San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge

Sonoma Creek is a 33.4-mile-long (53.8 km) stream in northern California. It is one of two principal drainages of southern Sonoma County, California, with headwaters rising in the rugged hills of Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and discharging to San Pablo Bay, the northern arm of San Francisco Bay. The watershed drained by Sonoma Creek is roughly equivalent to the wine region of Sonoma Valley, an area of about 170 square miles (440 km2). The State of California has designated the Sonoma Creek watershed as a “Critical Coastal Water Resource”. To the east of this generally rectangular watershed is the Napa River watershed, and to the west are the Petaluma River and Tolay Creek watersheds. This south flowing river drains the western slopes of the Mayacamas Range, the southern slopes of Annadel State Park and the eastern slopes of the Sonoma Mountains with intermittent winter flows in the higher tributary reaches. As the tributaries and headwaters reach the valley floor, a perennial stream cuts through scenic and valuable vineyards of Kenwood. Sonoma Creek veers west at Kenwood and cuts a gorge running parallel to Warm Springs Road, where it turns south to historic Glen Ellen, passing within one mile (1.6 kilometers) of Jack London State Historic Park and the Wolf House and thence southward paralleling Arnold Drive. In the city of Sonoma it is an urban creek which emerges into agricultural areas to the south. Finally, Sonoma Creek discharges to the vast Napa-Sonoma Marsh at the northern tip of San Pablo Bay. Principal tributaries to the creek include Yulupa Creek, Graham Creek, Calabazas Creek, Bear Creek, Schell Creek, and Fowler Creek.

On October 25, 1991, a Bell 206 carrying rock music concert promoter Bill Graham, his girlfriend Melissa Gold, and pilot Steve Kahn crashed into a transmission tower west of Vallejo, California, killing everyone on board. The cause of the accident was determined to be the pilot's intentional flight into known adverse weather conditions.

Tubbs Island is an island in San Pablo Bay (an embayment of San Francisco Bay). It is in Sonoma County, California, and parts of it are managed as part of the Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area. Its coordinates are 38°08′59″N 122°25′27″W, and the United States Geological Survey measured its elevation as 0 ft (0 m) in 1981. It, long with Island No. 1, Island No. 2 and Green Island, are labeled on a 1902 USGS map of the area.

KDYA (1190 kHz), "Gospel 1190 The Light", is a commercial AM radio station owned by Salem Media Group and licensed to Vallejo, California, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It broadcasts an urban gospel radio format, and is Northern California's only full-time urban gospel station reaching San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Rosa and Stockton. The radio studios and offices are on Blume Drive in Richmond, California. KDYA is a daytimer, transmitting 3,000 watts, using a directional antenna. As 1190 AM is a clear channel frequency reserved for Class A KEX in Portland, Oregon, and XEWK-AM in Guadalajara, KDYA must sign off at sunset to avoid interference with these stations. The transmitter site is on Noble Road in Vallejo, on San Pablo Bay.

Sears Point is a prominent landform that juts into the San Pablo Bay in Sonoma County, California, United States. This hill is the southernmost peak of the Sonoma Mountains and forms the southwestern ridge above Tolay Lake. Starting with European settlement of this area in the mid-19th century considerable modification of the Napa Sonoma Marsh began to occur, such that in contemporary times, there is considerable upland between Sears Point and San Pablo Bay. Numerous local conservation organizations are presently working to restore hundreds of acres of these historic tidal wetlands as part of the Sears Point Wetlands and Watershed Restoration Project. The region can be accessed via State Route 37 or State Route 121. Sears Point was named after Franklin Sears, who settled on 600 acres (2.4 km2) south of Sonoma in 1851. Later, he partnered with his father-in-law to purchase some 15,000 acres (61 km2), part of which is the present day racetrack, Sonoma Raceway.

Skaggs Island Naval Communication Station is a former United States Navy installation located near California State Route 37 between Novato and Vallejo, California. It was a secretive, secure, and self-contained naval base, engaged in a number of communications and intelligence gathering functions for the Navy and other federal intelligence organizations. The 3,310-acre (13.4 km2) site was purchased by the Navy in 1941, and closed in 1993. The antennas continued to be used for some time after that, but by 2013 they were removed along with all of the remaining buildings.

Tolay Creek is a 12.5-mile-long (20.1 km) southward-flowing stream in southern Sonoma County, California, United States, which flows through Tolay Lake and ends in north San Pablo Bay.

Island No. 1 (formerly called Cross Island) is a partially submerged island in the Napa River, upstream of San Pablo Bay (an embayment of San Francisco Bay). It is in Napa and Solano County, California, and parts of it are managed as part of the Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area. Its coordinates are 38°08′35″N 122°20′40″W, and the United States Geological Survey measured its elevation as 3 ft (0.91 m) in 1981. It, along with Island No. 2, Green Island and Tubbs Island, are labeled on a 1902 USGS map of the area.

The 2015 GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma was an IndyCar motor race held on August 30, 2015, at the Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, California. It was the 16th and final round of the 2015 IndyCar season and the 11th annual edition of the event. Contested over 85 laps, the race was won by Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon. Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport finished second and Charlie Kimball, Dixon's teammate, finished third. Will Power, who was fastest in two of the three pre-race practice sessions and won the pole position, was the dominant factor of the early portion of the race, leading 26 of the first 34 laps. However, Power was taken out of contention after he was hit by his Team Penske teammate, Juan Pablo Montoya, shortly before the halfway point of the race. Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Sebastián Saavedra and Tony Kanaan stayed out for multiple laps and traded the lead, but after they both pitted, Dixon maintained as much fuel as he could and scored the win. There were two caution flags for fourteen laps, and ten lead changes amongst seven drivers. With his win, Dixon earned his fourth IndyCar Drivers' Championship on account of a tiebreaker with Montoya, who finished sixth. Following a late-race spin, Graham Rahal fell from second to fourth in points. Power recovered to finish seventh in the race, and overtook third in championship standings. Hélio Castroneves, who set the fastest lap of the race, maintained fifth. Chevrolet had also won the Manufacturers' Championship over Honda.

The NHRA Sonoma Nationals is a drag racing event in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, that has been held annually at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, California since 1988. In 1987, the raceway signed a contract with the National Hot Rod Association for an event that was initially named the California Nationals, set to begin in 1988. NHRA has held National events at Sonoma every year since, with exception for 2020 due to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty about weather if the event were to be rescheduled to a date later in the year.

Sonoma Raceway (originally known as Sears Point Raceway, Golden State International Raceway and Infineon Raceway) is a road course and dragstrip located at Sears Point in the southern Sonoma Mountains of Sonoma County, California. The road course features 12 turns on a hilly course with 160 ft (49 m) of total elevation change. It is host to one of the few NASCAR Cup Series races each year that are run on road courses. It has also played host to the IndyCar Series, the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series, and several other auto races and motorcycle races such as the American Federation of Motorcyclists series. Sonoma Raceway continues to host amateur, or club racing events with some open to the public. The largest such car club is the Sports Car Club of America. The track is 30 mi (48 km) north of San Francisco and Oakland. With the closure of Riverside International Raceway in Moreno Valley, California after the 1988 season, NASCAR wanted a West Coast road course event to replace it, and chose the Sears Point facility. Riverside Raceway was razed for the Moreno Valley Mall. In 2002, Sears Point Raceway was renamed after a corporate sponsor, Infineon Technologies. On March 7, 2012, it was announced that Infineon would not renew their contract for naming rights when the deal expired in May 2012.

The 1898 Mare Island earthquake occurred in Northern California on March 30 at 23:43 local time with a moment magnitude of 5.8–6.4 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII–IX (Severe–Violent). Its area of perceptibility included much of northern and central California and western Nevada. Damage amounted to $350,000 (about $10,700,000 inflation adjusted to 2018) and was most pronounced on Mare Island, a peninsula in northern San Francisco Bay. While relatively strong effects there were attributed to vulnerable buildings, moderate effects elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area consisted of damaged or partially collapsed structures, and there were media reports of a small tsunami and mostly mild aftershocks that followed. The mechanism of the shock is unknown, but several independent investigations focused on different aspects to gain a better understanding of the intensity, magnitude, source fault, and epicenter of this pre-instrumental event. Most investigators placed it under or to the north of San Pablo Bay, though two earthquake catalogs gave specific coordinates that place it within the confines of the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge. One of the numerous strike-slip faults of the San Andreas Fault System in the North Bay are most often named as the source fault, but one seismologist's paper detailed how an unnamed dip-slip fault may have been responsible. Several more recent studies gave alternate perspectives that named specific faults as the origin.