March - 2020

Geology, Travel, Woodworking & Maps

Geology in the Other Saddle Mountains

Geology in the Other Saddle Mountains

The Saddle Mountains form a coherent ridge that runs for more than 80km east to west across south-central Washington. The ridge is a north-vergent uplift with thrust faults on its northern flank. There is a prominent footwall bench along a portion of its north flank called Smyrna Bench, which is composed of sediments younger than the basalt bedrock (Pliocene Ringold Fm, Pleistocene flood deposits, and calcretes). Strata on the south flank of the range rolls gently into the br

$Hydrofracture & Formation Test Diagram$

Bison on Hoof

Ancient Flood Beds at White Bluffs

Ancient Flood Beds at White Bluffs

An exotic clast-bearing conglomerate at White Bluffs Overlook was left by an ancient Ice Age flood. The post-Ringold unconformity appears to be a sequence-bounding surface that may correlate with a late-Neogene unconformity in the Rocky Mountains. Flat-lying Pliocene Ringold lake beds (<5 Ma) are unconformably overlain by a meter-thick conglomerate composed of subangular calcrete rip-ups mixed with exotic clasts (granite, schist, andesite, quartzite). The conglomerate is Plei

Calcretes Arrive Around 7?

Calcretes Arrive Around 7?

Calcretes are hard pan soils that form in semi-arid to arid climates. Calcretes - at least pedogenic CaCO3 cements - first appear in Pliocene Ringold strata at Saddle Mountains between 7 and 5 million years ago. Arrival may coincide with onset of dry climate created when the Cascade Range achieved sufficient elevation to block wet Pacific weather systems from moving inland. Eastern Washington was quite a wet place until the orographic barried formed. While convergence at the

Okanogan Valley Kame Terrace Mapping

Okanogan Valley Kame Terrace Mapping

The kame terraces of the Okanogan Valley are Alaskan in scale, but treeless and fully exposed. This extensive multi-level flight is continuously exposed between Brewster and Osoyoos, a distance of 100 km. The terraces record voluminous ice-marginal sedimentation during the final downwasting of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet (Okanogan Lobe) from Eastern Washington. They are composed of a mix of outwash gravels, till, lacustrine sediments, and boulders. Tread surfaces are paired in

"Flood Injectites of the Columbia Basin" Book

"Flood Injectites of the Columbia Basin" Book

J Harland Bretz introduced the world to the vast and deeply scoured Channeled Scabland. Baker calculated flood volumes and the velocity of the flows. Waitt deciphered flood count and timing. The sedimentary record is known by the work of numerous authors and dozens of localities. Deformation caused by the cataclysmic Ice Age floods remains a frontier. In my new book, Flood Injectites of the Columbia Basin, I describe a suite of flood-caused deformation features along a 500 km

Thanks a Lot, Erwin

Thanks a Lot, Erwin

In 1941, the talented cartographer Erwin Raisz of Harvard University's Institute of Geographical Exploration published a map showing the Olympic-Wallowa Lineament, a "straight four-hundred-mile-long structural line extending from Cape Flattery to the Wallowa Mountains". The Olympic-Wallowa Lineament crosscuts the whole of Washington, extending from Cape Flattery to the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon. Map by Reidel and Martin (2003). The prominent line diagonally bisects Washingt

Predicting liquefaction extent in the Yakima Fold Belt, south-central WA

Predicting liquefaction extent in the Yakima Fold Belt, south-central WA

Geologists have long debated how large of an earthquake faults in the Yakima Fold Belt are capable of producing. Some claim these shallow (<10km), intraplate structures are capable of generating quakes up to 7.0 magnitude. Others estimate their capability no higher than about 6.0 magnitude. The difference between 6.0 and 7.0 is huge. I've personally experienced two quakes larger than 7.0 M. Believe me, crazy sh*t happens above magnitude 7. I've also been in several 6.0 M quak

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