Siliciclastic sedimentation at Site 1017 on the southern slope of the Santa Lucia Bank, central California margin, responded closely to paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic change over the past ~130 ka. The ~25-m-thick succession from Hole 1017E displays Milankovitch-band to submillenial-scale variation in mean grain size and sediment sorting. Cycles with ~10,000-yr periodicity are the most prominent alternations in the record. Mean grain size of the "sortable silt" fraction (10-63 µm) ranges from 17.6 to 33.9 µm (average 24.8 µm). Much of the sediment is bimodal or trimodal and composed of fine silt (mode between 8 and 15 µm), coarse silt to fine sand (mode between 39 and 73 µm), and clay (mode between 2 and 4 µm) components. The position of the mode and the sorting of each component changes through the succession, but the primary variation is in the presence or abundance of the coarse silt fraction. This component is the key variable controlling the overall mean grain size and sorting of the entire sample. The occurrence of the best-sorted, finest grained sediment at highstands of sea level (Holocene; MISs 5c and 5e) reflects the linkage between global climate and the sedimentary record at Site 1017. Coarser sediments with geochemical and mineralogic indications of a Franciscan provenance are associated with sea-level lowstands. It is still unclear how much of the overall variation in grain size and sorting is caused by changes in the relative contribution of shelfal export vs. hemipelagic sedimentation or by variations in bottom current strength and in situ hydrodynamic sorting.