CORE CALIFORNIA
Geothermal Cores from The Salton Sea Drilling Project
Video Tapestry: Proposal for CNRA (California Natural Resources Agency) 2021

CORE CALIFORNIA is a tapestry of geothermal cores descending 3000 meters beneath the Salton Seabed. The cores are from the Salton Sea Scientific Drilling Project, a 1986 study of high temperature, active geothermal systems. The word tapestry references the multiple geologic, ecologic, economic, and cultural strands forming the complex (his)stories of the Salton Sea Basin. Its fate is steeped in competing interests, past and future: The modern inland lake was formed by a catastrophic engineering failure diverting the Colorado River for agricultural and economic development in 1905. Today, the promise of clean sustainable energy, in the form of geothermal energy and lithium batteries, must be balanced against the realities of resource extraction in an area with a long and storied history of environmental devastation. The intention of the work is contemplative, to focus attention on deep time and deep space critical to our perception of and responsibilities for the environment.