Category: National geology

Williams, David B.

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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.

David B. Williams writes 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; and Too High & Too Steep. He maintains the blog GeologyWriter.com from his home base in Seattle.  David says his interest in urban geology was sparked by the use of stone in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.

David Williams has been a frequent and interesting speaker for our lecture series (see events on 3/2/13, 11/7/15 and 5/11/19). In 2019 he announced that Stories in Stone has been republished by UW Press (https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295746456/stories-in-stone/.  In addition, he continues to run has Geology walks through Seattle on a regular basis.  If interested, contact him for dates and cost. (Updated Oct. 2021)

Stories in Stone David Williams 2019 reprinted

09-29-2018 John Pallister: Volcanic Disasters and Hazards to Aircraft

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Sat. Sept, 29, 3-5 pm; John Pallister—VDAP & Volcanic Hazards to Aircraft

Meeting Location
Port Townsend Aero Museum
105 Airport Road
Port Townsend

This special venue is a private museum dedicated to preserving aircraft history of the Pacific Northwest through restoration, maintenance, and repair of aircraft.

About the Lecture

In this talk, John Pallister (U.S. Geological Survey) will describe the Volcanic Disaster Assistance Program and how volcanic eruptions can have disastrous consequences for aircraft.  Until recently, most radar systems did not image the ash plumes from volcanic eruptions and aircraft may well fly through the plume without prior warning. The silica-rich ash can destroy jet engines in minutes and lead to catastrophic results.  Hence the link to the Aero Museum, which seemed to be a fitting venue for the talk.  A $10 donation is required; this includes access to the museum at 3 pm and the hour-long talk starting at 4 pm.

A telemetered, solar-powered scanning spectrometer was installed in 2016 at Sinabung Volcano in Sumatra, Indonesia. It measures sulfur dioxide gas emissions, which helps forecast volcanic activity.  This is one of many activities sponsored by VDAP.

 

About the Speaker

John Pallister is a recently retired Senior Reseach Geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Vancouver, WA.  John has a long, varied and distinguished career, most recently as coordinator for the USGS’s VDAP program. VDAP is the Volcanic Disaster Assistance Program, an international project to monitor volcanic eruptions around the world.

 

 

Aero Museum Photographs

Taken by David Pitts, Sept. 29, 2018

 

 

 

 

12-07-2013 Wendell Duffield: Kilauea Volcano

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About the Talk

Chasing Lava – A Geologist’s Adventures at Kilauea Volcano, Hawai’i

In 1969, as Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, a young geologist known as Duff (aka Wendell Duffield) was preparing to set foot on a rocky landscape of another sort:  Kilauea Volcano, a growing shield volcano, on the island of Hawaii, where he would spend three years at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Duff’s time at HVO encompassed everything from the scientific to the humorous to life-threatening.

While he was at HVO, Kilauea erupted at three areas. Several times, 2,000-ft-tall lava fountains spewed from the east rift zone, at a site later named Mauna Ulu (Hawaiian: growing mountain). Elsewhere, so-called “curtains of fire” danced from long cracks on the floor of Kilauea’s summit caldera. And for only the fourth time in Hawaii’s historic record, lava emerged from a fissure along the southwest rift zone.

An unexpected “extra” for Duff was large, sluggishly circulating lake of thinly-crusted-over molten lava that played out a miniature version of global plate tectonics — then a revolutionary and newly developing model of how Earth’s crust moves about. Duff’s movies and photos of the small-scale version of ‘plate’ motions quickly became a popular teaching aid in classrooms worldwide.

Meanwhile, during the brief moments between Duff’s observing and recording antics of the active volcano, his dog Cinda discovered a reticulated python hiding in the rainforest — in a state that proudly advertised a total lack of snakes other than at the Oahu zoo. This discovery was very unwelcome news for Hawaiian political officials.

About the Speaker

Duffield’s first encounter with an active volcano was at Kilauea on the Big Island in 1968. From 1969 to 1972 he was a staff geologist there at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Kilauea erupted nearly non-stop during those three years. His book “Chasing Lava” tells the tale of those exciting times.

In 1997, Duff retired from the USGS and immediately settled into being an Adjunct Professor for the Geology Department of Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, where he gave the occasional classroom lecture, mentored students, continued researching topics volcanic and began writing essays and books on a variety of topics. Although he moved from Flagstaff to Whidbey Island in May of this year, he retains his NAU title but now spends most of his time writing.