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I GEOGRAPHY
Location and accessibility
The Soledad basin is situated north of the San Gabriel
Mountains, in Los Angeles County, California, and its center is
about 35 miles north of the Los Angeles civic center (fig. 1). Roughly
an elongate parallelogram in shape, this basin has dimensions of about
ten by thirty miles, with the longer dimension oriented east-west.
Paved highways traverse nearly every major canyon, while
graded dirt and gravel roads provide easy access to most of the area
not served by paved roads. The Sierra Pelona, along the north border
of the basin, is the least accessible part of the area. U. s. Highway 6,
the Sierra Highway, traverses the basin from Newhall near the south-
west margin to Palmdale at the eastern margin.
Small communities are present at intervals along the major
highways and along the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad between
Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley, via Palmdale and Mojave, which
passes along the southern margin of the basin parallel to the Santa Clara
River.
Topography and drainage
The Soledad basin is open to the west and is surrounded by
highlands on the other three sides. The western San Gabriel Mountains,
which form the southern margin of the Soledad basin, are a series of