This paper provides a first hand report of diatomaceous earth beds located in the Lompoc area of Santa Barbara County, California. Although historical geologists have maintained that these beds formed gradually over vast periods of time, they actually provide striking evidence of catastrophic origin. Here billions of delicately sculptured glass cell walls of diatoms have been deposited in such a way that fish were entombed with bones and even body organs intact. Some fossil fish studied were trapped so that they lie parallel to the bedding plane of the diatom matrix but many other fish extended across the bedding plane. The latter fish (standing partly "on end") must have been buried quickly or else the part not buried at first would have decayed long before it could have been covered by a diatom "snow." Fossils of various fish, sea birds, and whales also indicate that the diatom material was deposited rapidly and catastrophically rather than by gradual and uniform activity. It is postulated that the original diatom supply was first formed in cool waters after the flood. A mechanism is proposed whereby the original diatom supply was redeposited at the Lompoc site during a postulated post-flood catastrophe involving continental movement in the days of Peleg (Genesis 10:25).