence that no large seismic event has happened here in the last 15,000 years or so. Peter D. Tillman from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

Estero Bluffs State Park

State Park · California · California Department of Parks and Recreation

Plan your visit

Trails

5.2 mi of maintained trail measured from the agency's own trail mapping

Know before you go

Address
Hwy 1 & San Geronimo Rd, Cayucos, CA, 93430
Official site
www.parks.ca.gov
Managed by
California Department of Parks and Recreation

Getting there

Hwy 1 & San Geronimo Rd, Cayucos, CA, 93430

Directions on Google Maps →

What's here

Activities & features: Day Use · Hiking · Trail

Photos

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Sources: State agency, Wikimedia Commons / editorial, USGS PAD-US · updated 2026-08-12