In this interdisciplinary study, western California is palinspastically restored for each of the time periods by backsliding and back-rotating large fault blocks or crustal units. In addition, this volume reveals positive feedback mechanisms between paleolatitudinal changes in sea-surface paleotemperature gradients and changes in the diversity of marine molluscs along the California coast through time. It also analyses extinction rates among macroinvertebrate marine taxa from coastal California and the possible causes of these extinctions.