The Scripps Formation (part of the Rose Canyon Shale Member of Hanna, 1926) underlies much of the area from east of Del Mar on the north to the mouth of Mission Valley on the south. Along the coast, it extends from the middle of Torrey Pines Park to Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The type section of the Scripps Formation is 1 km north of Scripps Pier, on the north side of the mouth of Blacks Canyon (Kennedy and Moore, 1971a). Here it consists of 56 m of pale yellowish-brown, medium-grained sands tone and occasional cobble-conglomerate interbeds. The sandstone is composed of subangular grains of quartz (75-80 percent), potassium feldspar (15-20 percent), biotite (2-5 percent), plagioclase (less than 1 percent), and a trace of epidote, pyroxene, tourmaline, sphene, and apatite. Both the basal contact with the Ardath Shale and the upper contact with the Friars Formation are conformable. Several tongues belonging to the Scripps Formation occur in the section. The largest of these is mapped in the vicinity of Sorrento Valley.
Fossils are present but are less common in the Scripps Formation than in the underlying Ardath Shale. Because of its close conformity and partial intergradation with the Ardath Shale, the Scripps Formation is considered to be middle Eocene. To the north near Encinitas it correlates with the upper part of the Torrey Sandstone and, farther to the north in the Santa Ana Mountains, with the middle part of the Santiago Formation.

Source - Geology of the eastern San Diego metropolitan area, California (Del Mar, La Jolla, Point Loma, La Mesa, Poway, and SW 1/4 Escondido quadrangles), 1975, California Div. Mines and Geol. Bull. 200, Section A, by Michael P. Kennedy

References

Hanna, M.A., 1926, Geology of the La Jolla quadrangle, California: University of California, Dept. Geol. Sci. Bull., v. 16, p. 1 87-246.
Kennedy, M.P., and Moore, G.W., 1971a, Stratigraphic relations of upper Cretaceous and Eocene formations, San Diego coastal area, California: American Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 55, p. 709-722.