California’s iconic seaside cliffs are rapidly crumbling into the sea, according to a new study from UC San Diego.
At the Lost Coast Headlands in Humboldt County, researchers found that the cliff top eroded by 22.3 meters, or about 73 feet, per year between 2016 and 2023. Cliffs in Point Reyes National Seashore retreated by 10 meters, or just under 33 feet, per year over that timeframe, according to the study.
The four California counties with the greatest amount of coastal cliff erosion measured were Humboldt, San Francisco, San Mateo and Monterey, researchers found.
Adam Young, a coastal geomorphologist at the UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a co-author on the study, said a main cause was large landslides in Northern California. In 2024, a landslide at the Lost Coast Headlands disturbed over 1.4 million cubic yards of rock and soil, according to Scripps…