A Surprise Achievement: The Manasquan Reservoir in New Jersey

This morning, I was checking snow levels on Route 9 and there it was, the MANASQUAN RESERVOIR, just as we designed it when I was a grad student finishing up at Rutgers, New Brunswick!

I was the field geologist on the project, and still have the maps.  The greatest concern was leakage through the sand and gravel of the Kirkwood Formation (The geologic age escapes me, maybe Pliocene).  

The floor was a problem that we solved by drilling a few deep wells.  It was the greenish silty clay of the Manasquan Formation and we found that it would work well to contain the water.

I had a mentor, Dennis Lachelle, from Jenny Geotechnical out of West Orange.  He came out to the field one day, comfortable in his air conditioned car.  It was 100 degrees and I was lying under the drilling rig out in the middle of the proposed floor of the reservoir, getting out of the sun.  He thought it was pretty funny when there was a stirring in the brush and I got out from under the rig.

The Manasquan Reservoir? I did that!

Old cross-sections to come.

DETROIT RANGER DISTRICT, OREGON

Revisiting a Favorite Forest Haunt

The Cascade Mountain Range of Oregon is carpeted with a National Forest that is broken up into management areas called Ranger Districts.  I had the privilege of serving as a contract worker on a district that lies east of Salem, Oregon in 1997 and 1998.  The following link is to a map of some of the remarkable features that are so attractive about the Detroit Ranger District. The land is remarkable for its ruggedness and beauty.  Detroit is a favorite stopping point for travelers from the Willamette Valley who are taking the three hour automobile ride to "the other side", the tourist towns of Sisters, Redmond and Bend.  In their long trip, they climb almost 5000 feet in elevation from Salem (elev. 200 feet) over the Range (Santiam Pass is 4800 feet) and down to the Deschutes River valley (elevation 3200 feet).  In doing so, the travelers pass between sleeping and inactive strato-volcanoes that have been gouged by alpine glacier ice. 

Here is a link to a map of some of the sites and pull-offs in the District:  

One Man's Sites in the Detroit Ranger District, Oregon