The Tick Canyon Formation (Tt) or Tick Canyon strata, is an Early Miocene geologic formation in the Sierra Pelona Ridge of the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, California.^[2]

The Tick Canyon Basin drains into the Santa Clara River.^[3]

The formation overlies the Oligocene to Lower Miocene Vasquez Formation, and underlies the Upper Miocene Mint Canyon Formation.^[2][4]

The Tick Canyon strata was deposited on land mostly by streams and consists of green sandstones, coarse-grained conglomerates, and red claystones.^[2][4][5] The Tick Canyon strata also contain abundant volcanic clasts, most of which resemble volcanic rocks of the Vasquez Formation.^[6] It has an average thickness of 600 feet (180 m).^[4]

North of the Tick Canyon Fault, the beds are almost vertical.^[2]

It preserves vertebrate fossils of the Lower Miocene subperiod of the Miocene epoch, in the Neogene Period of the Cenozoic Era.^[2][7]

• Artiodactyls
  • Miolabis californicus^[8][9]
  • Merychyus calaminthus^[10]
  • M. minimus^[11]
• Perissodactyls
  • Parahippus maxsoni^[9]
  • Parahippus sp.^[8]
• Rodents
  • Archaeolagus acaricolus^[12]
  • Trogomys rupinimenthae^[13]

• Falconiformes
  • Miohierax stocki^[14]

• Coffey, Kevin T.; Ingersoll, Raymond V.; Schmitt, Axel K. (2019), "Stratigraphy, provenance, and tectonic significance of the Punchbowl block, San Gabriel Mountains, California, USA", Geosphere, 15 (2): 479–501, Bibcode:2019Geosp..15..479C, doi:10.1130/GES02025.1
• Lander, E. B.; Lindsay, E. H. (2011), "Merychyus calaminthus (Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Oreodontidae) of probable early late Arikareean (late Oligocene to late early Miocene) age from the lower part of the Chalk Canyon Formation, Maricopa and Yavapai counties, central Arizona", Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 31 (1): 215–226, Bibcode:2011JVPal..31..215L, doi:10.1080/02724634.2011.539645
• Whistler, D. P (1967), "Oreodonts of the Tick Canyon Formation, southern California", PaleoBios, 1: 1–14
• Reeder, W. G (1960), "A New Rodent Genus (Family Heteromyidae) from the Tick Canyon Formation of California", Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, 59: 121–132
• Dawson, M. R (1958), "Later Tertiary Leoporidae of North America", University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions Vertebrata, 6: 1–75
• Howard, H (1944), "Miocene hawk from California", The Condor, 46 (5): 236–237, doi:10.2307/1364046, JSTOR 1364046
• Jahns, R. H (1940), "Stratigraphy of the Easternmost Ventura Basin, California, with a Description of a New Lower Miocene Mammalian Fauna From the Tick Canyon Formation", Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication, 514: 145–194
• Maxson, J. H (1930), "A Tertiary mammalian fauna from the Mint Canyon Formation of Southern California", Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication, 404: 77–112

• Geology of Tick Canyon, by Ygnacio Bonillas, 1933
• Geology of the Upper Tick Canyon Area, by Albert Hedden, 1948
• Geology of the Upper Tick Canyon Area, by Joseph Birman, 1950
• Geology of the Upper Tick Canyon Area, by Carel Otte Jr., 1950