Post Fire Ridge South of Kennewick Notes

In the summer of 2017, a fire burned through grass land south of Kennewick (scrub-steppe-fire-near-kennewick). The fire was contained by previous existing roads and fast action by local fire fighters. Another fire started in the same area in the summer of 2018. Both days were hot, but the 2018 fire coincided with high winds and the result was a larger fire that jumped across roads including a state highway (with an assist fro burning paper from an illegal dump). The fire burned up onto the ridge on the south edge of Kennewick.

I noted that risk in 2017.

If the wind had been blowing this slope would have burned and posed a threat to the homes on the ridge crest.

Burned over area from the 2018 fire

This fire was primarily a grass fire, but still destroyed 5 homes as well as several other buildings. 

I took a walk along the ridge crest to assess what the ground looks like 8 months later.

View of Zintel Canyon

Kennewick is a rapidly growing city and has been growing rapidly for many years. The commercial centers have shifted well away from the downtown and has pushed south past the initial line of hills south of Kennewick.

The plastic screening on the fence around the water reservoir was melted. 

Somehow the perimeter of the this small ant mound makes for better grass growth.

The south side of the ridge has bedrock just below the surface. This primarily the result of high wind exposure that strips off soil. But there is a hint of periodic water erosion as well. 

Rocky ground

Alignment of basalt rocks on slope

These stringers of rocky ground are more prevalent on longer and steeper slopes throughout eastern and central Washington. This south slope has barely developed these features. The features form from rather rare heavy summer down pours.

There is also an interesting anthropogenic feature on the south slope.

Metal buckets partially filled with rocks and attached to barbed wire

The buckets were formerly attached to wood fence posts to help keep them anchored in place on the rocky ground that was also subject to high winds. The fence posts and cattle are no more.

The burned over area took out the patches of sage brush that were beginning to reestablish on the ridge

Replacement power pole. Within the former sage area, the fire burned hotter and longer and took down power poles 

Not a fire related phenomenon, but erosion along dirt roads is an issue. These road follow a natural gas transmission line route and a high voltage electric transmission line. The roads are just north of the crest of the ridge and underlain by thick silt related to the ice age floods that covered portions of the ridge when flood waters briefly formed a huge lake above Wallula Gap (ice-age-floods-dem-and-lake-lewis). 

The actions of gophers beneath the snow that covered this area over the winter could be seen.

These ridges of soil are a common feature in snowy areas, but it is the first time I have seen them here. Typically this area gets very little snow - its warmer than most other areas east of the Cascades, but also has very low precipitation. But this winter the snow accumulation was well over a foot and stayed on the ground for a long time.

I was curious if the snow melt caused any erosion on the steep north side of the ridge above the homes that have tucked up directly below.

Despite the complete burn off of vegetation and record snow I did not observe any surface water erosion on the steep slopes. These silt soils can hold a lot of water.

Life is coming back in the burn area. These silty soils and north aspect have all sorts of plants that go past my limited botanical knowledge base.

I did recognize lupine

An early bloomer

While water erosion is not present, wheels and wind erode deeply in these silt soils

I used to know the specific species of beetle, but it leaked out of my head. 

This beetle was on a mission

As noted above, the ridge was briefly covered by water during the larger ice age floods. Those floods carried blocks of ice from the north and rocks were embedded in the ice. Hence, ice age glacial erratics are present on the ridge.

The frequency and intensity of wildfires has increased in the scrub steppe of this area. So much so that the sage brush habitat has declined. The presence of cheat grass has increased the recurrence of fires and how burned areas recover.

Just outside the burn area, there is an intact sage covered landscape. It is surrounded by roads and development and thus the large fire was not able to get into this sage stand. 

Ouch: Tribulus terrastris

I had project on the east side of the Cascade Range that involved some soil sampling to assess fill soils and underlying native soils on a site. The green grass on a sunny spring day looked like a soft easy project.

After a bit of digging I knelt on the grass to gather up some soil samples and label the sampling containers. I felt a few pokes through my pants that I initially assumed to be Russian thistles (tumble weeds) which are prevalent in areas with disturbed ground. However, when I reached the pavement with samples and equipment in hand, I found I had a coating of woody thorns on my shoe bottoms.

The hard woody thorns are from Tribulus terrastris. 
(https://www.nwcb.wa.gov/weeds/puncturevine)
The common name for this plant varies, but on this day the name puncturevine seemed applicable.

Sat on the curb and pulled the thorns out of my shoes. I gathered the seeds and put them in a bag for later burning. I did not want to spread this non native plant anymore than it already has. 

   

Tala Point Boulders and Either a Large Erratic or Outcrop

Tala Point is at the north end of a large drumlin ridge that divides entrances to Port Ludlow and Hood Canal. The topographic map indicates boulders at the point.

Indeed, the tip of Tala Point is covered with boulders.

Tala Point. Foulweather Bluff is on the right across the Hood Canal entrance. On the left is Double Bluff on Whidbey Island. The water between Foulwather Bluff and Double Bluff is the entrance to Puget Sound. 

I assumed the boulders at Tala Point were derived from glacial erratics from the eroding glacial drift  of the bluff. However, a closer look shows that this boulders are simply blocks of hard drift.

  
East and south of the point, erosion is much slower and the bluff slope is tree covered and the beach is a broad sandy beach.

However, just off shore is a very large glacial erratic boulder or Is it an isolated bedrock outcrop?  

If this isolated rock is an erratic it is truly immense. It is hard to gauge in the picture above without any scale, but using a GIS tool in an aerial view, the rock is 45 feet long. 

The other possibility is it is an isolated bedrock outcrop. That idea is supported by the geology map of the area combined with the bathymetry on the map.

Geologic Map of the Port Ludlow and Southern Half of the Hansville 7.5-minute Quadrangles, Kitsap and Jefferson Counties, Washington (Polenz, Favia, Hubert, Paulín, and Cakir, 2015)

The question of erratic versus boulder may or may not be readily solvable. If the rock is not Crescent Formation, then it would be an erratic. However, if it is Crescent it could be an outcrop or an erratic that was not transported very far. 

  

Penn Cove, Oregon Donation Land Claim Act

Doing a bit of deep dive into history for a project on Whidbey Island, I noted the RH Lansdale Claim on the northwest side of Penn Cove. Many of the land claims on Whidbey Island were from the Donation Land Claim Act passed by Congress in 1850.

The Land Claim Act had several goals. One was to resolve the 640-acre claims of land that were made under an 1843 act by the Oregon Provisional Government. The provisional government in Oregon was set up before the Oregon Country dispute between Great Britain and the United States was resolved and applied to American citizens in the Oregon Country - essentially the Willamette valley. To some extent the earliest American settlers were squatters on land claimed by Great Britain and the United States and never mind the Indians.

The Act was more than retroactive in recognizing the provisional government act claims, it also allowed claims up to 1854. This brought a rush of Americans west to the Oregon Country including what later became Washington State. The intent may have been to encourage Americans to Oregon to limit other land claims. It also set up an Indian war in southern Oregon. The Act also had a provision to work out treaties with the Indians of the Oregon Territory. But given the overlay of time of allowing claims without treaties in place was a recipe for trouble and in part rushed the treaty process in a manner that leads to all sorts of What ifs?

The Act very likely brought RH Lansdale to Penn Cove. Lansdale is credited with naming Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island. And the small settlement of Coveland near or on his claim became the first County Seat.

Lansdale did not stay long at Penn Cove. He took a job as an Indian agent in eastern Washington in 1854. He attended the the Walla Walla Treaty in 1855 and later became the Indian agent at the Yakama Indian Reservation after the Yakama War. He was removed from that post abruptly in 1861. 

Counting Pebbles in the Olympia-Age Sediment

A recent shallow landslide on a steep Whidey Island bluff had stripped off all the vegetation and top soil from the slope providing a good exposure of the underlying geology units.  

Most of the bluff at this slide site is underlain by non glacial sediments that were deposited prior to the last glacial period. The non glacial sediments consist of alluvial sediments with layers of silt, sand and gravel as well as peat - the peat being a strong indicator of a non glacial environment. The non glacial sediments are likely Olympia-age (60,000 years to 20,000 years). The sediments are very compact and hard due to having been compressed by approximately 4,000 feet of ice during the last glacial period. As such the sediments can hold a very steep slope for long periods of time. The hard freeze and then rapid snow melt in February played a role in being final trigger for this slide. 

Near the base of the slope I observed a sand and gravel layer. Even though this unit has been compacted by the over riding glacial ice as well as an unknown thickness of sediment before the ice arrival, the unit lacks silt and clay and thus I was able to easily collect some sand and gravel. 

The most dominant pebbles in the gravel were irregular lumps of quartzite.
  

The conglomerate in the base of the Chuckanut Formation some 20 miles northeast of this site is full of similar pebbles. The quartzite pebbles in the base of the Chuckanut are derived from weathered Darrington Phyllite. The rivers that deposited the Chuckanut eroded weathered phyllite and concentrated the hard resistant quatzite into gravel deposits which became the basal conglomerate of the Chuckanut Formation approximately 54 million years ago.

The pebbles in the Olympia-age sediments can be viewed as geologic history repeating itself. A river system eroded the Darrington Phyllite and carried these hard resistant pebbles westward. There would have been no Skagit Bay between what is now Whidbey Island and the Skagit River. The Skagit River likely extended well to the west before the last glacial period removed much of the large alluvial plain that would have extended out from the Cascades to the west.     

Sea Otter Off the Quimper Peninsula

The northern shore of the Quimper Peninsula consists of steep bluffs rising sharply above the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Approaching the edge of the bluffs along this shore reach is always a bit of a thrill and there is always the reward of a great view. 

Protection Island

North shore of Miller Peninsula with Olympic Mountains in distance

     

Steep drop to the beach below

If the above picture is blown up large you might be able to spot the two seals. Zooming in with the camera better captures our bird's eye view of the seals patrolling the coast.   

Later in the day while on the beach I noted an otter as well as a seal.

Otter is near and seal in the distance

This otter exhibited different behavior than the typical otters I am accustomed to. Typically river otters will lift their heads up high and stare at me either out of curiosity or making sure I am not trouble. This otter appeared to pay no attention to us. It also seemed a bit large for a river otter. The otter then did something river otters do not do. It floated on its back.

The otter was just far enough away that it was hard to get a definitive look, but I am fairly confident this was a sea otter. There is a fairly stable population on the outer coast after reintroduction and the slow recovery of the species after being hunted to near extinction for their thick fur.

Sato (2018) (wdfw.wa.gov/publications) notes that the occasional sightings of sea otters are reported in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and even rare sightings within Puget Sound. This is the first time I have seen one. This particular shore reach has a rich platform below the water with bull kelp. The underlying geology is a factor. The platform is underlain by boulder-rich Possession glacial till (more on that in a future post) that provides a rocky substrate. 

Mayview Tram, Snake River, ca. 1935

Mark had a request to use a picture I posted on the remains of the Mayview Tramway, a wheat tram above the Snake River (Getting the Wheat to the River). He

Mark alerted to a video of the Mayview Tramway in action. There is  write up on the tram at historylink.