California Essays - Central Valley Project, , Term Papers

California California was the 31st state, which received it's statehood on Sept. 9, 1850 , and nickname is ?the Golden State.? The bird is the California Valley Quail; the flower is the golden poppy; the tree is the California Redwood; and the state motto is ?Eureka (I have Found It). There are many sights to see in the state of California. Besides all the big metropolitan cities, there is the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, and Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Also there is the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, Yosemite and Sequoia National Park, and any of the mountains in the northern part of the state. In addition to that, you can see Disneyland and the countless numbers of television and movie studios in Hollywood. Another hotspot is the beautiful Lake Tahoe, which borders Nevada. California is the most populated state and is the most dense , of the fifty states, at an average of 151 persons per square-mile. The majority of California's persons are white, but there is a notable number of blacks, Hispanics, and Japanese & Chinese Americans. About 95% of it's population is metropolitan, or urban, so about 5% is rural. Pretty much all of the rural population is ranches or farmers. California is very rich in minerals. They include crude petroleum, natural gas, boron, tungsten, sand and gravel, asbestos, copper, feldspar, iron ore, mercury, potash, rock salt, soda ash, sulfur, uranium, zinc, and gold. On Jan. 24, 1848, gold was found at Sutter's Mill. The news of the find spread quickly. Before long, the Gold Rush was under way, bringing thousands of ?forty-niners? to stake their claims in northern California. Gold production peaked in 1852 but from there on, declined rapidly. Manufacturing brought in an estimated $40.5 billion a year in the mid-'70s. A large amount of it comes from fruits & vegetables, processed meat, canned fish, and beverages like wine and fruit juice. Most of the above come from or near the world-famous Napa Valley. Other goods made in California are steel, textiles and clothing, refined petroleum, metal, wood, plastics, chemicals, and printed materials. California's climate varies in different regions because of the great changes in topography and wide latitudinal range. Most parts of the state has two distinct seasons. A rainy, which lasts from October to April, and a dry period, May to September. Annual precipitation is greatest in the north, especially near the Pacific Coast, which gets around 80 in. dumped on them, while Los Angeles gets 15 in. and San Diego gets only 10 in. The desert gets even less precipitation. Temperatures along the coast are mild with small variations between the warmest and coolest months. The average recorded temperatures in January range from 50 F in San Francisco, 56 F in Los Angeles, and the July temps are 72 F for Los Angeles, and a very comfortable 59 F in San Francisco. The Central Valley usually has a mild climate, but other parts of the area are either hotter like Death Valley and the Mojave Desert, or colder like the peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Earthquakes are quite common in California. An earthquake is the sudden shaking of the ground that occurs when masses of rock change position below the Earth's surface. Earthquakes, called tremblors by scientists, happen almost continuously. Fortunately, big earthquakes can be monitored by sensitive instruments called seismographs. Others that are felt are just small tremors or aftershocks. Earthquakes can be great destructers which produce such tragic effects as destroyed cities, broken dams, mud slides, tsunamis, and volcano eruptions. A very large earthquake usually rises at least once every year in some part of the world. All of California's earthquakes are from the San Andreas Fault, which is a major fracture in the Earth's crust at the mutual boundary of two of the major plates that make up the Earth's crust. The fault is about 50 miles inland of the California coast from southern California north to San Francisco, where it continues out 200 more miles before heading out to sea. A famous earthquake in San Francisco was in 1906. There were 700 deaths, many injured and it jumped up to 8.3 out of 10 on the Richter Magnitude Scale. In 1989, during the World Series which saw the Oakland Athletics -vs.- San Francisco Giants game interrupted by an earthquake of 7.1 on the Richter Scale, and 70 deaths. Sacramento is the capital city of California. It is the marketing and manufacturing center for the northern part of the great Central Valley. This rich agricultural valley is watered by the Sacramento River. To the East of the city rises then