Spring and summer streamflow forecasts...

have been published for 1 April 2012, and as expected, show that drainage basins in the Pacific Northwest are well above average due to the late season and record-breaking precipitation that occurred in March.  But down here, in southern Utah in the heart of the Colorado River basin, runoff is anticipated to be well below average.  Typical for a La Niña year, which is exactly what was predicted.

UPDATE: Idaho water supply strong heading to summer. But you already knew that having read this blog post.

The geologist licensing board...

for Washington State will be meeting on the EWU campus on Tuesday, 6 March.  During their confab they will cater a free lunch in Tawanka 215C where they will discuss requirements for professional registration.  If you're a geology student you might seriously consider attending the forum.  Hey, it's free food.

Gulp...

New research on Japanese quake ominous for Pacific Northwest.  The not-so-good news:

"Detailed analyses of the way the Earth warped along the Japanese coast suggest that shaking from a Cascadia megaquake could be stronger than expected along the coasts of Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, researchers reported Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"The Cascadia subduction zone can be seen as a mirror image of the Tohoku area," said John Anderson, of the University of Nevada.  Anderson compiled ground-motion data from the Japan quake and overlaid it on a map of the Pacific Northwest, which has a similar fault - called a subduction zone - lying offshore.

In Japan, the biggest jolts occurred underwater. The seafloor was displaced by 150 feet or more in some places, triggering the massive tsunami. But in the Northwest, it's the land that will be rocked hardest - because the Pacific coast here lies so close to the subduction zone.

"The ground motions that we have from Tohoku may actually be an indication that there could be much stronger shaking in the coastal areas of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon," Anderson said."

Read the whole thing at the linked article.  Then get prepared.

Columbia Plateau flood basalts...

linked to tear in giant subducted slab of oceanic lithosphere.

Finally, here comes winter...

Here's the link to the NOAA/NWS forecast.  Some significant accumulation of snow is predicted in the week ahead.

Ice Age Floods Institute lecture...

on the “Latest Pleistocene Geologic History of Upper Grand Coulee” by Dr. Patrick Spencer will occur this Thursday, November 17, at 7 pm on the Eastern Washington University, Cheney Campus, in Science Building Room 137.

Dr. Spencer is a professor of geology at Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington.  He will present a summary of his recent work on fine grained sediment in Upper Grand Coulee, including analysis of grain size distribution, sedimentary structures and radiocarbon age dates on key localities, suggesting that some of the sediments accumulated in a calm-water setting, possibly in a lake behind a moraine-dam. Grand Coulee was then swept by Missoula Floods, leaving behind a record of high energy processes.

The lecture is sponsored by the Cheney-Spokane Chapter and is free and open to the public.

First snow of the season...

flies in eastern Washington this blustery afternoon (click to enlarge):

I hope this is a harbinger of a good snowy winter.

The regulated plumbing system...

that we call the Columbia River:  The High-Stakes Math Behind the West's Greatest River.

Megaripples on West Bar...

on the Columbia River, south of Wenatchee, Washington, were generated by surging floodwaters from the mouth of Moses Coulee during the Pleistocene (click to enlarge):

A close-up view shows that the enormous bedforms sit on a terrace more than 150 ft above the present day river, and are 300 to 350 ft long and about 25 to 40 ft high.  The floodwaters are estimated to have been between 700 to 900 ft deep at this location during their deposition:

I snapped the images above on Wednesday morning, following my presentation the night before about the geology of Mars, where I compared them to similar sedimentary structures found on the red planet in Athabasca Vallis (click for larger image at higher resolution):

Image credit: MOC camera on Mars Global Surveyor, Malin Space Science Systems.

Ice Age Floods trail creation...

is proceeding at a glacial pace.

Although it's certainly a worthwhile project, in these difficult economic times one should understand that it's not exactly a state or federal funding priority.

La Niña advisory issued for winter...

in the Pacific Northwest, according to the latest Weather Watcher Newsletter (.pdf):

"What this means for the Inland Northwest is more seasonal weather through the fall. But as we move into winter, there is a better chance for below normal temperatures and above normal precipitation for the Inland Northwest."

Terrific. I enjoyed the snowy weather last year.  Bring it on.

Who can possibly resist...

peering into a freshly excavated hole? Certainly not a geologist!

While running errands around town yesterday I noticed these enormous sub-rounded basalt boulders piled adjacent to a stormwater retention basin for a new subdivision in Cheney, Washington (click to enlarge):

These gigantic clasts were likely saltating particles in the Missoula outburst floods that swept across eastern Washington, scouring the Channeled Scablands, at the end of the Pleistocene.  Here's a better indication of scale:

"Botany Washington"...

is an annual event organized by the Washington Native Plant Society, and this year it convenes this weekend in eastern Washington.  I'm heading out shortly to meet a group led by EWU botanist RO'Q at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, in the middle of the Cheney-Palouse Scabland Tract.  I'll speak about the catastrophic Pleistocene flood origin of the gravelly soils, and crawl around the ponderosa pine forest with the group for a while to see what's in bloom.

UPDATE:  Some of the showier plants included western serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia)(click to enlarge):

Common camas (Camassia quamash):

Arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata):

And while the biologists crawled around on their hands and knees, keying out various mini-floras, one of the native fauna caught my attention:

Spring lecture and field trip...

to examine the "Cheney-Palouse Scabland Tract - Top to Bottom" will be held this coming Thursday and Saturday, hosted by the Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI):

The free lecture on Thursday, 28 April, will be presented at 7 pm, Science Building, Room 135, Eastern Washington University, Cheney.  Dr. Gene Kiver, Professor Emeritus, EWU Geology, will provide an overview of the Cheney-Palouse Scabland channel system from its beginning south of the West Plains of Spokane to its terminus south of Palouse Falls at the confluence of the Palouse and Snake Rivers. Important geologic concepts that help understand the evolution of the Channeled Scabland include generation of nickpoints (cataracts, now dry falls), development of canyons or coulees produced by cataract retreat, and long-term deepening and stripping of the rock layers producing different landforms as erosion continues will be discussed. 

The associated field trip on Saturday, 30 April, is led by Gene Kiver, Bruce Bjornstad, and Lloyd Stoess. The field excursion will start in Cheney at 8 am near the upper end of the Cheney-Palouse Scabland Tract and progress southward to Rock Lake and to the Palouse River valley. From there we will travel west across the Rock Creek and Cow Creek Coulees to Benge and south to Hooper, Washtucna, and Palouse Falls where the Cheney-Palouse Scabland Tract ends at the Snake River. We’ll see examples of cataract canyons, dry falls, basalt buttes and mesas, streamlined- and scarped- loess islands, and divide crossings caused by the monstrous Missoula Floods. The return trip will follow the west edge of the Cheney Palouse Scabland Tract, concluding at 6 pm. Registration is required and you can find details in the registration and liability forms. More information: Melanie Bell; (509) 954-4242.

For other related activities, consult the IAFI events calendar.

Guest geology lecture...

on the paleontology and stratigraphy of the Chuckanut Formation in northwestern Washington, by Renee Breedlovestrout, is scheduled for Monday, 25 April, at noon in SCI 118.  Renee will also linger a bit afterward to discuss how to apply to graduate school with interested students.

Buzz off...

if you're a well qualified in-state student wanting admission to the University of Washington:  Why straight-A's may not get you into UW this year.  Key bit:

"In the face of continuing state budget cuts, academic leaders at the University of Washington in February made a painful decision to cut the number of Washington students the school will admit this fall and increase the number of out-of-state and international students, who pay nearly three times as much in tuition and fees."

Hey, UW has to support the nearly $700k salary of its president somehow.

As I've written before, I believe higher education is the next bubble to pop.  Accelerating inflation of tuition, increasing debt burdens on students, coupled with little prospect of well-paying jobs at graduation.  It's not sustainable.

Geologic evidence for great quakes...

and tsunamis along the Cascadia subduction zone comes in a variety of forms, one of which is sunken or drowned forests, where stands of living trees were abruptly lowered into the tidal zone during earth movements. Here's a site near Coos Bay, Oregon, visited during an EWU field course (click to enlarge):

And another in Willapa Bay, Washington, where a myriad of tree stumps are exposed during low tide:

While the trees themselves have long died and weathered away, the large stumps still sit in growth position:

Here's a good, but now dated, general article (.pdf format) that describes the work of Brian Atwater and others who have figured out this geologic story.

Pics from the past...

taken during an ascent of the classic West Ridge of Forbidden Peak in the North Cascades in the early 1990s with terrific climbing partners CC and JD.  I'm standing at the rocky summit where the exposure is significant, plunging about 4,300 feet behind me down to Moraine Lake, with Eldorado Peak looming in the distance (click to enlarge):

Here's a snap of Johannesburg Mountain across the valley to the south, with its imposing Northeast Face and hanging glaciers, which rises about 5,000 feet in only 0.9 miles.  Awesome rock:

Wildfires elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest modified the atmospherics and created spectacular sunsets:

And we had a couple of curious natives follow our progress upward:

My climbing partners will tell you that I frequently comment that "life begins above tree line."  Perhaps you can see why I hold that philosophy.

Perhaps the most interesting argument...

in favor of legalizing marijuana in Washington state:

Legalization will take the “cool” factor out of marijuana, Goodman insisted: “If grandma’s using it for cancer (treatment) it’s not cool anymore.”

An act related to designating...

the state rock of Washington is being considered in the state legislature.  Here's the bill.

Hey, I've got nothing against the Tenino Sandstone (it is, after all, a sedimentary rock), but shouldn't this be vigorously debated?  I think a powerful argument could be made for the Columbia River Basalt Group.

RELATED: List of U.S. state minerals, rocks, stones and gemstones.