Here we find repeating layers of sand in graded beds. Each layer shows a grading of courser materials near the bottom of the layer to fine and very-fine sand. These are compacted and moderately consolidated, and interleaved with layers of sandstone & shale. Weathering alters the consolidation. Surface samples are softer than those found a foot back from the surface.
Weathering effects can actually penetrate several meters into side-exposed shales. The shale also grades up from silts to mudstones. These are indicative of deeper/offshore deposits from the farther reaches of turbidity currentsÑunderwater landslides.
The layers are dipping to the west. There is an optical illusion because of the grade of the highway here, and the slope of the hillside above the road-cut, the first impression is that the layers are dipping to the east. The oldest rocks to the east have eroded off the top.
Our geology speaking tour-guide holds a specimen of a mudcast from the layers of mudstone. These softly formed ridges are casts of grooves washed in the original ocean bottom by currents. They were scoured by turbidity currents from rapidly slumping detritus sliding down-slope and creating a churning action across the surface of the soft muds. This specimen is therefore upside down.