During the past 30 million years the North American Plate has been overriding the East Pacific Rise and transform faulting along the developing San Andreas fault zone. Successive stretched out slivers of the Sierra Nevada - the Peninsular Batholith - have been and currently still are moving to the northwest to their current location. The granitic plutons of the Salinas block stretch from Bodega Head () in the north to Mount Pinos () at the southern end of the block.