Category: Locations of Interest

2025-09-13 Tom Badger – Hazards and Highways: Troubles for the NW Olympic Peninsula

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The Lecture 

Hazards and Highways: Troubles for the NW Olympic Peninsula

State Route 112 is the sole access road for the northwestern Olympic Peninsula and the remote communities situated along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, west of Port Angeles. Particularly unfavorable geology underlies the western half of this road and this, combined with steep topography and an exceptionally wet winter climate, make it one of the most landslide-afflicted highway corridors in the state. Landslides and lowland flooding impact travel most winters, causing short duration closures of one or both lanes and necessitating persistent maintenance efforts.  On a longer cycle of years to decades, major landslide events severely damage or destroy the highway at one or more locations, resulting in closures lasting three to six months or longer. Detour options are limited to nonexistent, so communities and local businesses suffer from these closures until highway repairs can be made or floodwaters recede. Low frequency-high consequence hazards such as earthquakes and tsunamis add to the risk profile and further complicate mitigation strategies.

This presentation summarizes the results of a planning-level study commissioned by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) that examined the geologic and hydrologic hazards that threaten this highway, conducted a comprehensive risk analysis, and provided recommendations to improve its resiliency and reduce community impacts. The study, completed in 2023, enabled WSDOT to secure a 5-yr $30 million allocation from a NOAA Climate Resiliency grant in late 2024 to proceed with initial recommendations, which are expected to begin Spring 2025.

About the Speaker

Tom Badger

Happy to leave the Midwest flatlands behind in 1981, Tom completed his BS in geology in 1983 at WWU and his MS in geological engineering at the University of Nevada Reno in 2002. He is licensed in Washington as an engineering geologist, hydrogeologist, and civil engineer. Tom worked for WSDOT for 32 years, the last five serving as chief engineering geologist, before retiring in 2016. Tom specializes in the assessment and mitigation of slope hazards, soil and rock slope engineering, and risk management for transportation infrastructure. He has published and lectured extensively on these topics, and consults part-time for the Portland-based firm, Landslide Technology.

 

2025-07-25 and 26 – QGS North Olympic Peninsula Field Trip

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Eocene Bedrock Geology of the Northern Olympic Peninsula:  Arrival of the Siletzia Oceanic Terrane, Washington

 

WHEN:  July 25-26, 2025 (Friday and Saturday)

Quimper Geological Society (QGS) had an exciting two-day field trip on Friday, July 25, and Saturday, July 26, 2025, to the North Olympic Peninsula, led by led by Professor Erin Donaghy (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, sedimentologist and field geologist) with Carol Serdar Tepper (retired geologist, Washington Department of Ecology) and Jeff Tepper (Professor emeritus, University of Puget Sound) as co-leaders.

We looked at rocks related to docking of the Siletzia oceanic terrane, including volcanic and sedimentary units that formed while Siletzia was still offshore as well as, stratigraphic sequences that record both the pre-docking (Crescent and Aldwell Formations) and post-docking (Lyre, Hoko, and Makah Formations) history. At each stop we examined the rocks and discuss the field and lab techniques that were used to infer their paleo-environments and tectonic implications. The trip included some strenuous hiking/walking and several hours of driving each day, in places on paved but winding roads.

Logistical details for the trip are as follows:

  • The trip will begin both days at the Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles, Washington, and will return there at the end of day one. More specifics will be provided once registration is finalized. Both days (Friday and Saturday) will begin at 8:30 AM (please DO NOT be late), end times may vary.
  • The group will be limited to 20 QGS members. (There will be additional geologists along to assist.) Spaces filled on a first-come, first reserved basis.
  • Participants should make their own arrangements for lodging in or near Port Angeles on Friday night (depending on your starting point on Friday (Day 1), you may also want to book both Thursday and Friday nights). Hotel availability can be tight during the summer, so booking early is recommended.
  • Participants should be in good physical health and comfortable walking several miles each day with some hikes being at ~6000 feet elevation.
  • Due to limited parking at some stops, carpooling is a must. We will coordinate this in advance as part of the registration process. Please offer your host driver money for gas and National Park fee (if applicable). If you are unable to carpool, please do not apply for registration.
  • Summer road construction along Highway 101 will increase your travel time, sometimes unexpectedly. Plan ahead.
  • The cost of the trip is $90, which includes box lunches both days and copy of the field guide.

TO BECOME REGISTERED:  1. Print the registration form; 2. Print all information completely; 3. Write a check (sorry, we are a small group) to:  JEFFERSON LAND TRUST; 4. Send registration form and check to the P.O. Box on the form.

About the leaders

Erin Donaghy, geology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is a sedimentologist who studies the evolution of sedimentary basins that form along active convergent margins. Her field work focuses on the west coast of North America, in particular the exotic terranes in western Alaska and the north Olympic Peninsula, Washington.

 

 

Carol Serdar Tepper, a licensed geologist, has spent her entire life on the Puget Sound playing with rocks. She began her career as a science teacher. She subsequently worked for Washington State mapping landslides and regulating surface mining, timber harvest impacts, and water-quality compliance. She is currently the leader and advisor for the Quimper Geologic Society.

 

 

Dr. Jeffrey TepperJeff Tepper, Professor emeritus at the University of Puget Sound, taught courses in mineralogy, petrology, and geochemistry before retiring in 2021. His research focuses on the magmatic and tectonic history of the Pacific Northwest and on environmental chemistry of water and sediment of local lakes.

2025-04-12 Dan Muhs – Tectonic Uplift in the Pacific Northwest

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The Lecture
Subduction-related late Quaternary tectonic uplift and sea-level change in the Pacific NW and around the Pacific Rim

This was a Zoom-only lecture.

Quimper Geological Society welcomed Dan Muhs, an emeritus USGS geologist. He provided marine terraces as evidence of tectonic uplift along the Pacific Ocean plate.

In 1979, Seiya Uyeda and Hiroo Kanamori introduced a tectonic model with two end members of a subduction-boundary continuum: the “Chilean” type (shallow dip of the subducting plate, great thrust events, compression, and uplift of the overriding plate) and the “Mariana” type (steep dip of the subducting plate, no great thrust events, tension, and little or no uplift). The concept has been used to explain variable rates of Quaternary uplift around the Pacific Rim, and the paper has been cited over a thousand times since its publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research.  We now have a sufficient number of dated late Quaternary marine terraces from around the Pacific Rim to test the veracity of this model. In this presentation, well-dated emergent shorelines of the Pacific Rim was explored, from South America, North America, the Aleutians, Japan, and the Marianas.

About the Speaker

Dan Muhs is an emeritus scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. He earned B.A. and M.S. degrees from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. He was a research geologist with the USGS from 1985 until his retirement in 2022.  Despite his retirement, Dan remains an active researcher, lecturer, and writer.

Dan’s interests are in the fields of coastal and eolian geomorphology, Quaternary stratigraphy, soil genesis, and paleoclimatology. Most of his work has been in the US (Alaska, western US, and Great Plains), but he has also worked in Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Spain, and western Pacific. Over the course of his career he has authored more than 150 scientific papers on a diverse range of subjects focused on the Quaternary period, including the origins and history of loess and dune fields, paleozoogeography of marine fossil invertebrates, tests of glacial isostatic adjustment models, and sea-level histories and tectonic uplift rates deduced from emergent marine terraces. Dan has received numerous awards and recognition, including the Geological Society of America Kirk Bryan Award.