Category: 2020 Events

2020-12-12 Will Gallin — Geologic Carbon Sequestration in Washington State

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The Subject

What is carbon sequestration?  What are the benefits and risks of geological carbon sequestration in Washington State? And what is technologically possible and economically feasible?

We will examine these questions and explore the current state of the science. The Washington Geological Survey is part of a three-year partnership of 13 western states, stimulated by the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE). The member institutions, consisting of state geological surveys, universities, and national laboratories (under Dr. Robert Balch of New Mexico Tech), will identify commercially viable interstate networks between carbon emitters and potential subsurface carbon reservoirs. With this initiative as a backdrop, we will learn about current sequestration projects across the western U.S., along with the economic drivers and infrastructural hurdles these projects face. We will focus specifically on the proven case for permanent mineralized carbon sequestration in Columbia River basalts and the potential for future, longer-term projects in Washington State.

The Speaker

Will Gallin is the carbon sequestration project lead at the Washington Geological Survey’s (WGS) Dept of Natural Resources (DRN). He has worked for the Dept. of Ecology in Lacey, the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in Socorro, New Mexico, and the Hess Corporation—an oil and gas exploration and production company in Texas. He graduated in 2005 from Carleton College in Minnesota, and got his MSc in 2010 from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. His other DRN job is as a mapper for the landslide hazards program.  His favorite geological disciplines are sedimentology, stratigraphy, paleontology, and salt tectonics.

2020-02-29 Tsunami Evacuation Walk Time Maps

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The Department of Natural Resource’s Geological Survey has released a series of Tsunami Evacuation maps for coastal areas of Washington.  The Port Townsend map (2019) prints as a large poster, but we’ve made a smaller version that you can download here.  Take a look and find your evacuation route if a tsunami is approaching.  If its from the Big One (M 8-9) on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, you’ll have nearly two hours of response time; if its from a local crustal earthquake on the Whidby-Camino fault zone, if could be just minutes before it arrives on our beaches and bays. Get to high ground!

2020-02-29 Carrie Garrison Laney — Tsunami deposits of the Puget Sound

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Tsunamis in Washington State:  Evidence for local and Cascadian earthquakes

Sea waves, not tsunamis

Washington’s tsunami sources include the obvious Cascadia subduction zone, plus local crustal faults, tsunamigenic slope failures, and distant source tsunamis (Alaska, Japan, Chile). The longest geologic record of past tsunamis is at Discovery Bay, just 10 miles southwest of Port Townsend. At least nine tsunami deposits dating back 2,500 years are preserved as layers of fine sand in otherwise peaty tidal-marsh deposits, whereas only five Cascadia earthquakes were recorded in the estuaries of southwest Washington during that same time span. This suggests that other tsunami sources created erosive and flooding tsunamis in Discovery Bay. The youngest tsunami deposit at Discovery Bay is probably from the 1700 A.D. Cascadia earthquake. The next older deposit is well dated at 1320–1390 A.D. However, there is no geologic evidence for a late fourteenth-century earthquake or tsunami in any of the southwest Washington estuaries, so this tsunami may represent a smaller Cascadia earthquake that was limited to the northern end of the subduction zone.

Potential tsunami sources can be tested using new high-resolution tsunami modeling for specific sites. At Discovery Bay, tsunami models show that a large Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone earthquake could cause flooding at Discovery Bay, whereas models of the Seattle fault do not. Recently published maps and video animations for a M9 Cascades subduction scenario will be shown for Port Townsend and Port Angeles.

Dr. Carrie Garrison-Laney is a tsunami hazards specialist at Washington Sea Grant at the University of Washington and a liaison to the National Center for Tsunami Research at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory at NOAA in Seattle. Carrie’s work on tsunami hazards in Puget Sound includes identifying and dating paleo-tsunami deposits, numerical modeling of tsunami inundation, and the use of intertidal paleoecology to study past tsunami events. Carrie also participates in a variety of outreach activities, including Washington’s Tsunami Roadshow.  In her spare time, she helps her two daughters navigate high school and college