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Geology
The joining of three mountain ranges, the Klamath Mountains, the Coastal Range, and the Cascades in the Umpqua Valley produces a unique and complex geology. The Klamath Mountains extend into the southwestern portion of the AVA as a thrust fault that consists of intricate folded and faulted igneous and metamorphic rocks that are the oldest in the region. The Cascade Mountains to the east are divided into the younger High Cascades and the older, more deeply eroded Western Cascades that make up the eastern boundary of the region. The valleys are protected from the ocean largely by the Coastal Mountains, which are composed of mostly oceanic sedimentary rocks and volcanic islands that were accreted to the landscape over the last 50 million years. From the Western Cascades to the Coast Mountains, the geologic features in the Umpqua Valley record a history of continental margin sedimentation, magmatism, and accretion of oceanic terrains that occurred during the Jurassic to late Eocene.
Abacela's Fault Line Vineyards are found at the juncture of the Klamath Mountains, the Coastal Range, and the Cascades in the southern part of the Umpqua Valley AVA. The northernmost extent of the Klamath Mountains is found in Cox's Rock Parcel with 225 million year old bedrock from the Jurassic period that is littered with exotic boulders of serpentine, quartz, jasper, blue schist, sandstone and conglomerate. Only a thousand feet or so to the north, the Cobblestone Hill parcel overlays sea floor volcanics that originated in the Miocene era and are relatively youthful at 25 million years. Creating an interesting complexity, the vineyard straddles a fault line that divides the older (Klamath) and younger (Coastal) geology. The vineyard is mostly cluttered with small round, smooth "tumbled" stones, hence the vineyard name. Head roughly 2000 feet to the west and you will find Chaotic Ridge parcel, which is just that, chaotic. The vineyard is located on sandstone and mudstone bedrock from the Eocene, which is slightly older than the geology of Cobblestone Hill, but younger than the geology of Cox's Rock. Complicating the geology of Chaotic Ridge is the occluded or inexact location of the fault line that extends westward from Cobblestone Hill.
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