Soft Sediment Deformation in Touchet Beds
Soft sediment deformation features in the Touchet Beds of WA, OR, ID (that are not clastic dikes). I took all of these photos.
Wallula bluffs, Walla Walla Valley.
Wallula bluffs, Walla Walla Valley.
Willow Creek, Umatilla Basin.
Starbuck or Sand Pit Rd.
Starbuck, Tucannon River Valley.
A gravel-filled, teardrop-shaped intrusion/collapse feature (left) and "sand filled cavity formed by melting of ice lens" from Ralph L. Lupher (1944, Fig. 2F). Maybe so, Ralph (if that is in fact your real name).
Check out this gelatin hydrofracture video (start at time 13:00):
Or this jello hydrofracture video (start at time 2:00):
Walla Walla Valley.
Roadcut at Clyde, WA (Eureka Flat). Palouse loess, not Touchet Beds. Unclear what ancient flood record was here.
Individual floods or surges within a flood? White Bluffs, Pasco Basin.
Burrow or something else? Tucannon River Valley.
Dike like collapse feature with truncated top. Smith Coulee pit.
Lower termination of dike-like collapse feature shown in photo above.
Wind-etched flame structures. Columbia River Rd, Pasco Basin.
McDonald Rd, Walla Walla Valley.
You caught me. This is a clastic dike - but its a weird one. Walla Walla Valley.
This is a rare cylindrical structure.
Soft, fine-grained substrate deformed by a vigorous, bottom-hugging, sediment-laden flow (flames, pseudonodules; backflooding) overlain by a thin, undeformed, light-colored unit (suspension settling), then the coarse gravels in the base of a subsequent flood bed (backflood bedload) which probably thinned the underlying unit a bit. Successions like this is why Baker argued for surging. Multiple surges within single floods happened, just not everywhere. Starbuck.
McDonald Road, Walla Walla Valley.
