Northridge Earthquakes.

The earthquake occured under the San Fernando Valley. Many hospitals, hotels, schools and even high ways were completely destroyed. It deformed earths crust over an area of 4,000 square kilometers, forcing the land upward to the shape of an asymmetric dome.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1996/ofr-96-0263/execsum.htm

Earthquake Hazards in California

The two most hazardous faults in the region are the Hayward-Rodgers Creek fault system and the San Andreas fault.The East Bay has a higher earthquake hazard than the San Francisco peninsula due to the higher number of faults that traverse the East Bay.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/virtualtour/modern.php

Siesmic Waves!

Seismic waves are divided into two types.. Body waves and surface waves. Body waves include P and S waves, and these are the two types of waves that are used to determine the internal structure of the Earth.

Batholith

A batholith isa a large body of igneous rocks formed beneath the earths surface by the intrusion and solidification of magma.  batholith has an irregular shape with side walls that incline steeply against the host rock.A well-known batholith is located in the Sierra Nevada range of California, U.S.

Strata Vs. Shield Volcanoes.

VS.
A Strata volcano is looks more like a mountain and a shield volcano looks more like a hill. Shield volcanoes generally erupt fluid basaltic lava. Strata volcanoes are characterized by eruptions of lava that is more viscous.

Gulf Currents

Satellite images show oil caught up in one of the eddies, or powerful whorls, attached to the Loop Current, a high speed stream that pulses north into the Gulf of Mexico and travels in a clockwise pattern toward florida

Plate Tectonics

Continents drifting majestically from place to place breaking apart, colliding, and grinding against each other.
The Earth's rocky outer crust solidified billions of years ago, soon after the Earth formed. This crust is not a solid shell. It is broken up into huge, thick plates that drift at the top. 

Oceans

The Earth's oceans are all connected to one another. Until the year 2000, there were four recognized oceans: the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic. In the Spring of 2000, the International Hydrographic Organization delimited a new ocean, the Southern Ocean (it surrounds Antarctica and extends to 60 degrees latitude).

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/ocean/

The Water Cycle

Earth's water is always in movement, and the water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle, describes the continuous movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the Earth. Although the balance of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time, individual water molecules can come and go in a hurry. Since the water cycle is truly a "cycle," there is no beginning or end. Water can change states among liquid, vapor, and ice at various places in the water cycle, with these processes happening in the blink of an eye and over millions of years.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html

The Early Solar System

There are complex organic molecules in interstellar space, on interplanetary dust, in comets, and in the meteorites that hit the Earth from time to time. It makes good chemical sense that such compounds form naturally in interplanetary or interstellar space, because gas clouds, dust particles, and meteorite surfaces are bathed in cosmic and stellar radiation. But life as we know it consists of cells, composed mostly of liquid water that is vital to life. It is impossible to imagine the formation of any kind of water-laden cell in outer space; that could only have happened on a planet that had oceans and therefore an atmosphere

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/events/cowen1d.html