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Archive for the tag “Oregon geology”

27 Apr 2021
10 Comments

“Oregon Rocks!” My new book about Oregon’s Wonderful Geology

I’m very happy to announce that my new book, Oregon Rocks! A guide to 60 Amazing Geologic Sites, is out there and available. Although the title always makes me cringe a little, I’m excited and proud of this project, which took me three years to complete and took me all over my beautiful state. At the risk of being overly exuberant, here are some excerpts!

If you click on the image below, you can actually read the table of contents (left) and study the site map. Both these illustrations group the sites in one of Oregon’s six physiographic provinces: The Coast Range, Klamath Mountains, Cascade Range, Lava Plateaus, Blue Mountains, and Basin and Range.

Table of contents and site map of Oregon Rocks!

The site numbers are especially important –not only because they key to the map location and page numbers in the book –they also refer to the timeline and schematic cross-section across the state. I’m especially proud of this part because it lets you place each site into the context of how the entire region evolved. Click on the timeline and maps below to see what I mean!

Read more…
Posted in geophotography, Oregon geologic history, Oregon geology, photography, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , ,
02 Mar 2021
6 Comments

Oregon’s geologic history. A new cross-section and timeline –and some great places to see it.

Oregon sits at the very western edge of the North American Plate, an “active” plate margin in the truest sense of the term. There’s active uplift on the coast, active volcanic activity in the Cascade Range, and active crustal extension to the east—not to mention the active subduction just offshore that’s driving most of it.  And the products of all that activity are today’s amazing beaches, forests, sand dunes, playa lakes, plateaus, mountain peaks, rivers –the list goes on.

Folded Ribbon Chert on the Oregon Coast –click on the images to see them enlarged

Collectively, those landscapes paint a picture of Oregon and its geology today. But Oregon’s geologic history stretches back some 300 million years to its oldest rocks of Devonian age and will continue into the future until who knows when. We live in a snapshot of an unfolding geologic history –and while we can’t see the landscapes of the future, we have the rock record to show us some of the landscapes of the past.

Schematic Cross-section across Oregon, from Oregon Rocks! –The red letters refer to places described here, the numbers refer to sites in my new book.

The schematic cross-section above outlines Oregon’s geology, with each different color signifying a different grouping of rock, and therefore, a different part of its geologic history. The heavy red dashed line marks the boundary between Oregon’s “basement rock”—a term that refers to the deepest level crustal rock in a given area—and its cover. Oregon’s basement rock consists of disparate crustal fragments called “terranes” that were accreted to the edge of North America since about 200 million years ago or igneous bodies called “stitching plutons” (in pink) that intruded the terranes. The cover consists of sedimentary and igneous rocks that formed after accretion and over the top of the terranes.

Fun fact: Oregon has the shortest geologic history of any state in the conterminous US! That’s because its geologic history only goes back as far as the oldest rock of its oldest accreted terrane, which is some Devonian (419-359 million years) limestone in the Blue Mountains. All the other states have basement that includes rock of Precambrian North America. In many states, this older rock isn’t exposed, but we’ve seen it in well cuttings or on seismic lines. In Oregon, it’s simply not there! –the basement has all been added onto the edge of the ancient continent.

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Posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
08 May 2019
11 Comments

Smith Rock State Park –great geology at the edge of Oregon’s largest caldera

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Smith Rock, the Crooked River, and modern Cascade volcanoes from Misery Ridge.

The view from outside the small visitor center at Smith Rock State Park offers a landscape of contrasts. The parking lot, and nearby camping and picnic areas, are flat, underlain by the edge of a basaltic lava flow that drops off in a series of steps to a narrow canyon, some 120 feet (37 m) below. The Crooked River, which rises about 100 miles (162 km) away in the High Lava Plains, fills much of the canyon bottom. Across the canyon, tan cliffs and spires of tuff, another volcanic rock, soar overhead. Smith Rock itself forms a peninsula of this rock, enclosed by a hairpin bend of the Crooked River. The tuff erupted 29.5 million years ago in the largest volcanic eruption to occur entirely within Oregon. Read more…

Posted in Geology, science, volcanoes and tagged , , , , , , ,
25 Aug 2018
4 Comments

Hug Point State Park, Oregon, USA –sea cliffs expose a Miocene delta invaded by lava flows

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Alcove and tidepool at Hug Point

Imagine, some 15 million years ago, basaltic lava flows pouring down a river valley to the coast –and then somehow invading downwards into the sandy sediments of its delta. Today, you can see evidence for these events in the sea cliffs near Hug Point in Oregon. There, numerous basalt dikes and sills invade awesome sandstone exposures of the Astoria Formation, some of which exhibit highly contorted bedding, likely caused by the invading lava. It’s also really beautiful, with numerous alcoves and small sea caves to explore. And at low to medium-low tides, you can walk miles along the sandy beach!

(Click on any of the images to see them at a larger size)

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Posted in Geology, geophotography, Oregon Coast, photography, science, volcanoes and tagged , , , , , , , , ,
23 Jul 2018
4 Comments

Devil’s Punchbowl –Awesome geology on a beautiful Oregon beach

You could teach a geology course at Devil’s Punchbowl, a state park just north of Newport, Oregon. Along this half-mile stretch of beach and rocky tidepools, you see tilted sedimentary rocks, normal faults, an angular unconformity beneath an uplifted marine terrace, invasive lava flows, and of course amazing erosional features typical of Oregon’s spectacular coastline. And every one of these features tells a story. You can click on any of the images below to see them at a larger size.

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View southward from Cape Foulweather to the Devil’s Punchbowl.

 

180629-58ceThe rocks. They’re mostly shallow marine sandstones of the Astoria Formation, deposited in the early part of the Miocene, between about 16.5 to 22 million years ago. The rocks are tilted so you can walk horizontally into younger ones, which tend to be finer grained and more thinly bedded than the rocks below. This change in grain size suggests a gradual deepening of the water level through time. In many places, you can find small deposits of broken clam shells, likely stirred up and scattered during storms –and on the southern edge of the first headland north of the Punchbowl, you can find some spectacular soft-sediment deformation, probably brought on by submarine slumping. Later rock alteration from circulating hot groundwater caused iron sulfide minerals to crystallize within some of the sandstone. Read more…

Posted in Geology, geophotography, Oregon Coast, photography, science, Unconformities and tagged , , , , , , , ,
10 Dec 2017
6 Comments

Cove Palisades, Oregon: a tidy short story in the vastness of time

If I were a water skier, I’d go to Lake Billy Chinook at Cove Palisades where I could ski and see amazing geology at the same time. On the other hand, I’d probably keep crashing because the geology is so dramatic! Maybe a canoe would be better.

Lake Billy Chinook, Oregon

View across the Crooked River Arm of Lake Billy Chinook to some of the 1.2 million year old canyon-filling basalt (right) and Deschutes Fm (left). The cliff on the far left of the photo is also part of the 1.2 million year basalt.

The lake itself fills canyons of the Crooked, Deschutes and Metolius Rivers. It backs up behind Round Butte Dam, which blocks the river channel just down from where the rivers merge. The rocks here tell a story of earlier river canyons that occupied the same places as today’s Crooked and Deschutes Rivers. These older canyons were filled by basaltic lava flows that now line some of the walls of today’s canyons.

CovePalisades2From the geologic map, modified from Bishop and Smith, 1990, you can see how the brown-colored canyon-filling basalt, (called the “Intracanyon Basalt”) forms narrow outcrops within today’s Crooked and Deschutes canyon areas. It erupted about 1.2 million years ago and flowed from a vent about 60 miles to the south. You can also see that most of the bedrock (in shades of green) consists of the Deschutes Formation, and that there are a lot of landslides along the canyon sides.

The cross-section at the bottom of the map shows the view along a west-to-east line. Multiple flows of the intracanyon basalt filled the canyon 1.2 million years ago –and since then the river has re-established its channel pretty much in the old canyon. While the map and cross-section views suggest the flows moved down narrow valleys or canyons, you can actually see the canyon edges, several of which are visible right from the road.

Read more…

Posted in Geologic Time, Geology, Geology, Geologic Time, geophotography, photography, science, volcanoes and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
15 Nov 2014

Just scratching the surface. A geologic cross-section of Oregon speaks to unimaginable events.

The cross-section below runs from the Cascadia subduction zone across Oregon and into eastern Idaho.  It outlines Oregon’s geologic history, beginning with accretion of terranes, intrusion of granitic “stitching plutons”, and deposition of first North American-derived sedimentary rocks, and ending with High Cascades Volcanic activity and glaciation.

Schematic geologic cross-section across Oregon, from the Cascadia Subduction zone into western Idaho.

Schematic geologic cross-section across Oregon, from the Cascadia Subduction zone into western Idaho.

The cross-section barely scratches the surface of things. Moreover, it boils everything down to a list, which is kind of sterile. But the cross-section also provides a platform for your imagination because each one of these events really happened and reflects an entirely different set of landscapes than what we see today.

Think of the CRBG about 15 million years ago. The basalt flows completely covered the landscape of northern Oregon and southern Washington. Or the Clarno volcanoes –only a part of the green layer called “Clarno/John Day”. They were stratovolcanoes in central Oregon –when the climate was tropical! Or try to wrap your mind around the accreted terranes, some of which, like the Wallowa Terrane, contain fossils from the western Pacific.

To emphasize this point, here’s Crater Lake. Crater Lake formed because Mt. Mazama, one of the Cascades’ stratovolcanoes, erupted about 7700 years ago in an eruption so large and violent that it collapsed in on itself to form a caldera. It’s now a national park, with a whole landscape of its own. And if you visit Crater Lake, you’ll see evidence that Mt. Mazama had its own history –which dates back more than 400,000 years. But Crater Lake and Mt. Mazama make up just a tiny part of the Cascades, which are represented on this diagram by just this tiny area that’s shaped like a mountain.

Crater Lake occupies the caldera of Mt. Mazama, which erupted catastrophically some 7700 years ago.

Crater Lake occupies the caldera of Mt. Mazama, which erupted catastrophically some 7700 years ago.

So the cross-section is kind of sterile and just scratches the surface. But what makes geology so incredible is that we’re always learning new things and digging deeper –and we know we’re just scratching the surface –that there will always —always— be something  to learn.

click here and type “Oregon” into the search for photos of Oregon Geology.
click here for information about the new Roadside Geology of Oregon book.

Posted in Geologic Time, Geology, national parks, volcanoes, young earth creationism and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
24 Sep 2014

young and old, close and far

Here’s a photo of the Three Sisters Volcanoes in Oregon –looking northward.  The oldest volcano, North Sister, erupted more than 100,000 years ago and so is considered extinct.  Because no lava has erupted there in so long, erosion has cut deeply into the volcano.  By contrast, South Sister, the closest volcano on the left, most recently erupted only 2000 years ago and is much less eroded.

And then there are the stars –you can see the Big Dipper on the right side of the photo.  The closest star in the Big Dipper is some 68 light years away.

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You can see more photos of Oregon by typing the name “Oregon” into the search function on my website at http://www.marlimillerphoto.com/searchstart.html

Posted in Geologic Time, Geology, mountains, photography and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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