Congratulations to Scott Linneman with Clip of Scott at Swift Creek

Congratulations to Scott Linneman for his Carnegie Award as Professor of the Year. One of the percs of living in a university town is the chance to get some excellent continuing education. Scott has contributed to my being a better geologist.

The video is a nice clip of Scott and his students at one of my favorite natural disasters, the Swift Creek Landslide (go to labels on the side bar of this blog and click Swift Creek).

Pumice/Scoria as Low Mass Fill

Pumice/scoria distribution is a side a business for a trucking company that otherwise specializes in agricultural trucking services.  

 

This scoria is a Washington State product from the Goldendale area. The Cascades of south-central Washington better reflect what one might call the pure Cascade Range - a broad uplift covered with volcanoes including considerable number of cinder cones. The North Cascades are really a multiple tectonic mélange of various accreted terrains. Cinder cones are rare in the North Cascades, but there is one near Mount Baker (nwgeology/the-cinder-cone-in-schreibers-meadow).

Those holes of course make the rock very light - so light in mass that they can float as long as the air pockets do fill with water. As such the material makes excellent fill where light weight is important. A sizeable potion of the pile at the trucking company had recently been hauled to a bridge approach project. The low density fill to support the road approaching the bridge was a cost effective approach to crossing an area that would otherwise sink when loaded with a mass of heavier fill material.

The availability of this material for geotechnical engineering or engineering projects can solve some tricky problems where low density fill is needed. And an added benefit is the light weight for trucking gives it a better range for use as hauling costs per ton is no small thing. 

Work on The Rails Near Deming

Heading back from a rather nasty bit of weather today I noted the the rail line near Deming was getting some heavy duty maintenance. Lots of new ties and rails. I have to admit that the amount of drippage or bleeding from the new ties caught my attention. And like many Washington State residences, trains have been part of the news for the past few years with coal export trains passing through the state and oil rail cars supplying refineries in the State with oil from the new fields in North Dakota (oil-boom-in-western-north-dakota)

The EPA went through a round of assessing creosote treated products and requires registration but concluded given the risks versus benefits versus alternatives that creosote can continue to be used EPA Registration Eligibility for Creosote. Other products do not work as well or have other impacts that are undesirable. Other than following the issue due to some of the consulting work I do, I would only add that if one wants to get immersed in the subject of poly aromatic hydrocarbons in the environment there is plenty of reading.

From a geology perspective, I did notice this block of sandstone with what appears to be a shatter pattern related to a blasting near a rock cut the rail line passes through.

The rail line workers were hard at it along the siding and main line at Deming as I drove by. At the far end of the line of various equipment was a small rail car portable outhouse that can be seen at the far end of the line in the picture below.

West of Deming the new rail ties were being unloaded using a modified backhoe that clamps onto the container cars. My aim was bad as I drove by so I missed the suspended load in the picture.

With coal and oil transport taking up the main coastal line, BNSF appears to be investing in upgrading this line that essentially parallels Washington Highway 9 and follows the lower South Fork Nooksack River valley then leaves the Nooksack and heads toward Sumas and the Canadian border.

Cold day for the rail workers but better than post holing through snow and slush in the woods like I had been earlier.   

More on the Clay Banks/Nooksack Landslide

Below is a bit more background on the Clay Bank Landslide on the Nooksack River with a LiDAR image and a couple of older topographic maps. I had two previous posts on this slide and Dave Tucker has two posts as well a video of the slide and river area. Read it all at the links provided.

 

http://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2014/02/nooksack-river-temporarily-blocked-by.html

 

http://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2014/02/nooksack-river-blocking-landslide-notes.html

 

http://nwgeology.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/landslide-diverts-nooksack-river-near-deming-washington/

 

http://nwgeology.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/nooksack-river-lanslide-near-deming-an-update/

 

http://nwgeology.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/nooksack-river-landslide-update-2/

 

 

 

 

 

LiDAR from 2006

#1 is the slide area that was active from the late 1990s through 2010. A lobe of landslide debris can be seen protruding out onto the riparian area at the time of the image. The sharp bend in the former main channel aimed directly at the active slide area can be seen. By the time of the LiDAR image the river had shifted and the sharp levee lined bend was an abandoned channel.

#2 is the current most recent slide area. The LiDAR image is before the most recent sliding in this area. But one can seen that this location had previously had a large slide at some time in the past as there is a divot shaped area within the slide location. The latest slide that temporarily blocked the river was from a preexisting slide site that likely became reactivated from river erosion.

#3 is an older slide site. Of note on this slide area is that the size of the area is larger than the more recent Clay Bank failure sites.

All three of these slide areas are located within what have been mapped as ice-age glacial related sediments. Just upstream of the slides (to the right in the image) the geology changes to bedrock of the Chuckanut Formation.

I pulled up a USGS 1954 topographic map of the area.

Part of Lawrence Quadrangle 1954

 

The most recent slide area is just west of the section line between section 34 and section 35. The 1954 map shows that river was not hard up against the Clay Banks at the more recent slide sites, but had been as can be seen by the indicated old channel filled with water. The older slide area marked #3 on the LiDAR had the river hard up against it 1954.

 

The 1908 USGS topo indicates that that time river was hard against the most recent Clay Banks slide areas.

 

Sumas Topo (1908) arrow added to indicate the location of current slide area.

 

Note also that bluff slope to the east of the Section 35 number on the map appears to have shifted significantly between 1908 and 1954.

 

All in all the older maps show a very dynamic river and a history of active erosion along the Clay Banks. It seems reasonable to expect future significant slide events along this reach of river bluff. And with hard rock levees along much of the north side of the river preventing northward channel migration, the rate of Clay Banks erosion may be enhanced. 

Western Washington Snow Fences

Another Fraser outflow this weekend in the northwest corner of Washington State. The wind had arrived but the temperatures were still mild yesterday. I had a trip north to near the border and got to see some of the remnant snowscape from last Sunday's snow storm. Sort of like a trip to the plains only a lot closer.  

 

Snow drifts in the lee of tractors near Lynden

Northern Whatcom County may be the only place in western Washington that deploys snow fences.

One of several snow fences along Hannegan Road south of Lynden

Snow fences at the ball fields in Lynden

Sumas Mountain in the distance

 

A winter rainbow, dairy and corn stubble

BC Coast Range in the distance

Further Update on The Nooksack River/Clay Bank Landslide Via DT

Dave Tucker and a couple associates took a trip out to the Clay Banks landslide complex on the Nooksack River Thursday, and Dave put together some very good descriptions as well as some marked up photographs of the slide nooksack-river-landslide-update-2. In particular he notes the blocking slide came from the upper half of the bluff.
I had a couple of previous posts on this slide complex event (nooksack-river-temporarily-blocked and nooksack-river-blocking-landslide-notes).
I'll probably be revisiting this landslide in future posts, but in the mean time Dave's descriptions are an important point in time documentation of the slide. With the fresh exposures on the slide complex, it may be worth putting some effort into understanding the mechanics of this slide.
 

Seahawk Mask

Post updates via Dave (thanks) and Burke Museum

An Early Seahawk Fan

Came across this Pacific Northwest mask at the National Museum of the American Indian. The mask was made by coastal First Nations people in approximately 1890.

Juxtapose the positive incorporation of pride in Pacific Northwest heritage and the Seattle Seahawk image with the Washington Redskins is a bit jarring. Of course the naming of the teams and the logo development of the two teams were done generations apart. But sometimes it is best to let old traditions go away.

The Burcke Museum did some research on the Seahawk logo Searching for what inspired the Seahawk logo and the likely mask Mask that likely inspired Seahawks logo.

I do know that there is great pride in the Seattle Seahawks by Washington State First Nations. Marshawn Lynch, the Seattle running back of few words to the media enjoyed a First Nations' drum at the Superbowl celebration parade.