Day: March 13, 2018

11-07-2015 David Williams: Seattle’s topography

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About the Talk

Too High and Too Steep—Reshaping Seattle’s Topography

Today’s Seattle looks very different from the landscape that its founding settlers first encountered. As the city grew, its leaders and inhabitants dramatically altered its topography to accommodate their changing visions. In Too Steep and Too High, writer and geologist David Williams illuminates the physical challenges and sometimes startling hubris of these large-scale transformations, helping us find visible traces of the city’s former landscape and understand how Seattle has been radically reshaped.

David B. Williams is a freelance writer in Seattle. Originally raised in Seattle, he went to college in Colorado where he initially studied physics but switched to geology (a smart move). He received a Bachelor of Arts in geology from Colorado College in 1987 was then hired by the Canyonlands Field Institute in Moab, Utah. This led to a job as an Interpretive Park Ranger at Arches National Park and then in Boston while his wife attended graduate school in 1997. He must have heard Horace Greely’s admonition of Go West Young Couple, and they returned to Seattle where he became a well-established writer of natural history books and occasional urban geology tour guide. Since 1999, he had been associated with Seattle’s Burke Museum in their education department.

His list of books includes several naturalist’s guides to Canyon Country, The Street-Smart Naturalist: Field Notes from Seattle, Cairns—Messengers in Stone, Stories in Stone (which he told us about in 2013), and his newest book—Too High and Too Steep—Reshaping Seattle’s Topography. David says his interest in urban geology was sparked by the use of stone in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.  Book signing as well…

About the Speaker

David B. Williams is a freelance writer focused on the intersection of people and the natural world. His books include Stories in Stone: Travels Through Urban Geology; The Seattle Street-Smart Naturalist: Field Notes from the City; Cairns: Messengers in Stone. Stories in Stone; and Too High & Too Steep the subject of today’s talk. David also works at the Burke Museum and is a former National Parks ranger in Utah and Massachusetts. He maintains the blog GeologyWriter.com from his home base in Seattle.

11-04-2015 JLTGG: The Big One (EQ) Workshop

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About the Workshop

Surviving the Really Big One – A JLT Earthquake and Tsunami Preparedness Workshop

The Jefferson Land Trust Geology Group presents a special workshop on “Surviving the Really Big One” on November 14, 2015.

This earthquake and tsunami workshop was created in response to the July 20th article in the New Yorker Magazine, which has received lots of attention both locally and throughout the Pacific Northwest. However, those with a background in geology may have felt that many of the claims in this article were exaggerated or not well founded.

Michael Machette, the organizer of this event, said “as a geologist and leader of the Land Trust’s Geology Group, I have a big appreciation for how a region’s geology shapes landscape and life over long stretches of time. And as a Land Trust board member, I’m thinking about perpetuity–about life and land in Jefferson County for 50, 100, 200+ years into the future. We know massive earthquakes like this are a feature of our region, so I wanted to bring a panel together to focus our thinking on the longer-term hazards and help our community sustain itself into future.”

About the Speakers

Toward these ends, Machette has assembled a team of local and regional experts for this workshop.  Presenters will take you from the Magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami’s source to the local effects with a focus on the Port Townsend area.

Renowned earthquake geologist Brian Atwater (USGS) will discuss the anticipated earthquake and its source. Hazard geologists Tim Walsh (DNR) and Carrie Garrison-Laney (UW) will cover tsunamis (both real and modeled).  Getting into the effects of a large quake, structural engineer Cale Ash (Degenkolb-Seattle) will discuss building response and structural solutions to tsunamis and ground shaking, and Emergency Planner Bob Hamblin of Jefferson County will talk about what it will be like to live through the Really Big One and what you should have done to prepare for it.  The workshop will be from 2:30-5 pm on Saturday, Nov. 14 at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Foundation (QUUF) at 2333 San Juan Road in Port Townsend. This event is both a community service and a fundraiser for the Land Trust, so a portion of your $40 ticket price is tax deductible.

03-19-2016 Liz Nesbitt: Climate & Whales

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About the Talk

Global Warming, Global Cooling, and the Evolution of Whales

Liz Nesbitt will take you on an adventure back to the end of the Cretaceous time period when dinosaurs became extinct but mammals started to flourish. Among these were sea-going mammals that evolved into the whales we know today. This will be a non-technical talk weaving together the early Cenozoic climates, whale evolution, and the fossil record for this time period that is preserved in western Washington.

After the end-Cretaceous extinctions 66 million years ago, global climates remained warm and Earth was free of ice sheets. Hothouse climates generally persisted until about 35 million years ago, when the world was plunged into icehouse conditions. Ice sheets spread across high latitudes for the first time in 200 million years. With the extinction of all large dinosaurs and marine reptiles at the end-Cretaceous, mammals rapidly evolved to fill many vacated eco-spaces. A lineage of land mammals went into the sea over this time, and the group evolved rapidly into completely aquatic animals, resulting in a diversity of whale body types and feeding strategies. During the early Cenozoic Era (55 to 25 million years ago), significant swings in climate may have been one driver of whale evolution.

About the Speaker

Dr. Nesbitt is Curator of Paleontology at the Burke Museum and Earth Sciences professor at the University of Washington. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.

Much of her research involves the effects of changing climate on marine faunas, from large vertebrates to invertebrates and microscopic forms. She is currently working with Burke colleagues on measuring the health of Puget Sound through examination of the foraminifera in bottom sediments.

She is continually involved with the numerous exhibits at the Burke Museum, emphasizing communicating science to all ages. For example, she curated “Cruising the Fossil Freeway”, an exhibit that featured the science of Kirk Johnson (now leading the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History) and the art of Ray Troll that introduced the huge variety of American fossils through interactive stations and games.

Numerous fossils of whales and other marine mammals collected on beaches of the Olympic Peninsula are housed in the Burke Museum. A new whale from this area was described in a technical paper published in 2015. Visiting paleontologists are currently studying several small whales and an ancestor of seals and sea lions, all collected from western Washington and between 30 million and 35 million years old.