Quimper Geological Society

Dr. Chris Goldfinger, explores the relation of offshore turbidites to the paleoseismic record of the Cascadia subduction zone. During this presentation, Chris described that submarine paleoseismology is a multidisciplinary science that allows us to reconstruct earthquake histories extending back thousands of years. He provided information on the use of a variety of techniques, many originally developed for petroleum exploration, to study earthquake-generated submarine deposits (turbidites). By correlating these deposits over broad areas and examining their sedimentological characteristics, we gain insight into recurrence intervals, fault rupture lengths, event clustering, long-term strain histories, paleo-slip characteristics, and interactions between faults. He compared turbidite… Read more2023-02-18 Chris Goldfinger — The Next Great Cascadia Earthquake – How Did We Get Here?

Nan Evans of KPTZ and Seattle Naturalist David Willams, will discuss “A Sense of Place – What is it?”  This is a prelude to David’s March 18th lecture entitled “Secrets of Seattle Geology—Connections of the human story and the geology story.” The interview is for Nature Now, a weekly radio broadcast on KPTZ 91.9 MHz. The interview will be recorded as a MP3 file and broadcast three times preceding David’s March 18th lecture for the Quimper Geological Society: Show #610: David Williams—A Sense of Place:  What does that mean? Broadcast on March 15 at 12:30 PM; March 16at 5:30 PM;… Read more2023-03-15 KPTZ Interview with David Williams, prelude to Seattle’s Geologic Secrets

  The Talk.  Unlike many regions in the country, the Seattle area is constantly reminded of its geologic past, present, and future. Whether it is our landslides, our glacier-carved topography, or our volatile volcanoes, this area’s geologic history is young, dynamic, and accessible. In this talk, I will explain why we can blame California for some of our geo hazards, how coal influenced our economic development, and why it’s harder to travel east/west than north/south.   Denny Hill, Seattle, 1910 The Lecturer.  David B. Williams is an author, naturalist, and tour guide whose award-winning book, Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of… Read more2023-03-18 David Williams—Secrets of Seattle’s Geology: Connections of the human story and the geology story

SAT. APRIL 29, 2023 The Lecture: Soil-climate evidence for timing of the Cascade uplift and creation of its rain shadow Calcrete is a CaCO3-rich hardpan paleosol that forms in dry, stable landscapes of the world. Calcrete in eastern Washington cements a 20-m-thick interval across three geomorphic domains: Palouse Hills, Channeled Scablands, and Yakima Fold Belt. The sheet-like calcrete deposit encloses ancient Scabland flood gravels and defines a regional paleosurface that has been bent and broken by Quaternary faults. Calcrete overprints primarily lowland alluvial deposits (ancestral Columbia-Snake River floodplain) and basaltic alluvial fan gravels shed from fault-bounded ridges. Thick layers of pedogenic… Read more2023-04-29 Skye Cooley: Calcrete and Soil-Climate Evidence

Vince Matthews, former director of the Colorado Geological Survey and now a consulting geologist in Wisconsin, speaka on the Global Scramble for Natural Resources. This was a ZOOM broadcast Saturday, May 13. The Lecture During the 1990s, the world’s most populous nations—China and India–were unleashed from Communist and Socialist regimes, respectively. The first decade of the 21st Century saw China’s GDP grow at more than 10 percent per year and India’s at 7-9 percent.  Both are drastically increasing their use of all natural resources.  Although they have resources of their own, they are insufficient to meet their internal demand. Because the… Read more2023-05-13 Vince Matthews — Global Scramble for Natural Resources

Geology of Tamanowas Rock and Peregrines Rock, Chimacum, WA Click here for the registration form. On Saturday, July 8, 2023, several QGS geologists will lead a 4-mile, 4-hour hike (12 PM—4 PM) from HJ Carroll County Park near Chimacum to the Tamanowas Rock Sanctuary, then up on top of Tamanowas Ridge to see Peregrine’s Rock. The elevation gain on the walk is about 300 ft.  This is a repeat of our 2022 trip and includes a 13-page illustrated guidebook that will be emailed as a pdf to all attendees in early July. The upper part of the trail is moderately difficult but… Read more2023-07-08 Walk to the Rocks Field Trip

Fidalgo Ophiolite Revisited: A chaotic assemblage of ophiolitic blocks deposited in a matrix of mudstone, sandstone, and basalt flows overlain by deep-water turbidites derived from a volcanic arc – John S. Oldow, Whidbey Island SATURDAY OCT. 14 – EVENT LIVE AT First Baptist Church – 1202 Lawrence St, Port Townsend – 4pm or via ZOOM The Lecture It has long been thought that an intact ophiolite had accreted to North America and was preserved on Fidalgo Island in the San Juan Islands, just tens of miles north of Port Townsend.  (An ophiolite is a slab of oceanic crust and underlying mantle… Read more2023-10-14 Ophiolites—Subducted terrane exposed on Fidalgo Island

SATURDAY NOV. 11 – EVENT LIVE AT First Baptist Church – 1202 Lawrence St, Port Townsend – 4pm or via ZOOM Liz Nesbitt and David Williams (both associated with the Burke Museum) will present their new book on Washington Fossils. They will discuss the book and provide some background on their inspiration for the book, why they wrote it, and address some of the science, etc. For the second part, we’ll highlight some of the profiles in the book. For the QGS, they will connect the geology with the fossils, and illustrate how/why we have certain fossils, such as those… Read more2023-11-11 Washington’s fossils—New book presentation