Kamiak Butte is one of the few areas near Pullman that reflect the many geologic terms learned in class. This area is an example of an area that is extinct to the surrounding landforms. This butte is located in Whitman County, in between the cities of Colfax and Pullman, Washington. With an elevation of 3, 641 feet above sea level, Kamiak Butte has one of the highest elevations in all of Whitman County (1). The county park covers about 298 acres, and consists mainly of woodlands. Once one has climbed to the top of the butte, the sights become endless and breathe taking. To the north is Steptoe Butte, and southeast is Paradise Ridge and Moscow Mountain. Surrounding the top is endless views of loess dunes, and Blue Mountains that can be seen …show more content…
The result of these gaps overtime, lead scientists to make assumptions over what happened. Kamiak Butte is found on the North American Plate, and does not seem to be located near any plate boundaries, other than the Juan de Fuca Plate, which is located near the west coast. This is a reason as why the Palouse has no dominating mountain forms, such as the Cascades, which are a result of oceanic-continental convergent boundaries. Kamiak Butte is located on the Columbia River Basalts, one of the oldest and largest deposits of flood basalts in the entire world (2). This very large igneous batholith covers almost all of Eastern Washington, parts of Oregon and west Idaho. These basalts were the primary creators of the butte. About three billion years ago there was once an ocean where Kamiak Butte is now. The ocean floor was made of sand. Over time the oceans receded and the exposed sand underwent a process that turned it into sandstone, also know as lithification. Years later, the sandstone morphed it into the quartzite that is seen surrounding the butte (4). Rocks that undergo this process are called metamorphic rock, which is the same as the rock seen years ago by dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. The quartzite rocks were formerly seafloor sediment that was forced upwards, and then surrounded by lava basalt flows. Once erupted through fissures and floods through out most of the area, lava flow eventually created enough basalt to form a thickness of about 1.8 kilometers (1). All of this basalt flow eventually led to the covering of most mountains, leaving the buttes uncovered. The igneous lava flows and loess is reasons that the Palouse consists of such sprawling hills, and rich soil for farming (2). In result of the lava flows, the Precambrian rock Quartzite was formed. And lastly covered by the glacial loess, which were
Miesse, Willian C. "Mount Shasta Geology and History." USGS: Volcano Hazards Program - Mount Shasta Geology and History. College of the Siskiyous Library, n.d. Web. 01 May 2014.
"Geology Fieldnotes - Katmai National Park and Preserve." National Park Service: Nature & Science» Geology Resources Division. 01 Apr. 2005. Web. Feb. 2014.
Shown in the picture above is volcanic extrusive igneous rock known as andesite. They were imported here to Laguna Beach to help minimize erosion (Merton Hill, p. 10-11). Extrusive Igneous rocks are formed on Earths surface due to lava quickly cooling or mixing with different materials such as ash or cinders from an eruption. There are two different types of extrusive igneous rocks; Plutonic and Volcanic. Andesite is known for being gray in color and being made up of very coarse grainy textures, which make it much harder to break down than sedimentary rocks. Unlike loose gravel and other sediments igneous rocks are known for being able to slow down seismic waves from earthquakes which cause less damage to surface structures.
Many will attest to the grandeur of the natural feature that exists in northern Arizona, but the formation of the Grand Canyon has befuddled geomorphologists to this day. This confusion can be attributed to the Kaibab Plateau, an anomaly considering the Colorado River traverses it seamlessly. Four prevalent hypotheses have been proposed since the 19th century, starting with the lake overflow proposition first brought up by John Newbury and then reinforced by Eliot Blackwelder. Newbury argued that a structure must have ponded an ancient lake causing an overspill to cut into the Grand Canyon. This argument holds that the river must have come after the plateau’s existence. Unbeknownst to Newbury, the structure would be the Kaibab Plateau.
Stone Mountain rises in sharp contrast to the surrounding flat, rolling landscape creating a geomorphic monadnock. Geologists appear to have consensus of the volcanic origins and underground formation of t...
Basalt forms due to the partial melting of the layer of the mantle called the asthenosphere. The asthenosphere is the plastic zone of the mantle beneath the rigid lithosphere. Mantle plumes coming from the mesosphere can cause the asthenosphere to melt with heat or even if pressure decreases, which is called decompression melting (Richard 2011). The magma that forms from this melting is mafic magma that solidifies once it reaches the earth’s surface and cools quickly. The above process mainly occurs mainly during intraplate igneous activity which is the main explanation for volcanic activity that occurs a long distance away from a plate boundary. If the tectonic plate above the mantle plume is moving it can create a string of volcanic activity such as in Hawaii. See Fig 2.
Lake Tawakoni was impounded in 1960 and is located on the Sabine River in Texas. It is approximately 15 miles from Greenville TX. It has 37,879 acres of water with a maximum depth of 70 ft. and a pool level of 437 ft. Lake Tawakoni Texas (TX), is located on the South Fork and Cowleech Fork of the Sabine River.
Crater Lake is a result of a volcanic explosion that happened about 7,000 years ago. A long time ago, the pacific oceanic plate was gradually moving under the pacific continental plate in the process of plate tectonics. The pressure shaped the land to move upward and create a line of mountains that are currently located on the Cascade Range. These lavas piled and cooled on top of each other resulting in mountains like Mazama and Hood. Mount Mazama was built by successive flows of both andesite and dacite lavas. Mount Mazama was a stratovolcano, which was about 12,000 feet high after series of ash, cinders, and pumice explosions built it upward. During it?s final eruption the magma chamber was emptying and the underlying support for the mountain was lost and the walls of the volcano began to collapse. In just a matter of days the top of the mountain was destroyed and left a caldera. A caldera is a word used by geologists to describe large basin-shaped volcanic depressions. The destruction Mount Mazama was what marked the beginning of the formation of Crater Lake. The caldera was about 3,000 feet deep and over time, snow and rai...
...These rocks include indurated conglomerates, coarse-grain granites, and Arkosic and breciated granites. Furthermore, there are evidences to indicate that faulting took place in the area. Hydrothermal and epithermal action must have intruded the rocks in the Goldfield area forming small stringers of quartz. There are also evidences of sedimentary rocks such as sandstones, limestone and conglomerates found near Roosevelt Lake (Eppinga, 2006).
The Kiowa’s people were a great warrior culture society that roamed the plains before the arrival of the Europeans. The Kiowa’ Indian tribe formed an alliance with neighboring tribes and dominated the western plains for decades. In their native tongue they called themselves, ” Ka’gwa” which meant the “Principle People”. Before the intervention of European cultures they were known as the, ”People with large tipi flaps”. The Kiowa expanded their territories through out the southern plains, which is known as modern day Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. The mid-1900 century the Kiowa Indian tribe had several treaties with the United States, but it was the Medicine lodge treaty with the southern plains tribes that relocated the Kiowa’s into reservation located in present day Oklahoma. The Kiowa’s were known amongst other tribe as the large tipi flap people and their tipi art displayed battle emblems of Kiowa war society members. It was with horses came abundance of buffalo hide and larger tipis for the nomadic tribe, and with more hide came excellent craftsmanship. The first documented Spaniard to arrive into the southern plains was Don Juan de Onate, He gives his description of what he saw according to Peter Nabokov and Robert Easton book titled, Native American Architecture, which states the following,” fifty tents of tanned hides, very bright red and white in color and bell-shaped, with flaps and opening and built as skillfully as any house in Italy.” (Nabokov and Easton 1989) During Don Juan de Onate expedition to Eastern New Mexico he encountered tipis and described how Native tribes utilized dogs to transport their belongings. With the arrival of Spaniards in the mid-fifteenth century also came horses, which revol...
The easternmost portion of Washington houses Spokane, a city of a quarter of a million residents that's only a few minutes from the Idaho border. Spokane is close enough to the Cascades to make it an attractive tourist destination, especially for ski trips. Plenty of green space and a recent downtown renaissance gives Spokane a fresh small-town appeal despite its size. Hints of the city's industrial roots remain, but the warehouses have become converted into galleries, theaters and elegant apartments.
These sandstones and siltstones were buried, joint then overlapped and uplifted during a period of mountain constructing about 500 million years ago. For the next 200 million years, this ancient mountain range was eroded down to form low hills. Hallett Cove remained at sea level until about three million years ago when down faulting submerged the area. A thin layer of white fossiliferous sandstone was deposited in the warm shallow sea, covering the ancient glacial sediments. Soon after this the uplift of the Mount Lofty Ranges increased, and the Hallett Cove region was uplifted above sea level to be exposed as land.
Located in Mount Vernon, Washington, Cascade Ridge offers a host of recreational and leisure activities for its residents. Geographically similar to Holland and other nearby parts of Europe, millions of tulips are grown in the Skagit Valley annually. Nestled along the Skagit River near Skagit Bay, Cascade Ridge boasts a temperate climate with easy access to Seattle as well as attractions on Fidalgo and Camano Islands.
Mount Pelée is composed mainly of hardened volcanic material. The volcanic rocks that Mount Pelée lies on are predominately composed of andesites with subordinates of dacites. This type of geochemistry is often very common throughout island arc calc-alkaline rocks. Based on the eruption style of Mount Pelée the volcanic material can be subdivided into different products. Roobol (1976) stated these four different groupings:
mineral equilibria of metamorphic carbonate ejecta (2). Fluid inclusions ([CO.sub.2] and [H.sub.2]O-[CO.sub.2]) in clinopyroxenes from cumulate and nodules indicate a trapping pressure of 1.0 to 2.5 kbar at about 1200 [degrees]C, suggesting that these minerals crystallized at depths of 4 to 10 km (3). The differentiated magma fraction was about 30% of the total magma in the reservoir, and a volume of about 2 to 3 [km.sup.3] was