Puget Sound: The Movie

Ralph Haugerud and Harvey Greenburg have improved their movie of the last 20,000 years in Puget Sound. I may play around with some screen shots to provide a few other comments as time permits.

Seattle Water Front: The Movie

It can be a bit mind bending to look at a landscape today and realize just how altered it is from the original. Such is the case in Seattle as well as numerous other coastal communities along the shores of the Salish Sea. The Burke Gillman Museum has put together a remarkable on line exhibit of the shaping of the Seattle shoreline http://www.burkemuseum.org/waterlines/. The exhibit includes a You Tube video as well.

While the history and changes are interetsing, this type of historical work can be very important to geologists and engineers. In my own work, the most complex geology-like map with multiple cross-sections I ever produced was at a water front fill site. Entire mappable units of various fill materials. Good historic information and old maps can be critical for understanding development projects in urban areas. 

Taking Out the Trash

In case you missed this video that is making the rounds. More than the hilarity of the experiment, it shows that alteration of the composition of a magma is rather reactive.

Western Washington Has Cactus

I knew that there were cactus locations in western Washington, but until this week I had never seen the rare for western Washington plant Opuntia fragilis. I would have missed this one all together except Todd had seen it on a previous trip to the same area and he had seen it only because someone had place drift wood around the plant to either protect it or mark its location.

Opuntia fragilis

I have heard of other cacti sites on the south side of Lopez Island, the west shore of central Whidbey Island and at Dungeness Spit. All of these sites share being located within the Olympic Mountain rain shadow and all are on well exposed dry sites. The same species is found in eastern Washington and up into the dry interior areas of British Columbia. I have encountered on the east side more often stepping into a patch - a rather unpleasant experience in light shoes.

This particular very small patch is located on a dry south facing slope on Decatur Island within an area of rock outcrops, grass covered slopes and a mix of Douglas fir and Gary oak. This particular species is very common in other areas of the dry west and is not much bothered by cold weather with a range well up into northern Alberta.

Gloom and Brightness in the San Juans

With the combination of our June gloom, heavy rain, fog and taking a new route into the San Juans, I was a bit confused about particular islands - good thing I wasn't the captain.

Decatur

Cypress

Decatur Head

East shore of Decatur

Fortunately the weather improved and I got to see more than just shades of gloom and got the the nice tourist brochure views as well.

Viee of pass between Decatur and Lopez with Gary oak and Douglas fir



Smallest School in the World

The smallest school in the country at the moment is a school K-8 school with only one student. This size can not be beat. 

Decatur School

Decatur School interior

The Decatur School is a Public School in the Lopez School District and is located on Decatur Island. It is one of 10 or 11 schools deemed by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction as a "remote and necessary" school. The school was built in 1980; the previous school building is still on the island. The school population has declined in recent years as students have graduated and no new students have arrived. High school students must take a boat across to Lopez Island to attend high school. The school hopes that new families with students will arrive. An on going problem on a smallish island with no public transportation access.

Robin Wells And Washington State Whooping Cough

  

Watch Krugman's Solution to Fiscal Stimulus? It Involves Aliens on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

 

At about 6:20 in Robin Wells makes reference to a article about Washington State. I suspect the article may have been whooping-cough-epidemic-hits-washington-state. The economic situation is having lasting impacts.