Looking For Detachment

One Year Ago Today: Mapping on the Lincoln Highway

2009-07-12T07:20:00.000-07:00

One year ago today, I was out mapping along a portion of the Lincoln Highway in eastern Nevada.
And how can you tell it's the Lincoln Highway? Simple: that little brown marker along the road near the juniper tree.
People use these signs to follow some of the several original tracks of the Lincoln Highway. In places, more than one dirt road is marked, partly because of major realignment of the road from the time of its inception in 19-whenever (different times in different places, from 1912 through 1915) to the time it became the early Highway 50 in Nevada (1925).
"ROAD NOT MAINTAINED FOR LOW CLEARANCE VEHICLES." Indeed! Also not maintained for vehicles without low gearing. Also not maintained for commonly inclement weather: thunderstorms and mud in summer and ice, snow, and mud in winter through spring.
Last year the monsoon came at the usual time, more like early to mid-July than this year's late May or early June.
View from the Lincoln Highway dirt, two-track road, of the a thunderstorm, with verga. Smoke from summer fires have colored things a little reddish to yellowish.
Light shines through the clouds onto the high mountains of the Duck Creek Range and perhaps some of the Schell Creek Range.

From Nevada Backroaders, PDF dated 7-22-2005:

We started out on Friday by running part of the old Lincoln Highway between Ely and Jake's Valley to the west of town. The Lincoln Highway was the first official coast to coast gravel highway that ran from New York City to San Francisco and was used, following various routes, from about 1913 until 1925 when highways began to be numbered. The section we followed was most likely used until 1919 or 1920 when the main route was moved and followed what is now US50. We got some great views of the Robinson Mine and still had a lot of wildflowers blooming which made for a great day in the hills and trees.

The Lincoln Highway
The Lincoln Highway Association
The Lincoln Highway across Eastern Nevada, 1924 map

The Trail to 10,800 Feet

2009-07-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

Before we began our July 1st trek up the Wheeler Peak Summit trail, we had fairly clear skies and nice views of the peak.
Aspen trees in the meadow of the Wheeler Peak campground, just downhill from our campsite, which was at about 9900 feet (TerraServer map).
It took us a while to get out of camp, but we were finally underway by about 11:00 am. By 11:30 when we came to this great view of the rocky cliffs forming the east part of the Wheeler Peak cirque, we had passed through the morning thunderstorm, which lasted from about 10:30 to 11:30. These cliffs were barely visible during our June 10th hike.

If you want to summit, it's recommended that you start early in the morning, although at least two parties started an hour or more after we did.
A view looking east of the morning thunderstorm, which rained on us, then passed into Utah.
At 11:45 we turned off the Teresa-Stella Lakes Loop trail for the Wheeler Peak trail: 3.1 miles and 2704 feet to the top from here.
Aspen trees.
The trail at about 10,300 feet, as it aims toward Bald Mountain.
Wheeler Peak, as seen at noon from a broad meadow below Bald Mountain, just before the trail goes into some relatively dense and magnificently tall spruce trees.
Picea engelmannii Parry ex Engelm., commonly known as Engelmann spruce.
The morning thunderstorm as of 12:25 pm, now well into Utah.
This part of the trail is just wonderful: easy to walk on, great views, nice rocks, and only slightly uphill.
Aspen trees with bent trunks on a steep, rocky slope.
A view of Stella Lake and the cirque headwall above Teresa Lake (Teresa Lake cannot be seen in this view). The trail at this point has entered the steep cirque headwall above Stella Lake.
The rock pile above the trees and below the snow chutes is probably a terminal moraine, the most recent one in front of a now-melted glacier.
I love these talus chutes and piles!
As of about 12:30 pm and at about 10,800 feet, the trail goes on...

Wheeler Peak is inside Great Basin National Park

Links: Blowpipe Tests

2009-07-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

Blowpipe analysis - the determination of elements present in minerals by use of a blowpipe - was not taught when I was in school, but was routinely used by geologists of my dad's era. I probably missed learning this skill by only a few years: blowpipe testing was being taught during the early 1950's; it was not being taught where I went to school by the early 1970's.

A bit about the history of blowpipe analysis can be found here, here, and here. Some examples of some old, collectible blowpipe kits can be seen here, here, and through the links on this page. Blowpipe tests are still described in some rock and mineral field guides and in some mineralogy texts - for example, in Dana's Minerals and How to Study Them and in Rocks, Gems and Minerals: Revised and Updated. If refreshed, those links will show all references to "blowpipe tests" in those two books.

For the record, the mineralogy textbook I used in school was probably this one: Dana's Manual of Mineralogy, 18th Edition by Cornelius S. Hurlbut, Jr., 1971; the one I have now is Manual of Mineralogy (after James D. Dana), 21st Edition by Cornelis Klein and Cornelius S. Hurlbut, Jr., 1993 in hardback. If you search the latter book on Amazon.com for "blowpipe tests," you will come up with highly erroneous results, because the search-inside feature switches to a completely different book (Manual of mineralogy, including observations on mines, rocks, reduction of ores and the applications of the science to the arts, Dana, 1855), not just a different editition as it says. My 1993 edition doesn't mention blowpipes at all!

More Blowpipe Links:
Brush, G. J., and Penfield, S. L., 1906, Manual of determinative mineralogy and blowpipe analysis: Mineralogical Research Company used books

with a Flame Coloration by Element table modified from The Manual at Webmineral.com

Elderhorst, W., 1861, A manual of blowpipe-analysis, and determinative mineralogy, Elderhorst: The Internet Archive

Dana, S., and Ford, W. E., 1912, Dana's manual of mineralogy for the student of elementary mineralogy, the mining engineer, the geologist, the prospector, the collector, etc: The Internet Archive

Getman, F. H., 1899, The elements of blowpipe analysis: The Internet Archive

Road Song: What am I Living For

2009-07-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

This post is part of a heretofore unrecognized series, which until now has only included one other post. Back in the old days, a couple of my colleagues and I filled several 90-minute tapes with roads songs, which were for playing while on the road to, from, or in the field. Remarkably, those tapes survived, and I now have a copy of them on CD. The rules for qualifying a song as a road song were simple: any mention of streets, roads, highways, cars, trucks or truckers, or railroads and railroad tracks made the song a suitable one for our collection. The songs were basically travel songs, but airplanes and boats were out, if I remember right.

The Mark-Almond Band's What am I Living For is only vaguely a road song; it's mostly a love song that briefly mentions hitting the road. I've posted the song - along with the ones below - more in response to a long-ago post by Stephanie Zvan at Almost Diamonds than as a continuation of my fairly unpopulated road song series. Stephanie said, "The Best Love Songs ...are the ones that look beyond the first blush." Her songs reminded me of What am I Living For, and that song then reminded me of the next two songs, which aren't road songs by any stretch of the imagination.

Only one website (that I could find) lists full lyrics for the Mark-Almond Band song; the lyrics are correct, some of what he's written about the Allman Brothers (totally unrelated to the Mark-Almond Band, and totally unrelated to the singer Marc Almond) is inaccurate.

Mark-Almond Band: What am I Living For
Album: Rising, 1972

Jim Croce: Time in a Bottle (a video here)
Album: You Don't Mess Around with Jim, 1972

James Taylor: Fire and Rain (lyrics and story here)
Album: Sweet Baby James, 1970

P.S. I saw James Taylor in concert in 1971 in Virginia.

Garden Status at Five Weeks

2009-07-06T16:51:00.000-07:00

At 5 weeks, our garden is looking greener and a little more lively. Compare 0 weeks and 3 weeks (post mistakenly said 2 weeks).
Butterfly on zucchini squash.
Red kale.
Chocolate mint (sent overseas to me by Julia!).
Anaheim pepper.
Tomatoes.

And the marigolds will be blooming soon. Maybe tomorrow!

Date and time of photos: July 6, 2009, at 9:30 am

Accretionary Wedge #18: How did I Become A Geologist?

2009-07-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

It's time for the July Accretionary Wedge, #17, which is being hosted by Volcanista over at her Magmalicious Blog. As she says, it's all about inspiration: who, what, where, when, and even how. [Photo taken from the shoulder of Wheeler Peak, looking north at the Snake Range detachment fault.]

So July’s topic is about your inspiration to enter geoscience. Was it a fantastic mentor? Watching your geologist parents growing up? A great teacher, or an exciting intro field trip? How did it happen?

The short version: I started out fairly early with an interest in rocks, minerals, mountains, and roadcuts because of travel with my geologist dad. I also fell in love with dinosaurs and volcanoes by the time I was five.

A slightly longer version: I didn't plan on being a geologist while growing up, although I collected rocks and minerals and diligently labeled and categorized them. I took Earth Science in high school, but by the time I got to college, I thought geology was out because of how lousy I was sure I'd be in Chemistry and maybe Physics. Math was fine, but I was afraid of Chemistry, and although I did fine in high school physics, I didn't think that accomplishment would have any bearing on how I'd do in college physics.

So, not knowing exactly what to take, I signed up to be a History major. I had always wanted to be the sort of person who knew the dates of important events and other historical details, and I thought that wanting to be that sort of person would be a good start. After some deliberation and a little consternation, I began my first quarter with European History. For a science, I took Geology 201, Intro Geology, a class for majors and non-majors.

The geology class - one of those huge affairs in a large, auditorium-like room with raised rows of seats - was taught by the then head of the department, Dr. G. C. Grender. It turned out that he was one of those highly inspirational teachers, who had been put in the position of teaching Intro Geology because of the number of converts he routinely would win.

History was boring. Geology was exciting. Because of my at-home geological background, coupled with my Earth Science course in high school, I had a head start on identifying rocks and minerals, and a head start on memorizing the Geological Time Scale, which of course looked a little different back then. I could also read road maps and topo maps, and I knew what a drumlin was. Before the quarter was over, I changed my major to Geology. I got a B in Euro History, an A in Intro Geology. (I later got an F in one quarter of Chemistry, and did fine in Physics. And even though I was able to skip two quarters of first year math based on high school grades and SAT scores, I managed to get a D in one quarter of 2nd year math. Things like grades eventually don't matter.)

One long version starts like this, "How did a nice girl like you become a geologist, anyhow?" I was often asked this question, especially in my early days as a geologist, often by strangers — people, usually men, who I had just run into out in the field: prospectors and would-be prospectors, landowners, ranchers, and other geologists. Really, you'd think people could be a little more inventive than to reuse this worn phrase so many times — from Yuma to Gabbs, from Hog Ranch to Okanogan, and from Juneau to Fairbanks.

I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonopah

I'm Willin', written by Lowell George
Seatrain, 1970

Im Willin - Seatrain

(An applicable song: my exploration travels have taken me, on legitimate business, to all of the places mentioned.)

The question, phrased so redundantly, seemed to imply some wrongness: wrongness in my choice of careers, wrongness in my where-ever-it-was location in the field, and wrongness in the fact that I'd somehow managed to meet the questioner out in the field at all—a "field" where I presumably didn't belong. I wondered at that question every time it was asked. I usually stuck to my routine answer, "My dad is a geologist," an answer that made sense to everyone and explained everything, at least to those who asked the question. It didn't really explain things to me, nor did it tell the curious or suspicious questioners much about me.

Daylight Again / Cost of Freedom

2009-07-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

Daylight Again / Find the Cost of Freedom Find the Cost of Freedom - link to GCN video Greenthumbnails from Green Thumbnails - The Green Wall and @greenthumbnails

Friday Field Photos: Looking down on some Alluvial Fans

2009-07-03T15:01:00.000-07:00

Once again, I have a few field photos from Great Basin National Park - this time of alluvial fans as seen looking down from about 12,000 feet on the shoulder of Wheeler Peak. For general setting, I'm standing on the Snake Range of eastern Nevada, looking west into and across Spring Valley (a valley from which Las Vegas has received permission to pump water). The dark blue mountain range across Spring Valley is the Schell Creek Range, the light blue mountain range behind the Schell Creek Range is part of the Egan Range south of Ward Mountain, and the pale turquoise range in the far distance behind the Egan Range is the high part of the White Pine Range.
Fans! These fans appear to be upside down, more or less, with the perennial streams flowing away from us toward farms and ranches north of Baking Powder Flat. The view is centered near the junction of Pine and Ridge Creeks, south and north (left and right), respectively.
A closer view of the alluvial fans, looking down on the area between 6000 and 7500 feet.
Bonus: A raven soars just off the flank of Wheeler Peak, with the sand dunes of Baking Powder Flat in the valley below.

Carnival of the Arid #5 is Up!

2009-07-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

Be sure to check out the fifth edition of the Carnival of the Arid (CotA #5) which has been posted by Chris Clarke over at Coyote Crossing. This month, Ole Nielsen joined the ranks of geobloggers who have, at one time or another, entered the carnival. Excellent entries are the norm, as are excellent photos.

I cheated this month, by having two entries, Springtime in the Egan Range and Hiking in the Rain. Both posts show a side of the semi-arid, intermountain west that not everyone gets to see: an abundance of wildflowers during an unusually wet and unusually green spring. And now that we're officially into July, it's still green, it's still unusually wet, and wildflowers are still blooming.

Two Years Ago Today: Chickadees in Water

2009-07-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

Two years ago today, chickadees were enjoying our front yard watering system at the lake.
If you look closely, you can see one mountain chickadee between the potentilla and the phlox behind it. The black, upright plastic tube at the base of the Ponderosa pine is spraying water over plants and bird alike.
A chickadee on a rock looks about ready to jump into the potentilla.
A chickadee has ventured into the potentilla and appears to be looking toward the water spray, but is probably trying to keep an eye on the camerawoman.
Three chickadees take a water bath. Two are in the air, one is hanging out beneath the sprinkler.
I'm hoping that our drip line is currently providing watering like this for small birds. The potentilla, last I saw it, was not as bushy as seen here - it seems to die back some during the winter; then it regrow in the spring and summer. It's also is subject to getting eaten by deer early in the season before the deer find other things to eat.

Hiking in the Rain

2009-06-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

The last time we went hiking up our hiking hill, it was the day before Father's Day, and one of our heaviest rainstorms of the barely pre-summer season was in progress. The sky poured and drizzled water on us while we hiked. The ground was soft, not quite muddy. As per usual, I took a few photos, even though photography was hampered some by the rain and dripping trees.
Yes, we have trees in the part of the intermountain west commonly known as the Great Basin, which is also part of the larger Basin and Range. The tree above is a piñon pine tree, an old one. Many of the old ones on the trail up to Squaw Peak were burned by some long-ago brushfire. Their bark is black, their shapes are twisted, their needles are plentiful.
The sky was everywhere gray, misty, and obscure. Raindrops glistened and sparkled, suspended from fire-black and rain-darkened branches. Each raindrop contained a small green world.
The rain intensified colors. The greens of sagebrush, rabbitbrush, piñon, juniper, and bitterbrush became greener. The umbers and ochres of fallen needles became deeper. Flowers almost glowed.
I'm not sure what this flowering plant is, also seen in the previous photo, possibly it's Mirabilis multiflora. I don't recall seeing it last year, but I might have missed it. It was usually smaller than this particular example, and was often hiding at the base of bushes or beneath trees on south- and west-facing slopes, from about 6760 feet to at least 7320 feet.

I was lucky to spot these small, delicate tulip-like flowers; I have been unable to identify them. They were growing in a broadly flat area at about 6700 feet. UPDATE: These plants appear to be some variety of Calochortus, some varieties of which are called mariposa lily.

Prickly pear, Opuntia, was wonderfully in bloom at the lower elevations of 6700 to 6900 feet. The flowers were pale orange to yellow with rose-like petals. Red or magenta prickly pear had already bloomed earlier in the year and higher on the mountain.
Sagebrush, sea-green with wet, dark-brown woody branches, grows in clumps around a larger plant that has already bloomed and is going to seed.
The tall seedy plant is probably Atriplex canescens, commonly known as fourwing saltbush. I was surprised to it growing at such a high elevation, at the low end of the piñon-juniper zone (6700 feet). There were only a few Atriplex bushes. They were two to four feet in height, and had few leaves. I first suspected Grayia (hopsage), which is usually a low-elevation plant, also, but the leaves weren't right.
Another unknown: this stalk is more than three feet tall, most were one to two feet in height.

Beautiful small white to pink flowers were growing in clumps at about 6600 feet.
We got wet, even with rain-protective clothing. We got cold coming back down from 7400 feet, even though we were fairly well bundled. It was a beautiful day.

This post is a submission to the Carnival of the Arid #5, which is hosted at Coyote Crossing by Chris Clarke.

Carnival of the Arid call for submissions is up

2009-06-25T06:11:00.000-07:00

A call for submissions for the next Carnival of the Arid, #5, has gone up over at Coytote Crossing. Deadline is July 1. If you haven't checked out this carnival before - on deserts anywhere in the world - please do! Submit a blog post and pass the word around, to anyone who might be interested.

Garden Status at Two Three Weeks

2009-06-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Now that it's finally summer, our garden is getting a little sun. In comparison to ~~two~~ three weeks ago, the tomatoes still look very similar in height with slightly larger fruit, and everything else shows definite growth, especially the red kale. Also, some rockhound has added a few rocks at the ~~west~~ east edge of the garden to prevent runoff.

Oh, and there are little tiny swellings where the tomato flowers were! MOH discovered that just now.

Date and time of photo: June 22, 2009, at 9:00 am.

Two Years Ago Today: Wrens Nesting

2009-06-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

Two years ago today, I had just arrived at our lake home after my first full month of working in eastern Nevada. It was spring, and a pair of wrens were nesting in a bird house in our backyard.
First, they would get close and carefully eye the nest and everything around, while hiding in nearby bushes or trees. This wren has a small grub or something in its beak.
They built an unusual-looking nest, one with twigs sticking out of the hole. The twigs tightened up the entryway, protecting the nestlings from anything larger than a wren.

Part of the action is not just to bring food in for the baby birds, but to take out the trash. Somewhat neater than messy diapers, I think.
Both the male and female wren were involved in the feeding and trash-taking-out operations, dividing their chores evenly as far as I could tell.
While watching the wrens, I caught this patient birder taking pictures of them.

Friday Field Photos: Tarn It!

2009-06-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

A tarn is a special kind of lake, and on our recent visit to Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Monument, we hiked up to two of them: Teresa Lake and Stella Lake.

We came first to Teresa Lake, pictured in the above three photos, after hiking up from the Wheeler Peak campground. Teresa Lake is at about 10,280 feet in elevation, or somewhat just below 3150 meters.
Between Teresa Lake and Stella Lake, we hiked over snow patches...
...and across a lateral moraine separating the two lakes. While we hiked, it snowed lightly.
Ah, our first glimpse of Stella Lake, with probable Precambrian meta-pelite littering the ground. Stella Lake is at an elevation of about 10,400 feet, or somewhat just below 3200 meters.
Hike, hike, hike - now we're probably on a terminal moraine below Stella Lake.
We found a great view of Stella Lake here, looking about due south across one of the lateral moraines separating the two lakes, toward the cirque headwall above Teresa Lake.
Spring flowers on an outcrop of probable Precambrian quartzite along the shore of Stella Lake, during a light snow storm: Precambrian and Quaternary in one view. The quartzite might be the Stella Lake Quartztite of Misch, now considered part of the Precambrian McCoy Creek Group.

Reference:
Hose, R. K., Blake, M. C., and Smith, R. M., 1976, Geology and mineral resources of White Pine County, Nevada: Nevada Bur. Mines and Geol. Bulletin 85, 105 p.

Other references at these two Wheeler Peak posts.

Various Identities

2009-06-19T10:16:00.000-07:00

Get Your Cyborg Name

Notice the keywords of "exploration" and "observation."

Wheeler Peak Photo Sets, Spring and Summer 2006-2009

2009-06-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

These comparison pictures taken of and on Wheeler Peak, Nevada, are organized by a monthly progression from late May — early June (2006) to mid June (2009) to late June — early July (2008). I organized them by month rather than by year, because they show a spring to summer progression of snow melt (possibly) and the spring to summer development of aspen leaves (for sure) more than they necessarily show a yearly change. The 2009 photos are somewhat anomalous, nonetheless, in that they were taken during a rain and snow storm, during this recent month of unusually wet and cool weather. All photos are from about 10,000 feet in elevation.

May 31, 2006, at 7:17 pm.

June 10, 2009, at 10:58 am.

July 1, 2008, at 10:00 am.

The first set of photos, above, generally shows less snow through the monthly progression, though the amount of snow on May 31, 2006, and on June 10, 2009, is fairly similar, and in fact there is more snow in places in the June 10th photo, and more in other places in the May 31st photo. Snow had fallen immediately prior to shooting the June 10th photo, and more snow fell after the photo was taken. Wheeler Peak itself is hidden by clouds in the June 10, 2009, photo.

June 1, 2006, at 9:01 am.

June 10, 2009, at 11:46 am.

June 28, 2008, at 12:45 pm.

The angle of the above three photos varies, although the angle of the first and third are nearly identical. Comparison of the first and second photo is difficult because so much of the mountain was under fog or cloud cover on June 10th, 2009, but snow amount in the first two is quite similar. I'd say there is slightly less in the June 10th photo and quite a bit less in the June 28th photo.

June 1, 2006, at 5:58 am.

June 10, 2009, at 2:12 pm.

July 2, 2008, at 6:32 am.

Aspen trees near 10,000 feet elevation at and just above the Wheeler Peak campground.

June 1, 2006, at 8:06 am.

June 10, 2009, at 2:10 pm.

July 2, 2008, at 6:36 am.

More aspen trees, again at similar locations in and just above the Wheeler Peak campground. I love aspen trees.

Things You Find in the Field: Leadfield

2009-06-16T07:26:00.000-07:00

While out wandering around in the field - whether for fun, for work, or for both - it is common to come across all kinds of miscellaneous old relics, sometimes including partial to entire ghost towns. Here, I'll just show a few pictures from Leadfield, California, which is in Titus Canyon, on the downhill side of Red Pass, in Death Valley National Monument.
I won't go into the history of the Leadfield mining district in Titus Canyon, CA, except to say that the sign does not give the entire history, and that real copper and lead discoveries were made there in the early 1900's. See links below.
A photo overview of part of the Leadfield town, with colorful grey to pale orange mine dump. I didn't knock around on this dump, so I don't know what was being brought out of the ground, but the grey matches the color of the local limestone.

A window through a door.

Rust and paint.

The view from one of the cabin windows.

In between.

Hinge.

An attempt to keep people out of one of the historic mine adits.

Sun on a rusty wall.

Window and wall.

Death Valley Ghost Towns: National Park Service
Leadfield, California: Ghost Town Explorers
Leadfield, California: Wikipedia
Leadfield Ghost Town: Mojave.net

Mid-Monthly Art: North Window

2009-06-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

The North Window

This is a water-color painting of the North Window at Arches National Park, which I completed in 2002. The little shadowy people in the window are supposed to represent MOH and I; they are there to add an approximate scale.

Getting the color intensity and balance just right on digital photos of original artwork is somewhat imprecise. This rendition is as close as I could come. Original artwork on a one-quarter sheet of watercolor paper.

Copyright © 2009 Looking for Detachment.
Original work Copyright © 2002.
All Rights Reserved.

The Tetons in Brief

2009-06-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick follow-up to the time warp post, which included a photo showing part of the Teton Range barely rising over the horizon south of Yellowstone Lake.
The photo shows the Grand Teton (left), Mt. Moran (center), and Eagles Rest Peak (right), looking southward across Jackson Lake. I took this photo on a long-ago visit to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park about twenty years ago in early-mid June of 1990.

It was almost two years after the Yellowstone fire of 1988 (cached page, current page not working as I write this; also see Wikipedia: Yellowstone fires of 1988). We planned to come back the next summer, in 1991, and stay at Jenny Lake Lodge, although we never did.
That's me, in the middle of a hike up Cascade Canyon. The peak is Mt. Owen. I have very few pictures and zero slides from our Yellowstone - Grand Teton expedition, so these will have to suffice.

Links: Heat Flow - Geothermal Gradient - Yellowstone

2009-06-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

This is a new series, wherein I post some of the links I find and save when doing research for other posts, rather than saving them as drafts.

About.com Geology: Geothermal Energy

NPS: 6th Biennial Scientific Conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: Sublacustrine Geothermal Activity in Yellowstone Lake

NPS: Yellowstone National Park home page

SMU: Geothermal Map of North America 2004 (and other maps)

SMU: Geothermal Lab on Heat Flow (lots of maps)

University of Akron: Misc Wyoming Geothermal Info

USGS/YVO: Heat Flow and Geothermal Energy at Yellowstone

USGS/YVO: Preliminary Assessment of Volcanic and Hydrothermal Hazards in Yellowstone National Park and Vicinity (link only)

USGS/YVO: PDF Document of Above

USGS/YVO: Yellowstone Volcano Observatory home page

Wikipedia: Geothermal Gradient
Wikipedia: Yellowstone Lake

Accretionary Wedge: A Time Warp!

2009-06-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

For this month's Accretionary Wedge – Let’s Do a Time Warp!- I’d like to warp forward an unknown amount of time, with whatever special technology and safety suits are required, to see the next large-scale caldera-forming eruption. Inactive large-scale calderas are found scattered through the Tertiary of Nevada; active examples include Yellowstone caldera in Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone Lake with Mt. Sheridan in the middle distance on the right and Mt. Moran of the Tetons in the far distant center. NPS Photo by Jim Peaco, 1987.

The calderas formed by these large-scale volcanic eruptions are truly huge, and some people have taken to calling them “supervolcanoes,” although it should be noted that the U.S. Geological Survey says,

“The term supervolcano has no specifically defined scientific meaning. It was used by the producers of a British TV program in 2000 to refer to volcanoes that have generated Earth's largest volcanic eruptions. As such, a supervolcano would be one that has produced an exceedingly large, catastrophic explosive eruption and a giant caldera,”

and the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory says, using the word “supervolcano” in quotes,

“The term "supervolcano" implies a volcanic center that has had an eruption of magnitude 8 on the Volcano Explosivity Index (VEI), meaning the measured deposits for that eruption is greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles).”

I don't much like calling these things supervolcanoes myself, although there can be a certain utility in using the word when talking to lay people, and I'm glad to finally see widespread recognition of eruptions that are much, much larger than the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington - and much larger than the eruption of Mt. Mazama, which formed Crater Lake, in Oregon.

Geology and volcanology have seen some warranted increase in notoriety and recognition since the release of movies like Supervolcano, and since the publication of supervolcano articles in popular scientific magazines like Scientific American and Discover, however overdramatized or inexact the popular renditions might be. The Wikipedia article Supervolcano, for example, says that "Supervolcanoes are relatively new to science; they were previously unknown because they do not fit the stereotypical model of volcanoes." This statement is incorrect: very large-scale explosive caldera-forming eruptions have been known to geologists for quite some time. Hey, I knew about them way back in the dark ages, before I reached the age of thirty!

Potts Hot Spring, West Thumb Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park. NPS photo by J Schmidt, 1977.

Time warp! Now we jump into the unkown future, and we are able to see the exact unfolding of the next large-caldera-forming eruption at Yellowstone. We are finally able to answer our many questions. When will the next caldera at Yellowstone erupt, how long will the eruption take, where will the ash flows flow, how thick will they be, and how hot? Will we all be on Mars or orbiting in space so we won't be wiped out? Where exactly in the developing Snake River Plain will the caldera form, will the magma come through Yellowstone Lake thus making the normally and hugely explosive eruption even more explosive? These are some of the many questions that occur to me when thinking of the Yellowstone area. I'd prefer to watch this sometime in the distant future, and not too soon on any human scale.

Looking south from Conway Summit; photo from Wikimedia.

Along those same lines, I have long planned to be standing on Conway Summit, looking south across Mono basin, when the next caldera-sized eruption occurs at the Long Valley caldera, whenever it will be erupting the next version of the Bishop Tuff (Bishop Tuff II ?). The wind will not be to the north while I'm there watching; that would make conditions unbearable (read: deadly), and it would destroy the visibility. I'm thinking, however, that Connor Summit - at about 30 miles or 50 kilometers away - might really be too close. The ash-flow tuff, which would probably go mostly south the way the Bishop Tuff did last time (about 760,000 years ago), could conceivably run northward and boil off the water in Mono Lake, instantly covering all existing tufa spires, domes, and other formations, preserving them for the future of our time-warped future time. One might not think favorably of the natural destruction of Mono Lake, but then at least the L.A. basin wouldn't be taking any of it's water anymore.

Two Years Ago Today: Ruth Headframe

2009-06-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

Two years ago today, the Ruth headframe was standing in its usual spot over the Deep Ruth Shaft - possibly not its original location - beside the road, the cut-off between the town of Ruth and Highway 6 toward Lund and Currant. The headframe has since been taken down.
These photos were shot from an unusual perspective: from the top of the Keystone Dump. Location of the headframe and Keystone Dump can be seen on this TerraServer map.

It was sping, and the Purshia tridentata was in full bloom, growing on the strongly iron-oxide-rich to pyritic dirt. I hesitate to call it soil - see what I mean in the first photo - it must classify as an inceptisol if something can grown on it.

Our Recent Weather

2009-06-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

This is how it's looked around these here parts during the last week to month. They say that the monsoon season doesn't start until June 15th, at least in New Mexico, but that hasn't kept me from thinking this weather is a lot like an early and over-done monsoon, with thunderstorms building everywhere daily, clouds and rain lasting through the night sometimes, and other strange anomalies.

My first experience with the monsoon in eastern Nevada was in June, 1978. It didn't start before the middle of the month or so, it didn't rain everyday, and the thunderstorms were huge and, if not overhead, could be seen somewhere within 50 miles of our camp east of Pioche. The thunderstorms and clouds, this month and last, have been everywhere.

The photo was taken on April 23rd at 11:00 am, at Cave Lake, Nevada.

Summer Reading List Meme

2009-06-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't been terribly good about finishing books I've started in the last year, so I've taken a few off the list and put them out of my sight, at least for now. Nevertheless, I still have a reading list, including a few re-reads.

Sweet Promised Land - Robert Laxalt

Sand: The Never-Ending Story - Michael Welland (his blog is at Through the Sandglass)

The Hard Road West: History and Geology along the Gold Rush Trail - Keith Heyer Meldahl (my dad has been waiting for me to finish this one so I could respond to his request, "let me know if the geologic history of the Basin and Range is correct
in the Hard Road [West].")

A Mine of Her Own: Women Prospectors in the American West, 1850-1950 - Sally Zanjani (I may have read this before in the 1980's)

Geo-Logic: Breaking Ground between Philosophy and the Earth Sciences - Robert Frodeman (This one looks a little dense, to me, but it's on my list, and I want to get through at least some of the chapters)

Sweet Promised Land falls into the catetgory of a re-read. The book is a biography of Dominique Laxalt, a Basque sheepherder in Nevada, as written by his father, Robert Laxalt. I first read the book sometime in the 1980's. I highly recommend this 50th anniversary edition (it was first published in 1957).

This summer reading-list meme seems to be predicated on listing seven books, but I'm not going to push my luck and will only list five. I have already completed the two books listed below - in the last two months, no less! I'm encouraged by that, and by the fact that I know I'll finish Sweet Promised Land. Finished:

Not Becoming my Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me along the Way - Ruth Reichl

Annie's Ghosts: A Journed into a Family Secret - Steve Luxenberg

Yay for already finishing two books! Much better than my 2008 book-reading record (except for some escapist paperbacks).

Other book lists can be seen at Clastic Detritus, Reporting on a Revolution, and The Dynamic Earth.