Orcas Island Non Work Visit

I took a non work trip to Orcas Island. The way I figured it, this was my first non work related trip to Orcas in over 20 years. One of the perks of my geology work. That said, I took Lisa to some of my favorite sites on the island. Places I have visited while having a bit of extra time on the island before getting to the ferry. 

 

Crescent Beach on the upper end of East Sound

crescent-beach-orcas-island-madrones

 

With a very low tide we had an appreciation of the richness of the tide flats and the deep history of the site. The boulders on the east end of the beach are glacial erratics eroded out of the glacial marine drift that once covered the area. The mass of glacial ice had pushed the land surface hundreds of feet below its current level and sea water with floating glacial ice covered the lower portions of the island during the late stages of the last glacial period.

Crow Valley from Turtleback Mountain

gnarly-firs-and-favorite-oak

rarest-forest-in-western-washington

 

The hike up to the ridge of Turtleback is a bit steep and starts out rather woodsy, but this has become a favorite place and it was nice to get Lisa up there. Lots of ecosystem and forestry to discuss and then the great views of islands and water and Crow Valley with hedge rows. The bedrock is Turtleback Complex, a very ancient Devonian age island arc intrusive complex.

 

Bellingham on the waters edge from Mount Constitution on the summit of Orcas.

Small lake in the foreground is one of the Twin Lakes

We had great views from the summit peak of Orcas. We can see the summit from our house. It is fun to look in reverse. It was a bit chilly - 46 F with wind.

I tried not to be too obsessive about juniper trees (catching-up-with-juniperus-maritima), but I did find I am getting very good at spotting them. I noted several just east of Orcas Landing during an after dinner walk. The junipers are doing OK.

Juniperus maritima

Remembering

This post failed to get posted back at the end of May. I sort of take Memorial Day seriously and am of the view all war vets should get Veteran's day off while the rest of us work.

I have some work coming up that will take me near some of the bloodiest Washington State battle sites that will be worth a post or two time permitting.

"The next day, I was asked by the people from the graves registration to direct them around the previous day's battle so they could pick up dead Americans. It was not a very pleasant job." - William McShane.

Washington Geology Film Clips

Nick Zenter and Tom Foster have put together a series of short geology film clips. Fun stuff and worth taking a look at with lots of good stuff from central Washington as well as some areas.  http://www.youtube.com/user/hugefloods. I have stumbled across their videos before. One of my favorites is the short clip on palagonite which can be seen in road cuts near Vantage, WA.

And if your going to be checking out short clips on Washington's landscapes I still love watching this one from a different era on Lake Lenore.

 

Landslide and Mud Event on the Nooksack

Nooksack River at Hannegan Road Bridge, Lynden, Washington

The Nooksack typically is not ths muddy this time of year, so I suspect the mud was the result of a very large landslide and mud flow into the river in the headwaters of the Middle Fork on Mount Baker AERIAL VIEW.

Dave Tucker has been covering and acting as a conduit for the recent big landslide and debris flow off of Mount Baker into the Middle Fork Nooksack River. For those not linked into Dave's great work:

 http://nwgeology.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/more-on-middle-fork-nooksack-debris-flow/
and http://mbvrc.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/large-debris-flow-in-middle-fork-nooksack-river-may-31-2013/
and http://mbvrc.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/update-nooksack-debris-flow-initiated-by-landslide-not-outburst-flood/
In addtion Steph Abegg has some aerial images http://www.stephabegg.com/home/photography/aerial/36.

Tala Point Part I: Advancing Shorelines, Boat Ruins and Iron

I had a small project to assess at Ludlow Bay in Jefferson County. With a low tide and mostly sunshine combined with other site work having been done I allowed my curiosity to propel me along the shore to Tala Point as I had not previously made that shoreline trek. AERIAL VIEW. All together I hiked about 4 miles of beach. So a few notes from the hike broken into parts.

The first thing that generated curiosity was a low bank area of peat soils that was being eroded and encroached on by the sandy beach.

Organic soils eroded and encroached.

There are a number of possible explanations. Perhaps it was an estuary that had previously been protected by a spit, or the organic layer was the result of woody material placed as fill during early settlement days or more exiting there is some tectonic process at work here causing this bit of shore to subside or it could be a spot where sea level rise is a bit more evident or (lots of ors) a combination of the alternatives.

A bit further on I came across some western red cedars that suggests the beach and hence relative water levels may be rising.

Cedar at the top part of the beach

Cedar stump (the stump appeared to be in place and not drift wood)

Looking north towards Tala point

Net shore drift is towards the the picture taker as can be seen by sand built up behind log across the beach.

The next curiosity was what I thought might be some hard sediment or bedrock forming a platform along the shoreline. Instead it turned out to be the last remnants of a wooden ship.

Wooden ship ruins with port Ludlow resort in distance across the bay.

A shore feature I have seen before but is still always a curiosity and in this case was rather spectacular is iron precipitation on the beach surface.

Superficially the iron precipitation appears like it may be blobs of oil or fuel

But on a close look note the cracked surface of the iron (and possibly manganese) precipitation surface

A broader view of the close up from above

This stretch of shore had a broad filled former shoreline estuary behind the beach. The fill was at least partially natural, but given the history of the area and the ships some of the fill may have been anthropogenic. As groundwater passes slowly through the organic zone the oxygen is depleted and iron and other metals dissolve and are mobilized. When the water reaches the surface at the beach the oxygen in the air causes the metals to precipitate creating a mirror like surface that looks at first glance like the interference and sheen like effect of oil.

Washington Navy

Washington State has a very large military presence. I got a terrific view of a bit of that presence while riding the ferry from Port Townsend to Keystone, Whidbey Island. We passed though a convoy of naval ships. 

The first ship was coming out of Puget Sound and turning towards Indian Island where it would presumably take on a load of munitions from the Indian Island Weapons Depot (indian-island-jefferson-county and indian-island-us-supreme-court-case.

 

A nuclear submarine with escorts on either side was powering up the sound towards us from the south.

The Coast Guard escort made a quick pass in our wake perhaps to make sure no one had thrown anything overboard into the path of the sub.

This bit of water at the entrance to Puget Sound has always been a military area. As we approached Whidbey Island I had a view of a no longer operable part of our military history - a former gun emplacement at the former Fort Ebbey that was part of the "triangle of fire" protecting the entrance to Puget Sound. It would seem our navy is so superior, the triangle of fire is no longer needed.

Movement of Youth

No inspiration on Washington landscapes this morning - I have been reading economic stuff the-movement-of-people-(and-its-consequences).

Years ago Lisa and I were staying in a small Greek village. We had power for one hour and no running water. A construction project required the crushing of rock for the concrete aggregate - the crushing was done with a sledge hammer.

On our last day, we were invited to breakfast by the woman that owned the little home we stayed in. She did not speak English and our Greek was minimal and the dialect was impossible. But she wanted to show us something. She pulled some papers out - they were diplomas. One was an advance degree from MIT. All of her children had left to do great things.

Reading the-movement-of-people reminded me of that long ago breakfast. The youth of Europe are on the move again and there will be long term consequences. I saw the whole community differently afterwards. It is something to consider during hard economic times. And finally it does appear in parts of our own state's landscapes. Where did the people go and how were the choices to leave confronted.