Category: Locations of Interest

Shipman, Hugh

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Hugh was a geologist with the Shorelands Program at the Washington Department of Ecology since 1989 but retired in 2019 after 30 years.  His interests include coastal erosion, geologic hazards, and the environmental impacts of shoreline modifications. Hugh grew up near the coast of Maine but moved to the Puget Sound region in 1983. (Updated Oct. 2021)

Here is his bio from Sound Waters University 2018:

Hugh has been a Coastal Geologist with the Shorelands and Environmental Assistance program of the Washington Department of Ecology since 1989.  He works all over Puget Sound and is interested in coastal erosion, geologic hazards, beach restoration, and the environmental impacts of shoreline modification. He provides technical assistance to state and local agencies, conducts trainings and educational workshops, and participates on a variety of advisory groups.

Hugh received a BA in Earth Sciences and Engineering from Dartmouth in 1981 and an MS in Geological Sciences from the University of Washington in 1986. He grew up near the coast of Maine, but moved to the Salish Sea in 1983.

In his spare time, Hugh blogs about shoreline geology at his “Gravel Beach” website:  http://gravelbeach.blogspot.com

 

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

 

 

 

 

03-27-2011 Brian Atwater & Ron Tognazzini: Earthquakes and Tsunamis

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About the Talk

Earthquakes and Tsunamis from the Cascadia Subduction Zone

The Port Townsend Marine Science Center will sponsor what should be a very popular pair of presentations on earthquake and tsunami hazards of the Port Townsend region.  Our invited speakers are Brian Atwater, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle and Ron Tognazzini, a retired civil engineer from Sequim. Interestingly, this early talk from out Geology Group Lecture Series drew a record crowd—225 persons—largely as a result of excellent and free publicity.  On March 11, 2011, two weeks prior to the lecture, the Tōhoku Earthquake struck Japan and a very large tsunami took out the Fukushima Nuclear generating plant.  Over 17,00 fatalities resulted from this disastrous event.

Dr. Atwater’s specialty is paleoseismology—the study of prehistoric earthquakes. Brian will begin with detective stories of Pacific Northwest earthquakes and tsunamis.  Then he’ll turn to eyewitness accounts of tsunamis in Indonesia, and of the public-safety lessons they provide. If you have a business or residence near the coast, this presentation will show you what might happen during the run-up from a large tsunami.

About the co-Speaker

Ron is a civil engineer by practice but has considerable experience in natural disaster preparedness and emergency response. Ron will present recent award-winning research by Marley Iredale, a Sequim high-school student that he mentored in 2009. Marley’s research records 2,500 years of recurring tsunamis at Discovery Bay, near the Snug Harbor Restaurant. This record applies equally well to the Port Townsend region, where no tsunami studies have been conducted so far. In the adjacent photo, Ron is holding a latex peel of marsh and tsunami sand deposits.