The Tulare Formation

The Tulare Formation is a non-marine, Pleistocene-age geologic unit in the San Joaquin Valley that represents the last episode of tectonic upheaval (mountain building) to take place in the valley. Thus, the Tulare Formation is folded and deformed on the basin margins, where it is unconformably overlain by flat-lying, undeformed Recent alluvium. The angular unconformity at the top of the Tulare becomes conformable towards the basin center, and the Tulare becomes nearly impossible to distinguish from Recent alluvium in the center of the basin if age diagnostic fossils are absent. The Tulare overlies marine sediments of the San Joaquin Formation.