Category: Locations of Interest

2021-01-09 Scott Burns: Tasting Terroir—Geologic and climate  influences on wine flavors in the Pacific NW (a talk and virtual tasting)

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The Lecture

To begin with, Scott will discuss the factors that affect wine flavors, concentrating on the climate and geology of the region.  Oregon and Washington are the number 3 and 2 states in number of wineries in the United States and just across the border, B.C. is the number 2 province in Canada for wine production.  Scott will concentrate on SE Washington and Willamette Valley in Oregon, but will also discuss NW Washington, SW Oregon, and British Columbia (including Vancouver Island which has a solid wine industry too and they are so close to the Olympic Peninsula.  This part will take about 40 minutes with some audience polling questions included.  The last half hour we will ask the different members of the audience (via zoom) what they are drinking and briefly will discuss their terroirs. Come prepared with something to drink – even beer has a terroir story!

The Tasting

We’ll have a virtual wine tasting after the lecture.  So select one of your favorite wines from wherever and taste away while Scott lectures. Afterwards, we’ll have a virtual Happy Hour when we can talk about specific wines, AVAs or wineries.

The Speaker

Scott just finished his 50th year of teaching at the university level.  He has taught in Switzerland, New Zealand, Washington, Colorado, and Louisiana before returning to Portland where he grew up and has been at Portland State for 30 years.  While as a student at Stanford in 1968, he started drinking wine in a fledgling little area called the Napa Valley.  He and Michael Machette both studied under Peter Birkeland at the University of  Colorado. Scott used to make wine in the early 1970’s with his Swiss students and turned that experience into his first published paper in the Journal of College Teaching in 1976.  With the help of his large collection of students, he unlocked the secrets of the different soils in the Willamette Valley that were producing different flavors in the early 1990’s.  He has also done research on terroir in southern Oregon and the Columbia Gorge.  He has been studying Canadian terroir for over 30 years, too.

2020-10-08 Michael Machette –Your soil: it’s all about geology

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Your soil— it’s all about geology (presented by Port Townsend Master Gardeners)

The lecture

If you didn’t see Michael’s hour-long Zoom presentation, it will be available for 6 months on WSU’s YouTube channel (click above).  Michael discussed the local geology ofPort Townsend and the larger Quimper Peninsula and geology effect on the soils in your garden. Topics included soil forming factors, the importance of and way to determine the texture of your soil, and the relationships between surficial geology and soils, with examples from Port Townsend and the Chimacum Valley.  All of the soils in this region are young (less than 15,000 years), but they can be some of the most productive in the state.

The speaker

Michael Machette
Michael Machette

Michael is a Quaternary geologist (one who deals with the past 2 million years of the earth’s history). Much of his 35-year career was in the arid Southwest with the US Geological Survey in Denver, but he moved to Port Townsend in 2008 to retire near the water in a cooler low-land climate.  Michael consultants on earthquake hazards and is a principle advisor to the Quimper Geological Society (QuimperGeology.org), which has more than 800 local members. He has a small garden that feeds a couple of neighborhood deer and rabbits.

Thanks for supporting the Jefferson County Master Gardener Foundation!

2020-10-03 Terry Wallace — Gold: A Journey from the Big Bang to the Amazon (Zoom)

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Gold—A Journey from the Big Bang to the Amazon

Gold is one of the most fascinating of the 5,400 mineral species on Earth and no mineral (or metal) evokes more emotion, but gold also has an incredible scientific story: a gold nugget is made of material that was not born in our planet or even our solar system.

In this talk, world-renowned geophysicist Dr Terry Wallace discusses how the metal was created, how it came to be found on Earth, and the spell it has cast over humankind.  The lecture was broadcast via Zoom on Oct. 3, 2020; the recording is available above.

Terry C. Wallace Jr. was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico and graduated from Los Alamos High School in 1974. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in geophysics and mathematics from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, followed by a Master of Science and PhD in geophysics from the California Institute of Technology.

From 1983 to 2003, he was a professor at the University of Arizona, but moved back to Los Alamos in 2006 to become their Principal Associate Director for Science, Technology, and Engineering.  From 2011 to 2017, Wallace was the Laboratory’s Principal Associate Director for Global Security. He served as the 11th Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory until his retirement in 2018.