The Carrizo Plain, 100 airline miles (160 km) north of Los Angeles, California is an area by-passed by time.

Soda Lake, its centerpiece, is a glistening bed of white salt, set within a vast open grassland, rimmed by mountains.

The plain is home to diverse communities of wildlife and plant species, and is an area culturally important to Native Americans.

It is traversed by the San Andreas fault, which has carved valleys, created and moved mountains, and yet close up, is seen in a subtle alignment of ridges, ravines and normally dry ponds.