Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(Ebook PDF) (Ebook PDF) Geology of The Pacific Northwest by William N. Orr All Chapter
(Ebook PDF) (Ebook PDF) Geology of The Pacific Northwest by William N. Orr All Chapter
http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-marketing-
principles-2nd-asia-pacific-edition-by-william/
http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-marketing-
principles-3nd-asia-pacific-edition-by-william-m-pride/
http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-essentials-of-
geology-13th-edition-by-frederick/
http://ebooksecure.com/product/original-pdf-essentials-of-
geology-5th-edition-by-stephen-marshak/
The Geology of the Canary Islands 1st Edition Valentin
R. Troll - eBook PDF
https://ebooksecure.com/download/the-geology-of-the-canary-
islands-ebook-pdf/
http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-principles-of-
economics-8th-by-n-gregory-mankiw/
http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-principles-of-
microeconomics-7th-by-n-gregory-mankiw/
http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-fundamentals-of-
management-6th-asia-pacific-edition-by-danny-samson/
http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-principles-of-
economics-7th-asia-pacific-edition-by-joshua-gans/
Orr-Orr FrontMatter.fm Page vii Tuesday, November 20, 2018 11:47 AM
PREFACE
When beginning a project, whether a completely new zone. Related to plate tectonics, volcanism, earthquakes,
book or, as in this case, a revision, to a certain extent the and tsunamis, geologic issues particular to the northwest
pages are blank. Geologic changes that have taken place in came into focus, especially with regard to population safety.
the Pacific Northwest await discovery, and we found that Environmental concerns have increased in importance,
so much was new, the revision became a complete rewrite. while stratigraphy and paleontology took a diminished role.
Searching the literature, we realized there were many We had many helpful reviewers who were most gener-
discoveries and revisions tied into computers. This tool ous with their time and expertise: John Armentrout,
allows for the rapid compilation, storage, and retrieval of Exxon-Mobil; Cal Barnes, Texas Tech University; John
data. While this is positive, computers handle only infor- Beaulieu, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral
mation that has been input, and we came to realize that Resources; Ned Brown, University of Washington; Robert
information before the somewhat arbitrary date of the Carson, Whitman College; John Clague, Simon Fraser
mid-1980s was being lost. Many older publications and University; Carol Frost, National Science Foundation;
results were being discarded based on the assumption that Anita Grunder, Oregon State University; William Hackett,
they were online. This often was not the case. Idaho Geological Survey; Paul Link, Idaho State Univer-
Examining both past and recent work, we saw emerg- sity; Greg Miles, University of Oregon; Steve Reidel, Wash-
ing trends. Tectonics had moved to the forefront of Pacific ington State University; and Keegan Schmidt, Lewis and
Northwest geology. This was inevitable because of the Clark College. Equally important was permission, given
region’s position along a collision margin with a subduction freely, to use the many outstanding photographs.
vii
Orr-Orr FrontMatter.fm Page viii Tuesday, November 20, 2018 11:47 AM
Orr-Orr 01.fm Page 1 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:38 AM
CHAPTER
1
INTRODUCTION
In the 1960s, the Farallon Plate was named after the Farallon Islands by Dan McKenzie, who wanted a term not associated with
any fracture zones or other tectonic features. Lying offshore from San Francisco Bay, the islands are composed of granites that
were sheared off the Sierra Nevada Range then shifted northwestward. (D. McKenzie, person. comm., 2017; photo courtesy of
the California Division of Mines and Geology.)
1
Orr-Orr 01.fm Page 2 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:38 AM
2 CHAPTER ONE
M
FIGURE 1.1 Israel Russell was one of the indefatigable engineering geologists who explored and published extensively on the west.
Accompanying the federally-sponsored geological survey west of the 100th meridian under George Wheeler, Russell’s many interests
included hydrology, glaciation, and lakes. His reconnaissance in 1871 stretched from Mono Valley, California, across eastern Utah, Ore-
gon, and Washington, and into southern Idaho. Russell later became professor of geology at the University of Michigan. He died in 1906.
In the 1890 photograph, Russell is standing third from the left. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.)
Orr-Orr 01.fm Page 3 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:38 AM
INTRODUCTION 3
locating the most practical and economic routes for a rail- Natland in 1933 utilized foraminiferal stages to work out
road line from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. the geologic history of the Los Angeles basin, crucial to
The Army Corps produced regional topographic maps, exploration for oil resources. Funding by petroleum compa-
which were accompanied by reports of John Newberry on nies demonstrated the value of foraminifera for recording
the geology of Cascades from California to the Columbia paleo depths, stimulating research by micropaleontologists
River and by descriptions of minerals and fossils by medi- such as Joseph Cushman with the U.S. Geological Survey
cal doctor John Evans. and Hubert Schenck of Stanford University. A break-
With the end of the Civil War in 1865, geologists began through in Tertiary stratigraphy came with Schenck’s clari-
to work regionally, treating both the topography and geol- fication of time and stratigraphic units, which, in turn,
ogy, and by the 1880s the Canadian and U.S. Geological initiated the establishment of local biostratigraphic zones
surveys initiated work in the Northwest at a time when it and stages.
was still a frontier. Typical of such individuals, William In 1944 a monumental effort by Charles Weaver at the
Logan and George Dawson of the Geological Survey of University of Washington along with 21 paleontologists and
Canada mapped regions of Canada. Field work by Logan stratigraphers followed Schenck’s guidelines to correlate
was published in his monumental 983-page Geology of Can- Pacific Northwest Tertiary formations. This group integrated
ada and accompanying folio in 1866. Meanwhile George the zones between marine microfossils and molluscs along
Dawson and his crew covered an astonishing 64,000 unex- the west coast from Baja, Mexico, to Vancouver Island, Brit-
plored square miles in northern British Columbia and the ish Columbia. For the first time, local Cenozoic rocks could
Yukon on foot and by boat during the 1871 season to map be categorized by their position in time and space.
the geology and mineral resources. Within the next few After this, descriptive reports on regional formations
years Joseph Diller produced 56 papers and maps on south- filled in gaps. Between the 1930s and 1950s, California
west Oregon, treating the structure, stratigraphy, and fossils. paleontologist Robert Kleinpell refined microfossil bio-
Vast areas awaited mapping by individuals. In the stratigraphy in the Northwest. His classic Miocene Stratig-
1930s Alfred Anderson at the University of Idaho and raphy of California as well as V. Standish Mallory’s Lower
Clyde Ross of the U.S. Geological Survey traversed Tertiary Stratigraphy of the California Coast Ranges still
extremely large parts of Idaho, and some 15 years later stand as basic references. Weldon Rau with the Washing-
Ross co-authored the first geologic map of the state. Har- ton Division of Geology and Earth Resources published on
old Culver at Washington State University compiled a gen- foraminiferal biostratigraphy, while investigations of mul-
eralized geologic map of the state in 1936, acknowledging tiple sites by Mildred Detling at the University of Oregon
his use of the earlier published and private regional maps. and the work of Roscoe and Katherine Stewart at the Ore-
As with Idaho and Washington, separate areas and quad- gon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries
rangles of western Oregon had been mapped well before allowed for “detailed geologic mapping of the densely for-
the eastern part of the state. Maps of Oregon were broad- ested, predominantly siltstone terrane of western Oregon
brush before 1961, when Frances Wells and Dallas Peck of and Washington” as written by Warren Addicott in his
the U.S. Geological Survey completed that portion west of 1980 marine Cenozoic history. From the 1960s to 1980s,
the 121st meridian. Even today, parts of the Northwest molluscan sequences were integrated with microfossil
have yet to be mapped in detail. chronologies to complete the paleoenvironmental and bio-
stratigraphic picture.
4 CHAPTER ONE
active fault zones, and by Harvey Reid at Johns Hopkins Additional evidence of major historic quakes on the
University, who established the link between active faults northwest coast came in 1995 when Brian Atwater of the
and seismic intensity. By showing that slippage and rupture U.S. Geological Survey examined estuaries at Willapa Bay
along faults reduced strain, they demonstrated for the first in Washington. Noting the presence of submerged trees
time that faulting caused earthquakes and not the reverse. and marine fossils buried in distinctive sand layers left by
While most of the seismic recording and research tsunamis, he surmised that coastal areas had suddenly sub-
efforts were in California, by the 1970s there was growing sided after great earthquakes. Equally important, he was
concern about the possibility of strong earthquakes in the able to show that tsunamis on the west coast, which
Coastal Northwest. The emphasis was on the enormous occurred several hundred years ago, could be triggered by
offshore subduction zone between merging tectonic plates. subduction quakes thousands of miles away.
Most geologists assumed that subduction was quiet and In conjunction with this, Adams was able to show that
gradual (seismic creep), without strain, but this changed turbidity deposits in the deep oceans recorded earthquake
with John Adams, a New Zealand geologist who began to activity. Continuing that research, Chris Goldfinger at
compare old and recent level lines of Northwest highway Oregon State University has been able to document the
markers kept by the National Geodetic Survey. To his sur- periodicity of major earthquakes at 300 to 500 year inter-
prise he found that coastal highways of Oregon and Wash- vals. The last major subduction quake in the Pacific North-
ington were elevated and tilted eastward toward the west was just over 300 years ago.
Willamette Valley and Puget Sound, reflecting uplift on an
unprecedented scale.
Applying Adam’s conclusions in 1984, Tom Heaton DRIFTING CONTINENTS COME AND GO
and Hiroo Kanamori, seismologists from California Insti-
tute of Technology, reported that the Cascadia subduction The recognition of continental drift as plate tectonics and
zone was nearly identical to others around the world where its application to the Pacific Northwest has answered many
catastrophic quakes had taken place historically. vexing geologic puzzles. As with most revolutionary ideas,
M
FIGURE 1.2 The offshore realm of the Pacific Northwest coast has changed considerably in the past 10 million years. The Juan de Fuca,
Explorer, and Gorda plates are only pale reflections of the massive Farallon and Kula slabs, now largely surplanted by the Pacific Plate. Tec-
tonic doctrine proposes that the earth’s crust is broken into large separate slabs, which are growing along mid-ocean ridges and subduct-
ing, or sliding, beneath other plates along continental margins. On the West Coast, the northeastward-bound Juan de Fuca Plate is being
overridden by the North American Plate, which is presently moving west-southwest. The offshore Cascadia trench, paralleling the coast
from northern California to British Columbia, marks the seam where the plates merge. (After Atwater, 1989; Dickinson, 1979; Engebret-
son, Cox, and Gordon, 1985.)
Orr-Orr 01.fm Page 5 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:38 AM
INTRODUCTION 5
Orr-Orr 01.fm Page 6 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:38 AM
6 CHAPTER ONE
the concept of moving continents, published by Alfred The early focus was on the terranes of the Klamath
Wegener in 1929, was widely rejected and even ridiculed Mountains and Coast Range of California and Oregon,
by geologists. Wegener theorized that 250 million years where a 1966 publication by William Irwin with the Cali-
ago a supercontinent, Pangaea, included virtually all of the fornia division of the U.S. Geological Survey compiled pre-
earth’s landmass. When Pangaea began to break up around vious work and field mapping to show the relationships
200 million years ago, the pieces, or continents, slowly between juxtaposed rocks of different ages and deforma-
drifted apart and were dispersed around the globe. tions. Using both fossils and lithology, he proposed four
Support for Wegener’s hypothesis had to await explo- huge belts that stretched in an arc from Roseburg, Oregon,
ration of the deep ocean floors during the 1940s and 1950s. to Ukiah, California. Almost a decade later, Warren Hamil-
Before that time, continents and ocean basins were ton at the Colorado School of Mines recognized distinct
regarded as stationary. Contrary evidence from oceano- traceable lithologic units in the Klamaths, Coast Range,
graphic cruises headed by Bob Dietz and William Menard and Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. In his classic
of Scripps Institute at San Diego found that the northeast 1969 paper, he proposed that during the Mesozoic an
Pacific Ocean floor was anything but smooth. It was “underflow of oceanic mantle was scraped off and slid
deformed by lengthy channels, sea mounts, canyons, and beneath the continental margin.” But it was Irwin who first
huge faulted fracture zones. Each research voyage brought employed the word “terranes” for fault-bound belts of dif-
exciting new revelations. Near the end of one expedition, ferent rock assemblages.
Menard returned to Scripps by an alternate route, and, as In the 1980s, Peter Coney (University of Arizona),
he reported in 1979, he “had the good luck to discover with David Jones (U.S. Geological Survey), and James Monger
my first ship time” the Mendocino fracture zone, the lon- (Canadian Geological Survey) compiled a list of over 50
gest fault trace on earth. “suspect” terranes along the eastern Pacific, while the tec-
Maps of the global ocean basins by Maurice Ewing, tonostratigraphic terranes of David Howell and the
Bruce Heezen, and Marie Tharp of Lamont Observatory lithotectonic terranes of Norm Silberling, both of the U.S.
sketched mid-ocean ridges of remarkable length where Geological Survey, were depicted on maps that listed the
new sea-floor material was accompanied by volcanic activ- fossils and rock types for each. Since these efforts, the
ity. With the discovery of high heat flow along the mid- number and status of terranes has been shuffled. Some
ocean rifts, with the realization that thin sedimentary lay- were demoted to formations, and others have been com-
ers could be spread across the ocean floor by turbidity cur- bined as belts.
rents, and with the mapping of zig-zag ridges and fracture The puzzle of the Wallowa and Wrangell terranes pro-
zones, an intriguing new picture of much of the earth’s sur- vides an example of these revisions. The Wallowa is imbed-
face began to emerge. Clarification came when Lawrence ded in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, Washington, and
Morley and A. Larochelle of the Geological Survey of Can- Idaho, while the Wrangell takes in Vancouver Island, the
ada recognized that the magnetic stripes along the ocean Queen Charlotte Islands, and parcels of southeast Alaska.
floor, parallel to mid-ocean ridges, were evidence of an In the late 1970s, rocks scattered throughout all of these
expanding (spreading) sea floor. locations were seen by David Jones as fragments of what
Much of the mass of seemingly unrelated data was not was originally an enormous intact superterrane, Wrangel-
integrated into a single hypothesis until pulled together in lia, which had docked against North America, was sliced
1960 by Harry Hess at Princeton University. He theorized up, and then dispersed northward piece-by-piece by faults.
that new sea floor was being created at mid-ocean ridges, More recent work, however, has shown that while some of
spreading outward toward the trenches, and then descend- the rock units may be linked, the initial conclusions on the
ing back into the mantle. With this, plate tectonics displacement and magnitude of Wrangellia are not sup-
emerged as the mechanism for Wegener’s continental drift. ported by evidence. Even today, clarifying the chaotic
nature of terrane relationships continues.
INTRODUCTION 7
to Cascade eruptions. Distinguishing between the many an Eocene oceanic plateau of seamounts and islands with
apparently similar flows of the Columbia River basalts in the western margin of the North American continent
the Pacific Northwest only came after years of analyzing formed the Coast Range and a magmatic arc. Parallel to
the chemistry and mineralogy of the volcanics. but well east of the Pacific Ocean, the Cascade volcanic
Questions as to the volcanic style that produced the archipelago continuously erupted ash and lavas of the
Cascade lavas were addressed in 1976 when William Dick- Western and High Cascade during the Tertiary as a sub-
inson of Stanford University proposed that the collision of ducting oceanic plate melted rocks to feed the eruptions.
M
FIGURE 1.3 The most recent eruption in the Cascade chain was from Mount St. Helens in 1980. After the initial activity in mid-May,
volcanism continued through the summer, sending ash south as far as the Klamath Mountains. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps.)
Orr-Orr 01.fm Page 8 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:38 AM
8 CHAPTER ONE
In contrast to the stratovolcanoes of the Cascades, mantle plume, the track of the hot spot can be traced by
flood basalts that issued from numerous rifts and fractures the trail of age-progressive eruptive centers from the
in northeastern Oregon, western Washington, and Idaho Owyhee field along the Oregon-Nevada border across
could only have been initiated by stretching and faulting Southern Idaho, and to the Yellowstone plateau in Wyo-
above a deep-seated mantle plume. Magma, rising from as ming. Hypotheses to explain the origin of this volcanic
deep in the core-mantle boundary, emerged on the surface phenomenon began to appear in the 1970s with a number
to construct the vast plateau of the Columbia River basalts. of geologists such as W. Jason Morgan from Princeton,
Examination of these lavas showed that they could be dis- Robert Smith at the University of Utah, and Richard Arm-
tinguished by their chemical composition, areal extent, strong at the University of British Columbia. Subsequent
and stratigraphy. In 1931 Steve Fuller at the Washington refinements included estimates of the rate of hot spot
Division of Geology and Earth Resources described physi- migration, the size of the mantle plume, and explanations
cal aspects of the basalt, while in the 1950s Keith Runcorn for the distinctive bimodal style of eruptions. Even today
of Cambridge University in England applied magnetic the dynamics of plumes are not fully understood, and the
polarity to pin down the precise time horizons within the theory itself is undergoing change.
flows. The investigations were accelerated in the 1970s
when volcanologist Aaron Waters subdivided and classi-
fied the eruptive cycles, while Peter Hooper at Washington
State University and Marvin Beeson at Portland State Uni-
THE PLEISTOCENE —THE GLACIAL
versity identified and correlated individual flows. CONUNDRUM
Mid-Tertiary volcanism, associated with eruptions on
the Columbia Plateau, is only part of a complex system of While clear signs of glaciation were recorded in the north-
hot spot activity across the Snake River Plain in Idaho and ern hemisphere in the early 1800s, a detailed interpretation
in central Oregon on the High Lava Plains. Triggered by a of the landforms came later. Much of the initial ground-
M
FIGURE 1.4 The rugged ice
field of the Columbia Glacier in
the Chugach Mountains of Val-
dez, Alaska, displays deep, spec-
tacular crevasses. (Photo by M. F.
Meier, courtesy of the U.S. Geo-
logical Survey.)
Orr-Orr 01.fm Page 9 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:38 AM
INTRODUCTION 9
work on deciphering glaciers began in the upper Midwest, a glacial stratigraphic section, along with Thomas Cham-
where the bedrock of the North American craton first berlin’s work on drift phenomena and the boundaries of ice
attracted geologists in the search for economic minerals. sheets, substantiated the notion of glacial advance and
Deposits of sand, gravel mounds, striations on bedrock, retreat. Whittlesey further published stratigraphic subdivi-
and scattered boulders of different rock types had not yet sions of glacial deposits, basing his units on the layers of
been connected to glacial activity, but geologists soon interglacial sands and clay between the drifts.
directed their attention to surficial features. In the Northwest, these parameters had been applied in
Vehement arguments placed geologists on one side or British Columbia in 1963 by William Logan, who divided
the other of glacial processes. Did deluges of water and glacial units into a lower bed of unsorted till, a middle mud
strong currents or icebergs transport the debris and enor- and sand layer, and an upper section of peat, mud, and allu-
mous boulders, or had lake basins been scooped out by ice vium. These observations went unreported until presented
or eroded by streams? William Logan of the Canadian by Bailey Willis ten years later. Berkeley, California, geologist
Geological Survey wrote that lake basins are not geologic Willis described three lobes of an ice sheet that converged in
structures but are the result of glacial action. Others dis- the Puget Basin, one from the Olympic Mountains, one
agreed, feeling that it would be physically impossible for a from the Cascades, and one from the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
sheet of ice to move over such vast areas and that glaciers Willis named the two glaciations, the older Admiralty and
could not have carried large stones. the younger Vashon, which were divided by the Puyallup
In 1837 glacial issues had been addressed by Swiss interglacial. This nomenclature and stratigraphy would
geologist Louis Agassiz, who theorized that an immense eventually be adopted in the Northwest.
accumulation of ice and snow around the poles sent mas- With the framework established, geologists in the
sive glaciers southward to cover the northern hemisphere. early 20th century, such as Dwight Crandell of the U.S.
His ideas were summarily dismissed by an American com- Geological Survey, recognized and defined additional gla-
mittee of geologists and naturalists, who considered them cial and interglacial intervals, each representing varying
inadequate to explain all of the conditions for glaciation. climate phases. Within a few years, studies on glacial evi-
Eventually, however, the publication of Agassiz’s proposals dence in the Fraser lowland by John Armstrong with the
was received with some skepticism but overall acceptance. Geological Survey of Canada and of the Puget lobe by Don
Some solutions to glacial theories were offered by Easterbrook at Western Washington University showed
Charles Whittlesey, North American’s first glaciologist. His that climate successions have been more numerous than
1866 map of the configuration of moraines and diagram of previously documented.
Orr-Orr 01.fm Page 10 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:38 AM
Orr-Orr 02.fm Page 11 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:40 AM
CHAPTER
2
BRITISH COLUMBIA
AND SOUTHEAST ALASKA
At low tide, a 60-foot-high sea stack of conglomerates and coarse sandstones, the Creta-
ceous Honna Formation at Pilar Bay on Graham Island, proves resistant to erosion. (Photo
taken by C. J. Yorath, courtesy of Library, Natural Resources Canada, #GCS 205235.)
11
Orr-Orr 02.fm Page 12 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:40 AM
12 CHAPTER TWO
M
FIGURE 2.1 Physiographic
map. (U.S. Geological Survey,
Map I-2206.)
Orr-Orr 02.fm Page 13 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:40 AM
GEOGRAPHIC FEATURES adding land to ancestral North America. The force of colli-
sion folded, faulted, and uplifted the strata into four pri-
British Columbia covers 366,255 square miles from 60˚ lat- mary belts—the Omineca, Intermontane, Coast, and
itude north along the Yukon and the District of McKenzie Insular—each with contrasting geologic histories. The
in the Northwest Territories to 49˚ latitude north at the intrusion of plutons accompanied the collision, welding
Washington state border. It stretches east to the Rocky the terranes together while emplacing metallic ores that
Mountain divide and west to the Pacific Ocean. A narrow instilled considerable mineral wealth into this region.
arm of Alaska lies along its northwest margin. Profound changes in tectonic style from compression
The topography is predominantly mountainous, to stretching of the crust in the early Tertiary imposed
although the interior uplands and coast provide a varied fault-bounded basins across the interior. Dozens of long,
landscape. The eastern-most margin of British Columbia is narrow trenches collected volcanic debris and organic-rich
delineated by the jagged peaks of the Rockies, which reach sediments that would be altered to coal seams of substan-
close to 12,972 feet at Mount Robson, whereas the central tial thickness.
plateau, at an elevation of 4,000 to 5,000 feet, is incised by Volcanic regimes of the Miocene, which continue
waterways and dotted by thousands of glacial lakes. today, spread lava flows and ash from multiple centers.
Coastal British Columbia and southeast Alaska are During the Pleistocene, volcanic material often interacted
punctuated by craggy mountains, fjords, and hundreds of directly with ice sheets as glaciers carved up the land.
offshore islands. Along the Alaska–British Columbia bor- Along the coast, glaciers cut deep fjords while advancing
der, Mount Waddington, at 13,260 feet above sea level, is ice scalloped interior mountains and valleys, leaving melt-
the highest point in the region, and Mount Fairweather water lakes and torrential streams. Thick deposits of clay,
near Glacier Bay is 15,300 feet, the tallest peak in southern silt, till, and gravel are reminders of the ice sheets that
Alaska. By comparison, the landscape of the offshore retreated 10,000 years ago.
islands is subdued. At a maximum of 7,000 feet in eleva-
tion, the backbone of Vancouver Island is nearly twice the
height of the peaks on the Queen Charlotte Islands. GEOLOGIC ORIGINS
Islands of all sizes line the coast. Vancouver, 280 miles
Ancient North America
long and 78 miles at its widest, is the largest in the eastern
Pacific. Located about 100 miles offshore, the Queen Core Complexes. Precambrian core complex rocks,
Charlottes are a cluster of small islands, including Graham over two billion years of age, provide a look at the deep
and Moresby. Narrow channels separate the islands from crystalline basement of ancient North America, but their
the mainland. origin is obscured by their extreme antiquity and meta-
Rivers originating in the interior empty into the morphic alteration. Domed core complexes of various sizes
Pacific Ocean. The lengthy Columbia and Fraser systems, are scattered across a 100-mile-wide strip through British
with headwaters in the Rocky Mountain–Tintina trench, Columbia, Washington, and Idaho, and into Nevada, Ari-
flow northwest on a parallel course for about 150 miles. zona, and Mexico. In the Eocene and Miocene, the com-
The Columbia turns southward near Revelstoke to Wash- plexes were raised from deep to middle crustal depths
ington state, but the Fraser, British Columbia’s longest when stretching and thinning of the earth’s crust exposed
river, travels north a considerable distance past Prince them in windows through the upper cover.
George before it takes a southerly route. Near Revelstoke, British Columbia, metamorphic
At the southwest corner of the province, an elongate rocks of the Shuswap core complex lie at the center of the
triangular delta of approximately 1,500 square miles lies in Monashee Mountains, and in northeast Washington they
both British Columbia and the United States. Rounded include the Okanogan and Kettle domes, the Lincoln
hills, wide flat valleys, and wetlands are perforated by gneiss, and the Spokane dome. The Priest River and Clear-
rocky knolls like Mount Burnaby, Grant Hill, and Sumas water complexes in the Idaho panhandle and the Pioneer
Mountain. Coursing through bogs, sandbanks, and small and Albion mountains north and south of the Snake River
islands, the Fraser River discharges sediment into the Strait have crystalline foundations. Rocks in the Albion Range of
of Georgia, constructing an imposing deltaic plain that is Cassia County, dated at 2.5 billion years, are considered to
growing by as much as 30 feet a year. be the oldest in Idaho.
Typically, Precambrian metamorphic complexes are
bounded by faults that separate them from a lid or veneer of
OVERVIEW younger strata. The shallow, spoon-shaped Newport fault,
which loops south across Washington and Idaho, is dated as
British Columbia and southeastern Alaska have been con- middle Eocene, 45 to 50 million years. This fault divides the
structed and shaped by changing tectonic patterns. Since Priest River core complex from the younger Belt super-
the late Mesozoic era, terranes, fragments of island archi- group. Similarly, the fault valley of the Purcell Trench, from
pelagos and oceanic plateaus, accreted to the West Coast, Kootenay Lake, British Columbia, to northern Idaho, marks
Orr-Orr 02.fm Page 14 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:40 AM
14 CHAPTER TWO
the boundary between high-grade metamorphic rocks to flourished, while blue-green algae, common in the earlier
the west and the Precambrian Belt-Purcell on the east. Precambrian seas, continued to construct limestone reefs.
In Washington, the middle Cambrian Metaline Lime-
Foreland Domain. The older core complexes were cov- stone, above the Addy Quartzite, typifies a shelf setting
ered by layers of marine sediments 750 million years ago after with trilobite fragments and even an occasional intact car-
the supercontinent Rodinia broke apart, and the individual apace. In British Columbia, outer shelf carbonates of the
crustal fragments separated and dispersed. In a shallow sea- Nelway Formation from the same interval are notably
way along the rifted western margin of proto–North Amer- devoid of fossils. Similarly, the Gold Creek, Rennie Shale,
ica, the Proterozoic Belt-Purcell sequence was covered by a and middle to upper Cambrian Lakeview strata in the
wedge of sandstones, siltstones, and shales of the Winder- Idaho panhandle illustrate a shallow continental shelf.
mere supergroup. Making up much of the Foreland belt along Hemmed in by much younger Columbia River basalts, iso-
the Canadian Cordillera, Windermere rocks were overlain by lated outcrops of the Lakeview are dominated by algae
the Cambrian Addy Quartzite in the tri-corner area of south- shoals with a veritable hash of trilobite debris.
ern British Columbia, northeast Washington, and Idaho.
During the Cambrian period, some half billion years
ago, oceanic conditions fluctuated from shelf, slope, and deep THE MESOZOIC ERA
water to offshore shallow-water platforms. In this seaway,
shelled invertebrate animals first appeared. Trilobites and a Terranes and Belts
host of other arthropods, as well as molluscs, corals, brachio- From the late Triassic to early Jurassic, around 200 hun-
pods, and the tiny primitive microfossil fish (conodonts) dred million years ago, as with Rodinia earlier, the super-
M
FIGURE 2.2 Never static, the large North American crustal plate (Laurentia) has been in motion since the Paleozoic era. Between the
Jurassic and Cretaceous, the continent moved northwesterly, but today it is on a west-southwest course. (After Colpron and Nelson, 2006;
Connor, 2014; Engebretson, Cox, and Gordon, 1985; Hildebrand, 2013; Nokleberg et al., 2000.)
Orr-Orr 02.fm Page 15 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:40 AM
M
FIGURE 2.4 In northeast Washington, black Ledbetter slates of
the Ordovician to Silurian periods, with age-definitive graptolite
fossils, reflect open ocean waters above the anoxic slope and
greater depths. Colonial graptolites, resembling a saw blade,
inhabited near surface ocean waters, while the remains of free-
swimming conodonts are found in a broad spectrum of marine
environments. (Orr & Orr, 2009.)
M
FIGURE 2.3 The distribution of metamorphic core complex
rocks across the western Cordillera reflects widespread crustal
stretching. (After Burchfiel, Lipman, and Zoback, 1992; Doughty
et al., 2016; McCollum, McCollum, and Hamilton, 2016; Rehrig, M
FIGURE 2.5 Common in shallow shelf limestones and shales,
Reynolds, and Armstrong, 1987; Wust and Link, 1988.) trilobites are an excellent indicator of the Paleozoic age of the
sediments. These segmented crab-like scavengers resemble your
everyday cockroach. Zanthoides (left) and Kootenia (right).
(Authors)
Orr-Orr 02.fm Page 16 Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:40 AM
16 CHAPTER TWO
continent Pangaea began to deconstruct when the Atlantic terranes were displaced thousands of miles from their orig-
Ocean opened along the eastern edge of North America. inal position. With the impact of two plates, the rocks are
Moving westward, the North American Plate swept up the wrinkled and folded into large-scale continuous ridges or
Quesnel terrane, the first of several incoming volcanic welts and uplifted before being intruded by plutons. The
island archipelagos. The impact folded the margin and boundary between terranes and the edge of the continent is
thrust the rocks eastward, marking the beginning of Cor- often so badly distorted that it is difficult to locate precisely.
dilleran mountain building.
Throughout the late Mesozoic, western North Amer- Cassiar and Kootenay Rocks. Originally cited as ter-
ica grew steadily by the addition of terranes—pieces of ranes, the provenance of Cassiar and Kootenay rocks is still
crust that were annexed to the continent. As suites of fault- open to clarification. A ribbon of strata, the Cassiar may
bounded rocks, terranes are distinguished by their history, have been part of the continental Foreland domain that
which is markedly different from that of the adjacent became detached and was displaced hundreds of miles by
strata. Prior to collision, many terranes were assembled or faulting. Asiatic fossils in Cassiar limestones, however,
amalgamated offshore. Using fossils, paleomagnetic mea- point to a more exotic source. Like the Cassiar, the Koote-
surements, rock lithology, and zircon sources, the complex nay could also have been part of North America before it
origins, migrations, and accretions of rocks are still being was shifted some distance along the margin.
deciphered. With the several lines of evidence available, the
strata have been grouped into formations, belts, terranes, The Omineca Belt. During middle Jurassic, 185 to 170
blocks, or complexes. million years ago, collision of the Intermontane belt with
Continental growth by accretion occurs when terranes Laurentia generated the severely folded and altered zone of
collide with and are incorporated into a larger plate. Where the Omineca magmatic belt. An amalgam of both crust and
two slabs merge, the dense, thinner member plunges mantle rocks, the Omineca forms the boundary between
downward or is subducted beneath the overriding plate. the Foreland and Intermontane regions. Referred to as a
Seamounts and micro-continents borne atop the subduct- welt, the rugged mountainous Omineca strip runs from the
ing slab are peeled off and affixed to the continent. Typi- Yukon plateau southeastward through the British Colum-
cally sheared up and offset by elongate fault systems, many bia before disappearing beneath Miocene lavas of the
Columbia River basalt plateau of Washington. The division
between the Omineca belt and North America can be
traced southward from British Columbia well into Idaho.
With accretion, the crust was compressed and thick-
ened as intense heat melted the rocks, injecting plutons of
magma into the adjacent strata. Granitic intrusives, dis-
persed throughout the Omineca, were emplaced at intervals
between the late Triassic and Eocene. The younger batho-
liths are widespread south of Prince George, but the older
granites are the most extensive and numerous. Near Koote-
nay Lake, the Kuskanax and Nelson batholiths are dated as
Jurassic, while the Bayonne is Cretaceous, as are the 94-mil-
lion-year-old Spirit and Kanisku plutons in Washington.
Eipä olekaan ihmiselle terveellistä se, minkä hän ilman omaa työtä
ja ansiota sattuu saamaan. "Mitä huilulla ansaitaan, se rummussa
menetetään", sanoo muinoinen sotamiesten sananlasku. Jos mikään
on omiansa häiritsemään kansamme tasaista edistymistä on se juuri
se ylöllinen ja vaatelias elämäntapa, johon metsärahat viettelivät, ja
se näennäinen ahdinko, johon pakostakin joudutaan, kun metsätulot
taas auttamattomasti hupenevat tahi lakkaavat. Näennäinen, sanon,
syystä että meidän maassa on eletty silloinkin kun maanomistaja ei
aavistanutkaan, että hänen metsästään voitiin löytää rahaa.
Jälkimaininkia.
Summa 6,382,000
Summa 2,430,000
"Hra A.M.! Käy varsin hyvin laatuun hoitaa esim. siemenen ostoa
surumielin, mutta kuitenkin alistumalla ja tyvenesti. Mutta kun
nälänhätä viikko viikolta lisääntyy, kurjuus ja ruumiiden luku
hautausmailla, teillä ja poluilla karttuu karttumistaan, silloin valtaa
kauhu sydämen. Raataa kuten mies paloruiskun ääressä liekkien
vallassa olevassa kaupungissa ilman pelastuksen toivoakaan. Hra
A.M. ja muut hänen kanssansa eivät näy tietävänkään, että
semmoinen pelastustyö oli laskettu maan hallituksen hartioille. Mutta
sen eteen, jolla oli jotakin edesvastausta asiasta, saattavat kyllä nuo
kalpeat varjot esiintyä uudestaan; ja hänen omatuntonsa saattaa
kyllä yhä uudestaan asettaa hänelle vastattavaksi kysymyksen: eikö
olisi voitu tehdä enemmänkin? Eikö olisi voitu järkevämmin käyttää
sitä, mitä annettiin, ja siten pelastaa ainakin muutamia tuhansia
lisäksi. Jos noita 7 miljoonaa, jotka olivat käytettävissä, — ja tämä
summa vastaa puolen vuoden tuloja yleisessä valtiovarastossa, olisi
käytetty yksinomaan nääntyvien ja heidän lastensa hyväksi, eikä
ainoatakaan markkaa siemeneen, ehkä olisi silloin olleet kaikki
pelastettavissa. Olisiko se ollut oikein? En voi vieläkään tätä
kysymystä ratkaista. Wastatkoon herra A.M. jaa tahi ei — jos hän
rohkenee."
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms
of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.