Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City

by Andrew Alden, Laura Cunningham (Illustrator)

Read the rocks as only a geologist can, with this deep drill-down into Oakland’s geological history and its impacts on the city’s urban present. "This book has turned me into a newcomer to my own city, but has also changed the way I will view any landscape. I can think of few greater gifts than that."— Jenny Odell , author of How to Do Nothing "Spending time with Andrew Alden is like giving yourself x-ray eyes." — Roman Mars , host and creator of 99% Invisible Beneath Oakland’s streets and underfoot of every scurrying creature atop them, rocks roil, shift, crash, and collide in an ever-churning seismological saga. Playing out since time immemorial, the deep geology of this city has chiseled and carved its landforms and the lives of everyone—from the Ohlone to the settlers to the transients and transplants—who has called this singular place home. In Deep Oakland , geologist Andrew Alden excavates the ancient story of Oakland’s geologic underbelly and reveals how its silt, soil, and subterranean sinews are intimately entwined with its human history—and future. Poised atop a world-famous fault line now slumbering, Alden charts how these quaking rocks gave rise to the hills and the flats; how ice-age sand dunes gave root to the city’s eponymous oak forests; how the Jurassic volcanoes of Leona Heights gave way to mining boom times; how Lake Merritt has swelled and disappeared a dozen times over the course of its million-year lifespan; and how each epochal shift has created the terrain cradling Oaklanders today. With Alden as our guide—and with illustrations by Laura Cunningham, author of A State of Change —we see that just as Oakland is a human crossroads, a convergence of cultures from the world over, so too is the bedrock below, carried here from parts still incompletely known.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Geology, Geography, Maps, Science Nature, Science

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 2023

Reviews

[Ken-ichi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming from start to finish, though perhaps mainly of interest to locals. I am more ambivalent about our city than Alden is, but what it lacks in hygiene or administrative competence it almost makes up for in wonderful resources for understanding its past, from the Oakland Museum's watershed maps to the Oakland History Center at the library to East Bay Yesterday to Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and Disruption and now, wonderfully, this paean to the Town's foundations. One could argue that a city is too small an area for a meaningful geologic treatment, its boundaries too arbitrary to tell a complete story, but Alden's intimacy with Oakland, and particularly with the way its human population has intersected with and altered its geology, serves as a quiet but effective rebuttal. There's a lot of great geology here, but also a lot of history. It definitely deserves a permanent place on the bookshelves of Oakland.

One of the things I liked most about this book is the space it gave to the region's Quaternary history, like not the multi-million-year-old rocks up in the hills (though they get their due), but the stuff most of us actually live on top of: the Merritt Sand, the marine terrace, the Piedmont block, the Fan. Looking at the USGS geologic map of Oakland and its surrounding area (yes, there is one, and it's wonderful), it can be easy to gloss over some of these more recently-formed, less rock-like structures because USGS cartographic standards color them in similar shades of yellow, but in Alden's hands they are differentiated and rich with stories of an empty or brimming Bay, gushing creeks, and eons of aeolian sands. Sometimes older rocks can be harder to interpret, having formed under conditions so extreme or so distant they can be difficult to imagine, but the Quaternary units seem like easier extrapolations from our current landscape.

My one critique is that this book could have used more maps, diagrams, and photos. Geology requires great feats of imagination that words aren't always able to inspire. Laura Cunningham's illustrations are wonderful, but I would have loved to see more of them. Sadly this is true of almost all books on geology.

I didn't actually take too many notes (aside from laughing at fish doing "fish things"), but I was alarmed to learn that the veined green rock you see used in many buildings in Oakland, called verd antique, is a form of serpentine but most of ours comes from Vermont. Serpentine is our rock! Can't we use our own? I guess I'm glad we don't have any worth quarrying because that would almost certainly drive some rare plants to extinction, and yet I'm still a little miffed.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don’t have to live in Oakland to appreciate the geological story masterfully told in this engaging and fascinating book about the prehistory of the region.

[Matt Carton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a special book. Learning about the geology of one’s own neighborhood is a hell of a lot of fun. Alden shows how the geography of Oakland reveals the character of Oakland. It’s also helped that since I’ve retaken up bicycling, I know how to deal with the hills I have to climb and descend. Highly readable, highly recommended.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting and accessible. It would be fun to take this book on some hikes so I could absorb more of the information.

[bookmonster2023 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent!

Various parts of Oakland are explored in lively and disturbing ways; discussion of faults that lurch and faults that creep; much of the material beneath the city is Franciscan melange and is a type of rock scrapple; cool prose and cooler concepts made layperson friendly — STONES COME ALIVE AND ANIMATE A CITY, and I’m not even from this region. Now do my city!

[maddie hahm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was exactly what I expected it to be: a love story to Oakland. It goes into depth about the ways in which the Bay Area city was created over millions of years in various geologic processes, and I loved getting to see my home examined through this new lens. (I also appreciated the way in which Alden weaved history into his examination of the terrain!) Though at times the book could be a little slow, overall, it really opened up my eyes to another facet of the East Bay that I had never considered, and I feel grateful that we have the scientific knowledge nowadays to understand this. Still, I will say...this book is probably MUCH more interesting to people who have some ties to this city. Those unfamiliar with Oakland will probably not find it quite so endearing, and I want to be upfront about that.

[David Schwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. While I have been in many of the areas discussed, there were plenty of locations I was unaware of. I live in the hills south of Oakland, so the geology where I live is not so dissimilar. The Later chapters covering places like Sibley Volcanic Park were of special interest.

[Sami Hoch · Rating 3 out of 5]

as someone who’s interested in geology and lives in oakland i found this book interesting. but if you’re not in that exact category i wouldn’t recommend it.

i felt like i wasn’t able to retain much after reading this book and didn’t like the writing style. it covered a lot of historic and geologic ground, which often made it feel like it was just listing off events and then moving on.

the last two chapters were my favorites though. I enjoyed the explanations of plate tectonics (even though it felt like a basic geology concept that would’ve been better to learn at the beginning)

[g-na · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be fascinating! Alden is an engaging writer, and he tells us not only about (what seems to be) an extensive description of the geology underlying the city of Oakland, but he also goes much further. The history of Oakland is also told via the history of its inhabitants, from the native Ohlone who lived with the land, to the colonizers who began destroying it and its inhabitants.

Alden discusses geological science in a way that a layman can understand, but without speaking down to those who are familiar with science in general. Although I haven't yet had the chance to study geology, reading this book gave me a nice overview of the topic, as well as a host of real-life examples in the neighborhoods around my home here in Oakland. Now, as I drive around town, I am looking at the city in a different, deeper way than I was able to before.

The one things the book was lacking was a comprehensive map marking the various areas and geological features the author discusses. (I pulled out a paper map and started marking things on my own for future reference.) But the author's website (https://oaklandgeology.com/) does include a link to this Map: Places in Oakland where you can see the Hayward Fault in action.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book … but I admit to a bias as I’m Oakland born and bred. I am a life sciences person, both personally and professionally. I don’t know much about geology, and I must be honest, I know only a bit more after reading this book. Nonetheless, I do have a better feeling for the geologic origins of this area I call home, and Alden provides quite a bit of the human history to flesh out the overarching story of Oakland. Along the way, we get quick thumbnail lessons about the Sierra Nevada, the Central Valley, and even Peru. Living in California, we intuitively understand that it’s all about plate tectonics.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely prose about how geologic history and processes have shaped Oakland’s development, industries, housing, society, and modern day dynamics. The author paints vivid pictures of deep geologic time and connects them directly to specific places and walks in Oakland, as well as drawing direct connections to modern social issues.

The early chapters are quite poetic and engaging, however I found myself less enthusiastic about the later chapters.

Overall a great quick and interesting read about local history and geology of the east bay, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the region.

[Robert Bowdidge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful geology book describing how Oakland (and by extension much of the Bay Area) was formed by geologic processes. Alden's writing is fun and approachable; I'd enjoyed his blog posts for many years, and this book has all the same magic. I most loved that he talked about the geology of all parts of Oakland, not just the most dramatic or nicest bits. I'd been curious for years about the Leona Heights area, and loved that he could tell stories about this small but geographically and historically interesting corner of Oakland.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely read. Geology isn’t my usual genre but I heard an interview of the author on KQED radio and was charmed so I thought I’d give the book a try. Glad I did. I now drive around Oakland and look at the surroundings with completely different eyes. Where once I looked at buildings and gardens I now look at the underlying land and formations. Fascinating stuff shared by someone with a real passion.

[Brent Winslow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deep dive into the geology in and surrounding Oakland CA. There are definitely some great nuggets of knowledge presented throughout about the Hayward Fault, Lake Merritt, Mountain View cemetery, and the Caldecott tunnel (I had no idea that rhinoceros bones were some of the fossils found when excavating that tunnel). However, the intersection of geology and human history often falls flat, and Oakland's significant current problems are conveniently ignored.

[Caitlin Boise · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was really interesting but I wasn’t really a fan of the constant flowery language. The book felt like a never-ending list of similes and metaphors that were all saying the same thing. I also would have loved some images and maps as part of the descriptions, not just the small ink drawings at the beginning of each chapter.

[Nate Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the combination of Oakland city and geologic history. It got a bit wonky in the last chapter as the author went full geologist and left the storytelling behind so I ended up skimming most of it.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot about my town and liked the writing. Not sure it would be as interesting to anyone who wasn't from the East Bay.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb book that links local geology to landscapes and cultural history. Perhaps made me like the east bay even more.

[Zack]

Gets a little jargony at times, but overall I found this book, and the way it had me thinking about history in terms of tens and hundreds of millions of years, pretty fascinating.

[Jeff Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to give a start rating - it's fascinating but it's also all about geology, so YMMV.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting, having grown up in the east bay, south of Oakland. Loved my college geology class from years ago. Would have liked some color photos included.

[theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love geology and this book was written very well 👍👍

[Psychonaut · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5