It is part of the Sonoma Coast State Beach, which is owned by the State of California. The mouth of the Russian River is in the northern part of the beach. Goat Rock is in the southern part of the beach. The beach itself was named after the rock. The naming of Goat Rock is unknown, but many sources say some goat herders around the early 20th century used the grassy, flat rock for goats, because few other animals could live there.
Goat Rock Beach has many visitors. It usually has the most people in the middle of summer. The beach is a popular spot for swimming and surfing. It is home to seagulls, harbor seals, and sea lions, as well as other animals from the Pacific Ocean.
The oldest natural history of the area is related to marks made by mammals in an area of rock about one third of a mile south of Goat Rock Beach. In uplifted sea stack formations, there are rubbing marks about two to four meters above the ground surface, too high of a rubbing mark for modern bovids. Mammoths are thought to have traveled here as recently as 40,000 years ago, and are thought to have made these rubbing marks. Mammoth fossils have been found at Bodega Head, which is a few miles south of Goat Rock Beach.
The earliest known humans to settle at Goat Rock Beach were the Native American Coast Miwok and Pomo tribes. During the mid-1800s, Mexican ranchers lived in California, and Goat Rock Beach was part of a Mexican land grant called the "Bodega Rancho". The Russians are thought to have begun cutting down the forests just north of the beach in the early 19th century.
The Russian River, which has its mouth at the north end of Goat Rock Beach, is Sonoma County's biggest watercourse and river. Just north of the Russian River mouth is the small town of Jenner, and the beach, Jenner Beach. Goat Rock is at the south end of the beach. Visitors can walk onto Goat Rock, going on a small "isthmus", which is also known as a land bridge. Blind Beach is just south of Goat Rock Beach, with only Goat Rock between the two beaches, and Goat Beach is southwest of it.
Goat Rock Beach has much marine erosion and erosion from the wind. This causes about one to three feet of land mass lost each year. "Erosion" is when water and wind remove the top layer of rock or mud. During big storms, there can be even more erosion.
The "sea stacks" (eroded parts of rock) along the Goat Rock Beach coast are rocks from the Franciscan Complex, rock formations which were made during earthquakes in California. About 200 years to 30 million years ago, the North American Plate collided with the Farallon Plate, causing earthquakes. Different rock types came from these collisions, including pillow basalt, chert, and sandstone. Goat Rock has a flat topped sea stack, made of greywacke. The rock "formations" (groups) are made of sandstone with layers of quartz.
Sea lion
Sea lions are several pinnipeds from the family Otariidae (eared seals). They live all around the world, except in the Atlantic Ocean.
Male sea lions have thick fur around the face and neck, which sometimes looks like a lion's mane. That's how they got the name "sea lion". Some, like the Steller sea lion, can actually roar! Of course, these pinnipeds are not really lions at all, but they are mammals. Like lions, they have fur, breathe air, give birth to live young, and feed milk to their young. They also eat meat, though sea lions eat the meat of fishes, squids, and sea birds instead of land animals. Sea lions are also fierce fighters, just like lions.
The pinniped species called "sea lion" are:
Greywacke
Greywacke is a type of sandstone. It is hard, and dark in color. It has different sized grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments set in a compact, fine clay matrix. It is mostly found in Palaeozoic strata. The larger grains can be sand-to-gravel-sized, and matrix materials make up more than 15% of the rock by volume.
The origin of greywacke was a problem. Gravel, sand and mud should not be laid down together, because river outflow drops heavier grains first. Now geologists think greywacke is formed by submarine avalanches or strong turbidity currents. These actions churn sediment and cause mixed-sediment slurries to occur. When this happens, the resulting rocks show various sedimentary features. Support for the turbidity current origin is the fact that deposits of greywacke are found on the edges of the continental shelves, at the bottoms of oceanic trenches, and at the bases of mountain formational areas. It also occurs in association with black shales of deep sea origin.
Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana is the name given to a collection of texts from the 11th and 12th century. There are over 240 texts in the collection, most of them written in Latin, some in Middle High German. Most of the texts are moral or satirical in nature. There are also texts about spring, or about love. Some of them are drinking songs, some of them were used as Minnesang. Some of the songs contain hints for the melodies. For some, the melodies can be reconstructed.
The texts were written down around 1230. This happened either in an abbey in Styria, or near Brixen. They were discovered by Johann Christoph von Aretin in Benediktbeuern Abbey in 1803. Today, they are in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. There they can be found there as Codex Buranus, with the signature clm 4660/4660a.
Johann Andreas Schmeller edited them and published them as "Carmina Burana – Lieder aus Benediktbeuern".
Carl Orff took 24 of them as "Carmina Burana". He wrote the music for them. The work was first performed in 1937 in the Opera house in Frankfurt am Main. Together with his works "Catulli Carmina" and "Trionfo di Afrodite" he made a work containing all three, called "Trionfi". Trionfi is performed much less than the Carmina Burana alone, though.
Vex, Switzerland
Vex is the capital city of the district of Hérens in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.
Dasyuridae
Dasyuridae is a family of marsupial carnivores. It has nearly all non-extinct members of the order "Dasyuromorphia". This means the quolls, phascogales, antechinuses, dunnarts, planigales, and Tasmanian devil (about 55 species in all).
Mohammed Zahir Shah
Mohammed Zahir Shah (16 October 1914 – 23 July 2007) was the last King ("Shah") of Afghanistan. He ruled for four decades, from 1933 to 1973.
Mohammed Zahir Shah became king of Afghanistan at the age of nineteen after the assassination of his father in November 1933. Since he was so young, his uncle, "Shah Mahmood Khan" ran the government. Mohammed Zahir Shah took control and was able to keep Afghanistan’s neutral position in international politics.
In July 17, 1973, Mohammed Zahir Shah was no longer king after a bloodless coup. He died on
Thurgau
Thurgau is a northeast canton of Switzerland. The population is 228,200 (2003). The capital is Frauenfeld.
To the north of Thurgau is Lake Constance, across which are Germany and Austria. The river Rhine makes the border in the northwest. To the south is the Canton of St. Gallen; to the west are the cantons of Zürich and Schaffhausen.
The area of the canton is 991 km and is usually divided into three hilly areas. One of these is along Lake Constance to the north. Another is inland between the rivers Thur and Murg. The third one makes the southern border of the canton and comes together with the Hörnli mountain in the pre-Alps.