I noted a large number of page views of an old post adakite-and-tamanowas-rock-chimacum starting yesterday. This usually means something new has happened and Dave Tucker's blog alerted me as to what that was. The Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe completed a purchase of the Tomanowas Rock as noted in a Peninsula Daily News article by Arwyn Rice Olympic-Peninsula-tribe-buys-site-of-sacred-rock.
This rock is a unique feature geologically as noted in my previous post. The Daily News article notes that one ancient story regarding the rock is that it was a refuge site from a great flood. The article notes a tsunami from 3,000 years ago - I suspect this was a typo that had one too many 0s. A more likely date would be 300 years ago and to be precise 313 years ago from the January 1700 subduction quake along the outer coast. Discovery Bay, located just to the west, as well as Sequim Bay both would have been subjected to very large waves from a tsunami. Discovery Bay in particular is shaped in a manner that may accentuate tsunami waves and tsunami deposits have been recognized at the head of the bay along the tide flats of Snow Creek http://nosams.mblwhoilibrary.org/works/1838 and https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_90220.htm.
It strikes me that as local coastal villages were decimated and flooded this would be a logical place to gather and assess the disaster for coastal communities of the area.
The other ancient story it that it was a site for looking out for mastodons is also fitting. For at least a brief time the continental ice margin was located a short distance from here near present day Port Townsend. Tomanowas Rock would have been a great viewing site over a glacial ice margin river flowing through what is now Chimacum and at that time the valley floor was likely just a bit above sea level. We do know that mastodon hunting was taking place in the vicinity at that time thoughts-on-manis-mastodon.
This rock is a unique feature geologically as noted in my previous post. The Daily News article notes that one ancient story regarding the rock is that it was a refuge site from a great flood. The article notes a tsunami from 3,000 years ago - I suspect this was a typo that had one too many 0s. A more likely date would be 300 years ago and to be precise 313 years ago from the January 1700 subduction quake along the outer coast. Discovery Bay, located just to the west, as well as Sequim Bay both would have been subjected to very large waves from a tsunami. Discovery Bay in particular is shaped in a manner that may accentuate tsunami waves and tsunami deposits have been recognized at the head of the bay along the tide flats of Snow Creek http://nosams.mblwhoilibrary.org/works/1838 and https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_90220.htm.
It strikes me that as local coastal villages were decimated and flooded this would be a logical place to gather and assess the disaster for coastal communities of the area.
The other ancient story it that it was a site for looking out for mastodons is also fitting. For at least a brief time the continental ice margin was located a short distance from here near present day Port Townsend. Tomanowas Rock would have been a great viewing site over a glacial ice margin river flowing through what is now Chimacum and at that time the valley floor was likely just a bit above sea level. We do know that mastodon hunting was taking place in the vicinity at that time thoughts-on-manis-mastodon.
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