Slip Sliding Away - a recap/field guide of the Landslides of Portland's Tualatin Mountains Field Trip

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Slip Sliding Away - a recap/field guide of the Landslides of Portland's Tualatin Mountains Field Trip

September 28, 2024

A significant portion of the terrain of Portland’s West Hills between Burnside Road and US 26 is ancient and active landslides. Dr. Scott Burns, professor emeritus of Geology at Portland State University, took GSOC participants on a field trip exploring this terrain and observing the mitigation methods used over the years to try and arrest the sliding and damage. Dr. Burns has trained quite a few geologists about landslides over the years he has taught at PSU, and many of his students are now cataloguing and mitigating landslides throughout the Pacific northwest and other areas of the country.

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Episodes of Death and Destruction - a recap of the Wasco County Geology Field Trip

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Episodes of Death and Destruction - a recap of the Wasco County Geology Field Trip

June 7-9, 2024

In the June 2024 field trip, GSOC participants were treated to explore some of the geological fieldwork and mapping done by Jason McClaughry and field trip leader and GSOC Past President Clark Niewendorp of DOGAMI over the years 2014-2020. The main subject of the field trip was volcanic materials that originated in the Mt. Hood area of the High Cascades and were deposited on the eastern flanks of these mountains in Wasco County between The Dalles and Tygh Valley from the Late Miocene onwards. All this volcanic material is underlain by a platform of Columbia River Basalt. Also, the group examined the effects of folding and faulting associated with the Yakima Fold and Thrust Belt. Late Pleistocene surficial deposits – notably wind-blown loess and megaflood sediments – completed the surface geology they saw in the area.

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Welcome New Members!

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(March/April/May 2024)

Nate Angell

Peter and Nancy Ballerstedt

Daniel Becraft

Steve Bergerson

Brittni Bishop

Stephen Blackstone and Jill Engler

Eric Brurud and Hannah Schroetlin

Nancy Buchanan

Claire Buhler

Kat Bundy

David Chapin

Ann Chetock

Satya Chitty

Bryan and Molly Corbett

David and Anne Coulter

Tim Crump and Diana Meisenhelter

Owen Daly

Robert Devey

Jamie Dunn

Adam Ellwood

John Gale

Anthony Greene

Randy "Ran" Hammock

Alan Hargus

Nicole Hartsough

Kyle Hersey

Glen Hess

Rick and Kathy Hickerson

Cliff Hutchens

Alisa Joaquin

Michael and Laura Joki

Eric LeVan

Zach Lewis

Kiran Limaye

Pepper (Stephanie) March

Ed McNamara and Andrea Vargo

Kathleen Myers

Deb Nye

Liz Paulus

Thomas Peterson

Randall Radmer

Diana Reeck

David Richter and Dominique Garnier

Cynthia and Claire Robinson

Brit and Jeremy Schnyder

MacNeale Smith

Grayson Smith

Asa Stein

Jeremy and Elizabeth Stout

Jack Swisher

Richard Thalhammer

Ben Wagner

Kirk Warner

Hunter Wyndham

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Tribute to GSOC Past President Rosemary Richartz Kenney (1926-2024)

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Tribute to GSOC Past President Rosemary Richartz Kenney (1926-2024)

Another important long-time GSOC Past President has passed away. Rosemary Kenney (1926-2024) would have been 98 years old if she had lived 6 more days. She was also GSOC’s longest membership at the time of her death, having joined the society in 1962 (according to her presidential write-up). Rosemary was GSOC President in 1989, which, unsurprisingly, was also the year she retired.

Rosemary was a strong and independent woman who loved to travel. Rosemary Richartz was born on a dairy farm in Touchet, Washington, and was the valedictorian of her high school in Umapine, Oregon. She then attended Oregon State University and received her BS in Home Economics in 1948, then a certificate in Food and Nutrition 1949. She used this education to become a dietician, a ubiquitous profession which proved to be a handy career for someone who loved to travel.

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Angela Stetson Master's Candidate

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Titled "Orphan Basalts: Investigating the Petrogenesis of Unassigned Eastern Oregon Basalts," my thesis project is focused on detailing the origins of basalts mapped within the Telephone Butte, Calamity Butte and Craft Point quadrangles located along the boundary between the Harney Basin and the southern foothills of the Blue Mountains Province. Named for the localities in which basalt samples were collected, several basalt units are mapped in each quadrangle. Similarities in geochemical analyses of each basalt unit suggest that although these basalts have different unit names, they are in fact related and likely originated from the same source. 

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Alyssa Smith PhD candidate

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My research is focused in the central to northern Oregon Cascade Range. In this part of the Cascade Range, erupted lavas are very compositionally restricted as compared to other arc segments. Although the central to northern Oregon Cascade Range does have several large, more andesitic stratovolcanoes, such as Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, and the Middle and South Sister, volcanism is dominated by hundreds of smaller, basaltic volcanoes. Studies of the Cascade Range have acknowledged the prevalence of basaltic volcanism in this portion of the range, but many regional studies have focused on the andesitic centers, leaving most of the basaltic centers unstudied. 

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Lizzet Reyes Master's Candidate

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Volcanic eruptions release carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, which contributes to the carbon cycle. However, much is still unexplored about how volcanic eruptions affect the movement of organic carbon from vegetation and soil. My thesis focuses on the impact of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption on the terrestrial carbon cycle. It examines how the eruption affected carbon storage in vegetation and soils in the affected area. By comparing terrestrial carbon levels before and after the eruption, we aim to establish a carbon budget for the period since 1980. 

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Obinna Ozioko PhD candidate

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Temporal clustering of deep-seated landslides in the Puget Lowlands; a seismic trigger? 

The Puget Lowlands of Washington State is about the most seismically active region in the Pacific Northwest. Paleoseismic records show ample evidence of prehistoric crustal and Cascadia megathrust earthquakes in the region with a temporal cluster of earthquakes in the crustal faults about 1000 years ago. Although multiple paleoseismic records exist for crustal and Cascadia megathrust earthquakes in the area, little is known about the temporal and spatial distribution of earthquake-triggered landslides. To address this, we conducted a comprehensive study applying surface roughness age dating techniques to over 600 landslides in the lower Puget Sound region to explore earthquake-triggered landslides' spatial and temporal patterns. 

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Brett Hopt Master's Candidate

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Black shales are rocks that are enriched in heavy metals and metalloids. Previous studies have shown that agriculture crops grown on soils formed on black shales pose a health hazard to humans and biota. However, no study has been conducted on the environmental hazard that these outcrops may pose in watersheds with black shale outcrops. I will be studying how these heavy metals are partitioned in streams once released during weathering; heightened knowledge is needed in this area so that state agencies may better protect human and environmental health in areas where metalliferous black shales occur. 

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Javaria Aziz Master's Candidate

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My master’s thesis focuses on understanding magma evolution and eruptive history of Three Fingered Jack, a dissected mafic composite cone volcano in the central High Cascades of Oregon. This region is characterized by intra-arc extension, creating an extensive mafic platform dominated by dozens of small scoria cones and voluminous mafic flows of basaltic and basaltic andesitic composition. It has the largest concentration of mafic monogenetic volcanoes in the entire Cascade arc, some of which have erupted in the past 2,500 years. Three Fingered Jack is much larger compared to its neighboring scoria cones.

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George Anim Master’s Candidate

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My research is focused on understanding shock deformation in shergottites, the most commonly sampled Martian meteorites. My goals are to estimate deformation intensities in shergottites, identify the number of asteroid impact events they have undergone, and develop additional deformation estimation criteria based on changes in the crystal structure of key minerals such as olivine and pyroxene. Understanding the shock deformation in shergottites (and, by extension, all Martian meteorites) will allow for an unbiased interpretation of primary features that can reveal a lot about the geologic processes that shaped Mars.

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GSOC Crowd Enjoyed the Annual Picnic at Beacon Rock SP

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GSOC Crowd Enjoyed the Annual Picnic at Beacon Rock SP

The GSOC Annual Picnic enjoyed a good turnout this year at Beacon Rock State Park in the Columbia River Gorge. GSOC had not sited the picnic here for over 20 years, and members agreed that this was a very good venue for a picnic. Not only did the site have a serviceable enclosed shelter building, but also a great view of some outstanding geology – Beacon Rock, a remnant of the last known outpouring of Boring lava, dated at 58,000 years ago.

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Lab Work on Mafic Dikes Will Reveal Magma Storage Depth

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Lab Work on Mafic Dikes Will Reveal Magma Storage Depth

Vogt Scholar Rachel Sweeten reports: “This year we were able to successfully locate another ~30 dikes as well as a potential layered mafic intrusion exposure (middle photo) with an inferred 600 cubic km volume. Lab work will continue this fall and winter in the form of clinopyroxene thermobarometry (to determine storage depth) as well as the full suite of XRF [X-ray fluorescence] and ICPMS [Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry] analysis of all new samples.” Photo on right is of field assistant Heather Ziff next to a large boulder of the upper portion of the layered intrusion that fell to the bottom of the slope as a result of a rockfall.

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A Unique Dunite Clast in a Lunar Meteorite

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A Unique Dunite Clast in a Lunar Meteorite

Vogt Scholar Daniel Sheikh reports: “I recently had the opportunity to present some of my research at the 85th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, held in Glasgow in August. In this talk, I presented on a unique dunite clast (photo left) found within one of my lunar meteorite samples for research, and implications on how it likely formed. This is a component of the larger research focus that I am involved in, which is to constrain the range of lunar lithologies found in lithic clasts from lunar meteorites and to characterize the degree of shock deformation imposed on each of them.”

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Examining Magma History from Grains of Olivine

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Examining Magma History from Grains of Olivine

Vogt Scholar Darlene Gilroy reports: “I am currently in the picking stage of lab work. In this stage, I am using a microscope to look at crushed scoria and “pick” out specific grains of olivine. The scoria is from the Boring Volcanic Mt. Tabor. After finishing the Mount Tabor samples I will move on to my other sample sites, also Boring Volcanic: Prune Hill, Mount Scott, and Battle Ground Lake. The olivine grains will be mounted in epoxy and sent off for electron microprobe and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy to establish the rate of ascent and storage depth of magma for the Boring volcanics. I recently sent samples from all four locations to WSU for bulk geochemical analysis.”
(Photo left: Darlene and retired DOGAMI geologist/GSOCer Ian Madin at her Mt. Tabor field site reconning for our 2023 Boring Buttes field trip. Photo right: view under a microscope showing olivine which are the “amber colored” grains among the darker scoria. )

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Preparing Central/Eastern Oregon Glass for Mass Spectrometry

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Preparing Central/Eastern Oregon Glass for Mass Spectrometry

Vogt Scholar Julian Cohen reports: “I completed my field work over 11 days at the end of August and collected around 30 glass samples from various places all over central and eastern Oregon. Since then, I’ve been working to prepare them for mass spectrometry analysis by crushing, sieving, and cleaning the glass shards. Photo (left) is of some relatively “clean” glass, meaning there aren’t a lot of surface precipitates on it that might impact the analysis. I’ll have to run many samples through a series of acid washes to clean the shards to insure there isn’t contamination! I’ll be at the University of Texas Austin in December to do my analyses.”

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The Big Kapow! Crater Lake Field Trip Recap

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The Big Kapow! Crater Lake Field Trip Recap

This trip began in the mind of GSOC member Dr. Benjamin Sloan after he joined the society last year and participated in the Coaledo trip last summer. By September he was emailing me and asking whether we would consider doing a trip to Crater Lake. I replied that we’d consider the trip, then added a long list of logistical considerations that needed to be worked out, thinking that would be the last I’d hear from him. Well, one month later he had researched the technical papers, gone to Crater Lake to research lodging and travel routes, and sent me a list of tasks he’d completed. Turns out that Ben has been planning field trips worldwide and teaching geology for years as well as doing oil exploration.

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GSOC Strawberry Mountain Field Trip

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GSOC Strawberry Mountain Field Trip

story text by Carole Miles

photos by Carole Miles, Denny Chamberlin, and Kate Ely

The Strawberry Mountain fault was discovered in 2019 by DOGAMI’s Ian Madin upon reviewing new LiDAR maps of the area. Andrew Dunning, looking for a project for his master’s thesis at Portland State University, realized that a lack of high-quality seismic data in this area of Oregon may have erroneously led to an inaccurate assessment of the seismic risk in Eastern Oregon on the USGS National Seismic Hazard Map. He has been working on gathering data related to timing and offset of the Strawberry Mountain fault for the past two years. He was excited to take GSOC members into the field to show us what he has learned.

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