Grand Canyon undert Attack by Forest Fires

As shown by Karen Hughes-our digital Photographer- the recent heat wave has resulted in a "Burn" on the South Rim.
The photos show the canyon photographed from the north rim, with and without the haze created by smoke.

The COHOs are Running!

No more "Blogsites" while there are "Dogfights" (These two are Humpies (Pinks)- one move up from Dog Salmon

SALMON

The fish eyed my lure warily, showing no inclination to envelope it;
He flicked his tail at me contemptuously, knowing that he was in a vastly different world from mine.
In return, I showed great admiration for his adroitness at avoiding my barbeque grill, but there was no social interaction there.
He was indeed cold-bloodied, perhaps with a dash of warmth for the oncoming spawn.
But he appeared to relish this significant time of his life, when he would make tremendous preparation for his moment of bloom and doom. He was at the apex of his existence.
I looked at his majestic form, and exhibited no wariness of my own, still expecting that my vastly larger nervous system would be superior.
We were both looking for an immediate satisfaction of our physical selves- perhaps a bit less slime for myself.
But while my digestive juices were waning, the salmon's desires were at their peak.
Without a salute, he was gone- back to the dark stillness of the deep. Back to primal instincts, but not for myself- I was filled with the joy of sensing my early self.
I remembered the time of my boyhood, when the ancient bowfin or grinnel entranced me.
How he would envelope my dough-ball, slyly pulling down my bait without so much as a signal on my line.
How he would fight, when he found that the treat was attached to a small boy- who would fight back.
But his mouth was soft, as was his entire body, and if you "caught" him, you had to eat him before the bacteria beat you. I would have a fire ready on the creek bank, and savor him immediately (or else give this "low class" fish to a similar class).
But not the salmon- he was at the top of the class, and men would fight to master him. He was indeed a champion.
And he remained so, as did the erudite one- the one with superior intellect and BROKEN FISHING LINE.
Harold L. Overton

Assessment of Earth's Movements "Cold"

3D Map, oriented to N, shows N-S lineation (Inlet)
This Spring occurs on a Peninsula, E of a N-S Inlet

Maquinna Hot Spring, Vancouver. B.C.
(North of Tofino, Pacific coast)

The SW coast of Vancouver Island, B.C. lies in a terrane (a body of geologic rock foreign to its neighbors- and therefore moved from its source), which was evidently driven into the main island in Tertiary time. The similarity to the Eocene beds which comprise the Olympic Mountains is a factor for understanding the terrane, but the main comparison is made by extrapolation of the fault trends from across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and in the American islands in Washington State.
The complications to these generalizations are due to the circumstance of three different movements of the earth’s Crust in this general area where Canada bounds the United States, in the Strait of JdF area. The continental (USA)plate is driving westward, as noticed in the E-W fault boundary in the Deception Pass, Whidbey Island metasediments; next, the Juan de Fuca plate is diving eastward under the continent, as evidenced by the line of N-S volcanoes (the Cascades- vulcanism occurs perpendicular to the subduction direction); and finally, the Pacific plate is driving north towards Alaska, influencing the boundary region as far inland as Whidbey island (from indications of N-S shear in the cliffs there, even though this plate shear should mainly be noticed near the trough west of Vancouver Island).
Placing all this in a frame of reference, where the layman can understand it without getting bogged down in the usual Geologic terminology requires visualization of the movement in three dimensions, but I hope to furnish maps and photos which will help (see the first one in the photo above).
I took a trip to Tofino, B.C. to determine whether a simplistic view of the earth’ movements could easily be attained. My first priority was to determine whether the dominant fractures and their orientations could be used to simplify this view, and to get away from the inordinate classification- which is the usual memorization necessary to determine the meaning of the “hand waving” used by Geologists. Understanding is usually frustrated with the system of words (rather than mathematical or physical descriptions) which are presented by the standard geologic paper or presentation. Maps or cross-sections are more helpful, since these deals with facts (really nomenclature- which can’t be argued, since how can one be averse to terminology or classification?).
The personal reason for using this technique is to determine whether a person with a small amount of Earth Science training can go into the field and gain understanding of the earth movements which shape our world. I believe that these movements are responsible for the location of mineral deposits and travel of fluids vertically in the Crust. Consequently, one should not have to wade through a mass of terminology to get to the important assessments necessary to determine what lies below one’s feet. One should be able to cope with the world by appraising the subtle and sometimes obvious clues that surround us.
The following includes the notes taken from a five day trip to the West Coast of Vancouver Island, where metasediments dominate the scene, and where one can easily measure fracture orientation and the freshness or earth activity as noted by erosion and appearance of the Rocks. Try your own analysis of the Earth and its Crust by noting the fresh rocks and their orientations in road cuts and stream valleys as you travel about the beautiful West.


After reading all of my comments above, I realized that I was guilty of writing similarly to that I accused the geologists of exhibiting. So I will just write my conclusions outright:
1.The Vancouver Island is oriented NW-SE, which I suspected was due to the stress field exhibited previous to times more than two million years ago. This I had found out in my fieldwork in AZ and UT, and I noted from orientations of rivers and lineations that the fractures had re-oriented to that of N-S sometime after that 2 mybp (million years before present) time. Looking at the gradually changing orientation of the Gulf and San Juan Islands on a geographic map, in the sound to the east, one can see the interaction of the westward push of the continental movement causing the shift of the island trend to the north as it encountered the push of the JdF block moving eastward. This creates an area of uncertainty, where the transition zone is being dominated by the SdF subduction overcoming the westward continental movement. Look at the geographical map shown below, in the earlier Blog, to see these trends. Since Vancouver Island has rocks dating all the way back to the Devonian, and the three or more terranes all tend to align NW-SE, this indicates that whatever created the orientation of the island has done it to all of them (as with movement of masses of the crust- as opposed to stresses operating on one of them at a time). The conclusion here is that Vancouver Island has taken its orientation throughout time (starting at least in the Devonian), as the result of earth movements down to the present time.
2. The Maquinna fault and hot spring do not orient similarly to the island proper, rather they orient N-S, even though they occur on the western-most coast of the island (next to the Pacific). Since the spring is still hot, it must have an opening to the deep heat source, and it must represent the most recent fracturing and faulting pattern. The N-S fracture system must be the younger, and this is similar to that found at the Hurricane fault, Hawaiian Island re-orientation since Maui formation, and the youngest rivers of the west (Colorado, Rio Grande, and locally in Utah- the Coal Pits Creek.



Orthogonal Fractures, E-W, allow exit of Hot Water

3. The Vancouver SW coast is well east of the JdF and Explorer ridges (occurring at depth in the Pacific Ocean), which would be expected to dominate the fracturing and faulting near them. This indicates that this fracture system in effect now is that of the ridges well offshore, and might even have some influence on that at Whidbey Island (in occasional surges of movement).
4. One can evaluate present movements of the Crust without having to resort to naming the rocks (or even determining which rocks are present- since the fractures and faulting are independent of the rock type present). Knowledge of the existing and fossil stress states in advance of terminology determinations may help to find which type of rock to expect and simplify the naming process- particularly with metamorphic rocks.
Try your hand at understanding the movements of the Earth’s Crust as you drive through the newly-created road cuts and along recently eroded stream valleys. This exercise will help to pass the time (when are we going to get there?) and gradually allow you to formulate a method of assessing the changes which have occurred along your path.

Earth Science for the Layman

Son Keith Views NW Beauty after the heat in IRAQ

EARTH MOVEMENTS ON WHIDBEY ISLAND

When I arrived on this island in the Puget Sound, 10 years ago, the few workers I could find in Earth Science said “There’s nothing of interest on this 14,000 year old piece of land- just Dirt Geology” So I resolved to remain taciturn and find out for myself about Nature’s Truths.
It is true that most of W.I. is covered by Glacial Till from the last ice age. This unsorted sediment which formed underneath as much as 3000 feet of ice (dropping from entrainment in the ice, due to melting of the overlying glacier) makes poor soil, since it had very little organic material in it. But there were several inter-glacial periods between south or westward movements of the ice, and I resolved to find mastodon bones in the accompanying bogs and wetlands. I found few fossils, but the beach walks yielded much more than bones.
I did find a few thin clam shell layers in the beach cliffs, but mostly there were indications of destruction of the several somewhat compacted sedimentary formations which have remained. In the photos and descriptions to follow, I hope to show you that the island is a treasure trove of Pleistocene events- cliff walls containing simple stratigraphy with occasional massive disruptions. These show a record of earth movements in the last ¼ million years. The waxing and waning of glaciers goes back almost two million years, but only the last three cycles are seen in Whidbey cliffs. In order of increasing age, these are named Frazer, Possession, and Double Bluff, where the first is a Canadian River, the second occurs most prominently at the Possession Point, south, end of the island, and the oldest occurs at Double Bluff cliffs, near Freeland. The older glacial periods of warming show that there were many peat beds (from trapped vegetation), earthquake-formed distortions- called cauliflower structures (after the shape), and slicing of the older sedimentary layers (factures and faulting).
It was already well documented that metasediments occurred near the Deception Pass bridge (Whidbey is a true island, but within a mile of other islands connecting to the mainland in Skagit County).One may drive to the north end of the island, to the DP bridge, eliminating the need to access the auto ferry on the south end- at Clinton. The metamorphic (change of form due to pressure and temperature at depth) rocks are true stone at the north end, not like the pre-stone of 95% of the W.I. surface. These metasediments are of Cretaceous age or older (100 million years or so) and are very hard.
Normally geologists describe rocks or stone of many million years antiquity, so that the rock is hard, resistant to erosion, and difficult to break or cut with a knife. On W.I. the oldest of the till and sand has not been cemented or compressed sufficiently to yield more than compacted sand. This Pre-stone makes fair cliffs, some almost vertical, but it has insufficient strength to survive winter storms, and can usually be scratched with the fingernail.
The Earth movements, although subtle, can be traced cross-country by use of saddles in the topography, and more starkly, in the cliffs. When one of the USGS researchers remarked to me “You cannot find a fault on the ground surface of Whidbey island that you may walk on”, I was able to reply that you can indeed walk on two of them at low tide, between Baby Island and Saratoga Road on the larger island.
Most of the island is covered with vegetation, so that one can only view the stratigraphy in the cliffs at the beaches, but there are a few other clues:
a. The main glaciation oriented north to south, as it advanced. This creates drainageways or grooves in the surface which one can see in the interior. Other orientations yield information about subsequent events, other than glaciation;
b. Bays or indentations in the island are likely created by faulting which presented an opportunity for increased erosion;
c. Sinkholes are the result of ice being isolated as large chunks, leaving Kettles whenever the ice later melted. Interior drainage wetlands probably derive from a similar situation;
d. Dune sand occasionally occurs in the interior, resulting from wind having deposited river-brought sand away from the beach;
e. Present creeks orienting at some angle other than N-S, indicate subsequent earth movement; and,
f. Concrete breakage and road repair indicate recent movement- probably due to active faulting.

When one hikes the beaches regularly, you can see the yearly changes as well as the pre-historical events in the cliff walls. This makes for a stimulating circumstance for your daily exercise, and one where you can get a “feeling” of the earth’s regular movement. You can determine your own assessment of what is happening with the Crust, so that it is unnecessary to resort to reading the voluminous literature opined by professional geologists. After all, they are wrong more than half the time, so form your own ideas, and keep your brain active. I have posted a link entitled Mantle plumes, which may be accessed further down the Blog (off to the right side). These show how geologist-researchers have classified, worked and re-worked, used tremendous budgets, and spent many years to obtain no conclusions. If they cannot reach a conclusion with all of the research money available, on a topic as important as the derivation of the Hawaiian chain, something must be wrong with their training! A layman can improve on this outcome, since he is not biased in advance, and is not overloaded with an outdated classification system which discourages analysis.

Silver Ck. Hanging Gardens

LIDAR for Whidbey (NOTE N-S glacial grooves)

Seepage from Silver Ck.yields permanent VEGETATION

Silver Creek yields fault information
The photos above and below show two indications of faulting in the Mariner's Cove area of Whidbey Island, S36 T33N R2E
Silver Lake, which feeds the Creek, is near the highest elevation on W.I.(531 feet, south of the lake) and the creek exists near the 500 foot mark. Sea Level, where the hanging gardens and Mariner's Cove lie is some 2000 feet to the south. The orientation of Silver Creek is 120 degrees from north, as is a small creek, unnamed, near Strawberry hill area. This is known to be the Strawberry Fault of similar orientation- a left-lateral fault of unknown planar configuration at depth. Should the fault plane exist at the surface as Silver Creek and at sea level as the Strawberry fault, this would yield the planar dip of the discontinuity sloping downward to the SSW. It would have a slope of about 20-25 percent, where the high point of the island is rising as the ground surface at the lake sinks (there is a continual seepage into the lake from high ground to the south).
This, if true, should be of great interest to the property owners, since the slumping would be larger than normal with the wedging of the subsurface upward to the south. Polnell Point is part of this left-lateral system but parallel to it- probably a continuation of the Rocky Point fault reported last month in this BLOG, continuing on to Camano Island where large slumps are observed.
Island County could easily monitor this situation with the data they have accumulated in their well file (from testing of some 6000 wells in the county).
Whenever fracturing creates pathways at the ground surface, the acidic rainwater finds these openings moreso than for non-fractured areas. The entrance of acidic water reacts with the calcitic cement holding the soil and Pre-Stone together and weakens it- yielding bicarbonate HCO3 to nearby wells. This can be monitored by the county, to observe the change with time. Whenever there is a consistent increase, slumping and fracturing can be expected to increase.
This would be a WISE use of the County Hydro-geological manpower and data, rather than their present action to force property owners to drill new wells and to test them subsequently before granting permits for building (to prevent the possibillity of new sea water intrusion). The present well data can be used to eliminate areas from consideration for drilling, rather than the present wasteful practice of requiring the drilling of new wells which are later condemned after spending drilling and testing dollars (to present a water sample for couty rejection).
I recommend that the county initiate a program of testing present wells to determine whether, in doubtful areas, HCO3 is increasing (thereby indicating incipient slumping). Simultaneously, the county should do mapping of the lines of water chemistry (from well data in the already-existing files)anomalies in terms of faulting and fracturing.
See a previous BLOG relating saltwater intrusion to lines of anomalous potassium and flouride in the groundwater (on a map), found from water analyses in the present files- FREE. All of these data for analysis are in hydro-geological files, and should be used, what with the tremendous time and expense used to amass this water quality file.
If you are considering buying a property where neighbors have history of increasing salinity (salt taste) in their drinking water, ask to see the map of excessive K/Cl (potassium divided by Chlorides in ORIGINAL well water Chemistry). This map will show if there is high risk of encountering unusual water, which exists near faulting. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DRILL AN EXPENSIVE WELL, AND LATER PAY FOR EXPENSIVE COUNTY-REQUIRED TESTING TO DETERMINE IN ADVANCE WHETHER THE DRILLSITE SOULD BE AVOIDED (THIS WORK WILL COST YOU- the property owner and taxpayer- MORE THAN TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS).

Mariner's Cove NW fault, Esperance Sand

Uplift of Scatchet head, SW Whidbey I.