• journal_title：Geology
• Contributor：Robert Stull ; Susan Shipley ; Eric Hovanitz ; Scott Thompson ; Karen Hovanitz
• Publisher：Geological Society of America
• Date：1979-
• Format：text/html
• Language：en
• Identifier：10.1130/0091-7613(1979)7<19:EOOVIB>2.0.CO;2
• journal_abbrev：Geology
• issn：0091-7613
• volume：7
• issue：1
• firstpage：19

Recreational use of vehicles, mainly motorcycles, off constructed roads and trails has been heavy in Ballinger Canyon, Los Padres National Forest, California, for the past 8 yr. The vegetation and shallow soils of this arid area have proved sensitive to such use. In the heaviest-use zones, soil and bedrock losses from individual vehicle trails average 600 kg · m⁻². Erosion rates in those trails over a period of 8 yr are as high as 250 kg · m⁻² · yr⁻¹, and total mass losses from hill-slopes adjacent to the campground average 19,000 t · km⁻² · yr⁻¹(t = metric tons). These average annual erosion rates exceed Soil Conservation Service soil-loss tolerances by a factor of 86 and exceed the already very high natural denudation rate of the Transverse Ranges by a factor greater than 5.