Geological Spots in Salem, Oregon

Some local residents and travelers, who ride through the Willamette Valley, like to know the context of the earth that they are passing over.  This blog entry is my offering of "spots" that I enjoy revisiting and reconsidering in my home area of Salem, Oregon.  My place is in the middle of the north-to-south Willamette Valley in western Oregon.  In this area, people look to the south and west at basalt hills.  These hills were hot lava flows at a time well before The Ice Age.  The flows cooled and become "rock hard" and then were tilted up, by long-distance earth forces. These jostling forces came from the Pacific oceanic plate rubbing counter-clockwise against North America (Sort of a great "upper cut", but as punches go,....very slow).  To the east is the distant skyline of the Cascade Mountain Range. That horizon includes stratovolcanoes that tower another 6000 feet above the mountain forests.

This map shows my geological spots around Salem. The spots include:

• Rock faces that show distinct layering (I explain these on the interactive map)
• Overlooks where you can pull over on secondary paved roads and get a long view
• Places to get maps and sketchbooks
• Local sites like Parks and the State Capitol, where there is a climb up to the dome
• An outdoor store 
• My watering hole (for Oregon microbrew)

You can get coffee to go or to stay in, if you want to size up our citizenry. Local or national brew houses are within a few city blocks of the Map store.

At the viewpoints, you can drop the Google Maps little person icon on the roadway and look off into the Cascades, over the Willamette Valley of across the road at some rock faces.  I recommend looking at the roadside near Stayton, Oregon.

Here is the link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z8BCD0wMZe7k.kY5JZvCPNx4s

Richard W. Faas; A Good Guy, Now Gone

Richard W. Faas:  A Tribute

Dick Faas passed away, sort of by surprise, on September 19, 2014.  When I talked to my mentor and friend, he was dealing with a new health wrinkle that he planned to endure while finishing another paper about sedimentology.

Faas, didn't teach as much as "INFECT" young people with the wonder of his field trips and his stories. Geology is storytelling about outdoor explorations with stock embellishments of data tables, maps and cross-sections.  I remember him showing our group outcroppings of limestone, shale and very hard sandstone ("This is the Oriskany Sandstone!") and he stood down in the bottom of a glacial outwash basin, looking up at us, as if to beg for our comprehension. The ice sheet was gone, but the melt water moving under it had dug that basin out. We were cold, shivering, but this was the "stuff of real living" to me.  Right then and there, I wanted to be a geologist.

Roll the film of time a little further, and Faas is taking me on a field trip to witness plastic silt.  The two of us have on diving masks, snorkels, swimming gear and sneakers. We are in a gravel quarry pond out in front of a gravel washing flume. Dick has already shared the cautionary tale of dead fishermen wrapped up against the side of the gravel pit, lifeless, underwater in their fishing line."Watch out for monofilament!" ..Shudder.  Now, watch how we can make this blanket of mud undulate!  I learned something that day, 'If you can't build a flume, get a mask and snorkel and visit a river. I spent a lot of time in small rivers gliding on the surface and looking down. Later, to study sand dune structures that were buried 10,000 feet down in a Montana oil field, I drove 200 miles to a dune buggy recreation area in Oklahoma and borrowed a ride on a sand rail. The dune cut-away pictures looked just like the Montana core and I had made my own discovery.

Throughout his days, Dick was always interested, always encouraging.  I am glad that I knew him. Thanks, Dr. Faas!

Of Shield Volcanoes and The Curse of the Elevens

Geology is an important factor in Golf Course design.  Golfers cannot be bored and a large part of enjoying a round is the scenery.  Within a few hours of the Portland metropolitan area are two good golf courses, tucked up against the Cascade Mountain Range.

I choose Elkhorn Golf Course in Gates, Oregon that is reached by a steep paved climb over a mountain ridge from State Highway 22 and Mallard Creek Golf Course near Lebanon.  Each course owes its challenge to the steep sides of volcanic rock that is part of the Western Cascades.  These "Cascades" were the first north -to- south band of volcanoes that was fed by subduction of the Pacific Plate under North America.  The volcano line shifted a little more than 2 million years ago to the present line of stratovolcanoes that accent the present Cascade skyline. The renewed uplift steepened the river courses of the Western Cascades, again, meaning that golfers ought to forget following lost golf balls into river channels.  The banks are too steep.

Still, the Western Cascades are causing problems for golfers.  There are many holes with water hazards at Elkhorn, that golfers would hope to forget, because fairways are cut be water, and occupied by ponds and swamps.  A posted question at the rustic pro shoppe asks, "Do you have enough balls to play Elkhorn"? The rolling steepness of "The Back Nine" at Mallard Creek offers some interesting and sometimes frustrating challenges.

Two daunting challenges are the 11th holes of each of these two courses.

You have to loft the ball to "bomb" the green on the 11th hole at Mallard Creek, otherwise the ball trickles off the green and ends up in a pot bunker.  Just lift the ball and add a stroke if that happens.  At Elkhorn, No. 11 has 180 yards of water, and you need a long drive.  The wait to clear the hazard is very suspenseful. More often that not, you have lost one of your better golf balls, in the water, just off the edge of the green. Almost,....NOT quite!

Each hole has its rewards at this time of year.  You can look off across the valley at Mallard Creek, drop another ball and try, again.  Pretend that you are "Tin Cup".  "Take the shot!".  At No. Eleven, you can hang your head in frustration, and walk 80 yards to the drop area, just across a short arm of the water hazard and club an eight iron onto the narrow green. Take a moment to admire the turning alder, the fortress-like Elkhorn Mountain with the white bleached trunks from an old forest fire above you, or look listlessly over your left shoulder at House Mountain.  Welcome to the Western Cascades.

Locates? LOCATES?!.."I don't care about no stinking' LOCATES!

A Norman, Oklahoma caterer wanted to fix up his new house and to entertain University of Oklahoma clients.  Roger planned to hold back the Great Plains wind and screen his place from the noise and bustle of Interstate Route 35 traffic. He asked his geologist neighbor, John, to help him build him build a nice wood fence.  John said, "Sure Thing!" and they fell to the task with enthusiasm.

The fence line went on the opposite side of a new sidewalk from another, as yet undeveloped, paved and curbed road in the subdivision. They had a power auger and popped out about forty post holes. Every so-often, they hit what felt like a root. John said, "I think its a hard silt layer", and they dug ahead without much any more concern.

That afternoon, the local phone company was looking in the line of holes. With an uneasy feeling, John went over to see what was happening.  The foreman said, "Someone just cut our fiber-optic cable in 30 places". John knew how expensive these cables could be and apologized profusely, saying, "It's all my fault, I thought it was hard pan". The foreman knew that he had his guy, but let John off.  Roger and he didn't have to pay for the broken cable.

This happened many years ago, before other drilling experiences drove home the same lesson. Know where to dig.  Call 811, first and use Locates Services if you can. You will save embarrassment, your money and  possibly, your life.

A Public Service Link
http://www.call811.com/how-811-works/safe-digging.aspx