Bell Canyon

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Coordinates: 33°32′3″N 117°33′17″W / 33.53417°N 117.55472°W / 33.53417; -117.55472
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the community in the Simi Hills, see Bell Canyon, California. For the western San Fernando Valley regional park, see Bell Canyon Park. For the creek in the Simi Hills and San Fernando Valley, see Bell Creek (Southern California). For the city in Montana, see Belle Creek, Montana.
Bell Canyon
Arroyo de las Campanas
USA
StateCalifornia
RegionOrange County
Physical characteristics
SourceBell Canyon, Santa Ana Mountains
 • coordinates33°39′51″N 117°28′22″W / 33.66417°N 117.47278°W / 33.66417; -117.47278
 • elevation4,000 ft (1,200 m)
San Juan Capistrano
 • coordinates
33°32′3″N 117°33′17″W / 33.53417°N 117.55472°W / 33.53417; -117.55472
 • elevation
113 ft (34 m)
Length14.4 mi (23.2 km)
Discharge 
 • locationRight bank of San Juan Creek
 • minimum0 cu ft/s (0 m3/s)
Basin features
Tributaries 
 • rightTick Creek, Dove Creek

Bell Canyon is a major drainage of the

Trabuco Creek
. After Trabuco Creek, it is the second largest tributary of San Juan Creek in terms of length and its watershed area of 26 square miles (67 km2).

Most of Bell Canyon consists of wilderness in the Cleveland National Forest and Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park. The valley is more than 1,000 feet (300 m) deep and averages a mile (1.61 km) wide, and is joined by the major tributaries of Dove Canyon, Crow Canyon and Tick Creek.

Human history

The

Spanish colonizers and missionaries came to this area of Las Californias Province and established the Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776 at nearby present day San Juan Capistrano
, about 10 miles (16 km) from the creek's mouth.

In 1841, during

National Audubon Society
's 'Starr Ranch' in 1973.

A wide and braided

riparian habitat.[2][3]

Drainage

The headwaters of Bell Creek are a fan-shaped network of canyons eroded into the west side of 4,510 ft (1,370 m) Los Pinos Peak, which lie just a few miles south of the

residential area on the east side of the city. Bell Creek then turns southwards and Fox Creek, a slightly larger tributary, enters from the left at RM 9.2 (RK 14.8).[4]

Dove Canyon, the largest tributary of Bell Canyon Creek, draining a 3-mile (4.8 km)-long strip of land that includes residential areas and a

San Juan Capistrano, it joins on the right bank, directly before Verdugo Canyon Creek enters the larger stream on the left bank. Below the confluence with Bell Canyon, San Juan Creek flows 14.7 miles (23.7 km) further before emptying into the Pacific Ocean at Dana Point.[4]

The Bell Canyon Creek watershed consists of an L-shaped area in southern Orange County near the boundary of Riverside County and San Diego County. It is about 10 miles (16 km) long as the crow flies and about 2 miles (3.2 km) wide at its broadest. Nearly the entire watershed consists of the continuous Bell Canyon valley that ranges from 2,600 feet (790 m) deep near the headwaters to just 300 feet (91 m) deep near the mouth. It covers about 26 square miles (67 km2), or about 19.42% of the 133.9-square-mile (347 km2) San Juan Creek watershed as a whole.

After the 22-mile (35 km) Trabuco Creek, Bell Canyon Creek is also the second largest tributary within the watershed by terms of length and drainage area. The whole Bell Canyon Creek watershed is enveloped by different drainage areas within the San Juan Creek watershed. On the southeast side are Cold Springs and Hot Springs Creek, tributaries of San Juan Creek above Bell Canyon Creek; on the northwest, Trabuco Creek, on the west, Cañada Gobernadora. Most of the Bell Canyon drainage area lies within the Cleveland National Forest in the upper half and the Ronald W. Caspers Regional Park (often abbreviated to Caspers Regional Park or Caspers Park) in the lower half. Dove Canyon, however, is on residential land in the city of Rancho Santa Margarita.

Geology

Further information:
Trabuco Creek § Geologic history, and San Juan Creek § Geology

The upper canyon, in the Santa Ana Mountains, is carved into

igneous and metamorphic rock overlain by a few thousand feet of highly erosive Cretaceous-age sedimentary rock covered by thin layers of rocky soil.[5] The mountains began rising during the late Miocene epoch, beginning about 5.5 million years ago. The valley floor of the upper Bell Canyon area is underlain by the Bedford Canyon Formation, which is composed of siltstone, argillite, conglomerate, limestone, slate and greywacke.[6] Two minor faults cross Bell Creek within 4.8 miles (7.7 km) of each other: the Aliso Fault and Mission Viejo Fault, upstream of the Dove Canyon confluence.[4]

The

Wisconsinian glaciation, which forced sea level worldwide to drop up to 400 feet (120 m) from their previous level in the Sangamonian Stage. This coincided with a massive North American climate change that shifted the cold, rainy climate of the Pacific Northwest further south to Southern California. Rainfall exceeding 80 inches (200 cm) per year changed the slow-moving streams of the South Coast to powerful rivers that eroded deep channels into their floodplains to maintain equilibrium with the dropping sea level.[7]
The Wisconsinian era lasted from 70,000 to 10,000 years ago, and by the end of that period, climate changed to its present state and Southern California rivers reverted to small seasonal streams. The end of the Wisconsinian also marked the rise of sea level about 300 feet (91 m) to its present-day level. The canyons carved by the rivers became long narrow inlets which gradually filled with sediments, but the difference in sea level between the pre-Wisconsinian and post-Wisconsinian was responsible for the formation of
river terraces along most streams with a floodplain.[7]

Hydrology

The Bell Canyon Creek watershed has three distinct areas with different levels of groundwater percolation. On mountainous slopes, which comprise about 65% of the watershed, the percolation rate is relatively low and produces a moderate amount of runoff during storms. On the deep alluvium of the valley floors, however, water soaks into the ground and flows subsurface into San Juan Creek. This area is the site of a thick riparian zone and produces little storm runoff.[8] The third area is the residential areas of Dove Canyon and Tick Creek, in which 90% of the surface water flows into the streams as runoff, and during storms, runoff peaks sharply and diminishes rapidly.[9] This source of urban runoff is a continuing problem for the Bell Canyon watershed.

Flora and fauna

The broad alluvial floodplain of Bell Canyon Creek has historically supported and still supports a

California native plant subshrubs, bunchgrasses, perennials, bulbs, annuals, and groundcovers.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Bell Canyon". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved 2009-06-15.
  2. ^ "Riparian Habitat Enhancement and Monitoring". Audubon California: Starr Ranch Sanctuary. Retrieved 2009-06-16.
  3. ^ "Policy on Invasive Exotic Plants". California Native Plant Society. 1996. Retrieved 2010-04-04.
  4. ^ a b c USACE, p. 2-23
  5. Caltech. Archived from the original
    on 2007-08-06. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  6. ^ Silverling, Norman John; Schoellhamer, Jack Edward; Gray, Cliffton Herschel; Imlay, Ralph Willard (October 1961). "Upper Jurassic fossils from Bedford Canyon Formation". AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) Bulletin, Volume 45, No. 10. GeoScienceWorld. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  7. ^ a b "The Role of Antecedent Rivers in Shaping the Orange/Los Angeles Coastal Plain" (PDF). California State University Los Angeles, Department of Geology. www.calstatela.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-02. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  8. ^ USACE, p. 2-25
  9. ^ "Hydrology/Water Quality". City of Rancho Santa Margarita General Plan. City of Rancho Santa Margarita. Archived from the original on 2010-12-21. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
  10. ^ "South Orange County Integrated Regional Water Management Plan" (PDF). Santa Margarita Water District. May 2006. p. H-26. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-10-02. Retrieved 2009-09-21.

Works cited

External links
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