California's Budden Canyon Formation is a Cretaceous sedimentary sequence spanning from the Berriasian to the Turonian and preserving a long record of environmental change. More than 20,000 feet of clastic sediments document deposition across settings from non-marine alluvial fans to shallow marine zones and deeper-water slope and basin-floor fan turbidites, tracing sediment movement from land into the sea. Its fossils include abundant ammonites, gastropods, bivalves, petrified wood, woody material, and leaf and seed remains, along with marine microfossils such as foraminifera and microgastropods. Rarer vertebrate finds, including fish, a pterosaur, and a dinosaur, add to its importance in California's Cretaceous geology and paleontology.