7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2015
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
Fault helps
tell history
oI 3aFi¿F
Northwest
By BENNETT HALL
Corvallis Gazette-Times
CORVALLIS — On a re-
cent sunny afternoon, a small
knot of retired geologists and
soil scientists stood beside a
road cut in northwest Corvallis
having an argument.
The exposed hillside above
them, just across Walnut Boule-
vard from the Timberhill Shop-
ping Center, was mostly light-
brown dirt and sandstone, with
chunks of dark-colored rock
mixed in.
Bob Lillie, a former Oregon
State University geology pro-
fessor, pulled several rolled-up
diagrams out of a map tube and
began pointing out various rock
formations while the others
leaned in to look.
Phil Sollins, whose specialty
at OSU was forest ecosystems
and soils, quickly lost patience.
“Let’s look at the rocks,” he sug-
gested. Then he charged up the
hill and started whacking away
at an outcrop with the business
end of a claw hammer.
Ralph Nafziger, a geochem-
ist who worked at the U.S. Bu-
reau of Mines in Albany, and
Courtney Cloyd, an ex-Forest
Service geologist, were hard on
his heels, and a slightly disgrun-
tled Lillie followed after rolling
up his maps. Soon everyone
was peering at Sollins’ newly
collected sample, wrangling
over crystalline structure and
trying to decide if they were
looking at basalt or gabbro.
Geology can be like that.
The earth reveals itself in small
glimpses, often in ways that
are ambiguous, if not down-
right confusing. That can be
especially true in places like
the Corvallis Fault, a half-mile-
wide swath that runs along the
boundary between the Oregon
Coast Range and the Willa-
mette Valley.
“It’s a chaotic zone,” Lillie
said. “It’s jumbled.”
And that’s precisely what
makes it so interesting to geolo-
gists: This unassuming little rift
in the earth’s crust marks the
spot where titanic forces have
come together to shape this part
of the world, and will continue
to shape it in the future. Though
it’s not an active fault, it’s a
Andy Cripe/The Corvallis Gazette-Times
This piece of vesicular basalt was found at a road cut near Northwest Highland Drive
and Lewisburg Road in Corvallis. Four retired scientists were retracing the route laid
out in “Field Guide to the Geology of Corvallis and Vicinity, Oregon,” a scientific paper
published in 1977 that remains the standard work on the subject.
rich repository of evidence that
helps to tell the tale of how the
Paci¿c Northwest came to be.
Earlier this month, the four
retired scientists toured the
fault zone, looking for clues to
the region’s geological history.
They were following a route
laid out nearly four decades
ago in “Field Guide to the Ge-
ology of Corvallis and Vicini-
ty, Oregon,” a scienti¿c paper
written by R.D. Lawrence
and three colleagues from the
OSU geology department. The
monograph was published in
the April 1977 edition of The
Ore Bin, the newsletter of the
Oregon Department of Geolo-
gy and Mineral Industries, and
is still considered the standard
work on the subject.
Each stop on the tour
opened a fascinating window
on the past.
,FH DJH ÀRRGLQJ
The trek began at Avery
Park, where the meandering
Marys River pools into a pop-
ular swimming hole.
Low summer Àows have
exposed a section of riverbed
composed of baseball-sized
cobbles, rounded and smoothed
by centuries of Àowing water
and cemented together in a ma-
trix of sandstone. Lillie specu-
lated these rocks might be part
of a formation known as the
Linn gravels, eroded fragments
of the Cascades that were
washed down into what is now
the Willamette Valley between
28,000 and 36,000 years ago.
Just above this layer, the riv-
erbank is made of ¿ne-grained
silt. It’s an even more recent
deposit, laid down in one of the
most dramatic episodes in the
region’s history: the Missoula
Floods.
Toward the end of the last
ice age, a lobe of the conti-
nental ice sheet creeping down
from Canada would periodical-
ly block the Clark Fork of the
Columbia River, impounding
enormous volumes of water in
a virtual inland sea geologists
call Glacial Lake Missoula.
But ice dams are inherently
unstable structures, and this
one would burst every century
or so, sending an estimated 50
cubic miles of water roaring to-
ward the Paci¿c.
Forty or more such Àoods
occurred over several thousand
years and shaped the North-
west’s topography in dramatic
ways, such as scouring out the
rugged Channeled Scablands
region of eastern Washington.
When the wall of water hit a
sharp bend in the Columbia at
Portland’s West +ills, the Àow
would back up into the Wil-
lamette Valley as far south as
Eugene, submerging all but the
highest hills for days at a time.
“The ice dam would break
in Montana and bring in 300
feet of water up the Willamette
Valley,” Lillie said. “Imagine
that: 300 feet of water in the
Willamette Valley.”
When the Àoodwaters re-
ceded, they left behind a gift: a
deep layer of silt that is largely
responsible for the valley’s far-
famed fertility.
:KHUH SODWHV FROOLGH
In a strange reversal of the
usual order of things, driving
uphill from the river on Kings
Boulevard brings the group to
far older geological formations.
At the road cut just north of
Walnut, everybody piles out of
Sollins’ van for a peek inside
the Corvallis Fault.
Here can be seen several of
the major ingredients of the re-
gion’s geology, all jumbled to-
gether: the Siletz River Volca-
nics, a type of basalt formed in
ocean-Àoor eruptions some 55
million years ago; Tyee Sand-
stone, a layer of compressed
marine sediments that dates
back about 41 million years
(there’s also a slightly younger
layer of marine sandstone in
the region known as the Spen-
cer Formation); and intrusions
of gabbro, a volcanic rock that
started out as underground
magma and rose toward the
surface between 30 million and
35 million years ago.
How did all these different
kinds of rocks get here? And
why are they mixed together in
unexpected ways?
The answer, as Lillie explains
in “Beauty from the Beast,” his
just-published book on North-
west geology, is plate tectonics.
Here’s the short version:
The earth’s crust is not a sol-
id, spherical shell but rather
an assemblage of plates that ¿t
together like mammoth puzzle
pieces, Àoating atop a semisolid
layer called the mantle. Driven
by heat rising up from deep
within the earth, different plates
move in different directions;
here in the Paci¿c Northwest,
a slice of oceanic crust known
as the Juan de Fuca Plate is
running head-on into the North
American Plate.
Oceanic crust tends to be
heavier than continental crust,
so for the most part the Juan de
Fuca Plate is diving beneath the
North American Plate in a pro-
cess called subduction. Over
the last 200 million years, this
process has been responsible
for creating most of what we
know as Oregon, Washington
and British Columbia, adding
millions of acres of land to a
continental margin that used to
end somewhere in the vicinity
of Idaho.
As the oceanic crust bur-
rowed deeper under the conti-
nent, heat and pressure squeezed
out the moisture content, send-
ing superheated water upward
to melt portions of the continen-
tal crust, which erupted at the
surface and created the volcanic
Cascade Range. The most re-
cent example occurred just 35
years ago, when Mount St. Hel-
ens exploded in a tremendous
blast that killed 57 people and
lopped more than 1,000 feet off
the top of the peak.
And in some cases, the orig-
inal geologic sequence is re-
versed. The hills northwest of
the Corvallis Fault, outriders of
the Coast Range, are a good ex-
ample of this mixed-up process.
“The hills are being thrust
over, the hard material is being
shoved over the sediment,” Lil-
lie said.
TIMBERLANDS CLOSED
DUE TO HIGH FIRE DANGER
E ffective im m ed ia tely, the
Lew is & C la rk Tim b erla n d s
a re closed to a ll pu blic en try a n d w ill rem a in
in effect u n til fu rther n otice.
F or u p-to-d a te in form a tion
plea se ca ll ou r
REC REATION AL
HOTLIN E
5 03 -73 8-63 5 1 Ex t. 2
TIMBERLANDS CLOSED
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The successful candidate will also
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Barber, part time experienced clipper
cutter. (503)298-9166
Billʼs Tavern and Brewhouse
is now hiring PT/FT line cooks, and
bussers/dishwashers must be
available nights and weekends.
(503)436-2202 or pick up
application at 188 N. Hemlock,
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BUSY ASTORIA HOTEL
HIRING FULL TIME
YEAR ROUND
NIGHT AUDITOR
Will train the right personality.
Holidays and weekends required.
Holiday Inn Express Astoria
204 West Marine Drive
sales@astoriahie.com
Clatsop Community Action (CCA),
a non-profit agency, seeks PT (25
hr.. per week)
MAINTENANCE WORKER
Responsible for 22 Hilltop Apt units.
Minor repairs; renovates vacated
apartments and prepares units for
re-occupancy. Requires:
HS diploma; knowledge, skills, and
abilities to perform standard
maintenance repairs. 2-5 years
maintenance experience, valid
driverʼs license/good driving
record. Wage DOE.
Closes 8/4/15. Obtain application
at CCA 364 9th street, Astoria
OR. (503)325-1400. Submit
application to CCA Attn.: Director.
CCA info at
www.ccaservices.org
Must pass background and drug
screen. CCA is an EOE
Bookkeeper
immediate Full-time G/L Bookkeeper
for an Accounting office.
Knowledge of computers useful.
Tax capability a strong plus.
Send resume to
mack@pacifier.com
mail to PO Box 54,
Seaside, OR 97138,
or (503)738-9543 for interview
Clatsop Community Action (CCA),
a non-profit agency,
seeks PT (20 hour per week)
Regional Food Bank
Warehouse Worker.
Responsible to perform the tasks of
the day to day warehouse
operations which will include,
but are not limited to assisting in the
receiving and processing of
product, unloading trucks,
organizing products in the
warehouse and maintains a clean,
safe and healthy food place
environment. Operates equipment,
vehicles, and performs ground
maintenance as needed.
Requires: HS diploma; knowledge,
skills, and abilities to perform
standard food warehouse work.
Experience preferred, but will train
capable candidate. Must have
valid driverʼs license and
good driving record.
Wage DOE. Closes 8/7/2015.
Obtain application at CCA, 364
9th Street Astoria, OR (503)325-
1400. Submit
application to CCA Attn.:
Director. CCA info at
www.ccaservies.org.
Must pass background and drug
screen. CCA is and EOE