Monday, June 24, 2013

Geo 365: June 24, Day 175: The View Across the Valley

The view on Saturday looking out over the Willamette Valley (forearc basin) to the Cascade volcanic arc. Mount Jefferson on the left (north), Three Sisters on the right (south). We're standing on Marys Peak, the highest point in the Oregon Coast Range, the forearc ridge. It's difficult to describe how profound this view is to me; we're looking at a fundamental component of the earth's engine.

Photo stitched in Hugin, otherwise unmodified. June 22, 2013. FlashEarth location.

3 comments:

Hollis said...

it's wonderful that you photograph and describe landscapes in tectonic terms! great for readers like me, though I had to do a little research. Diagram here seemed helpful ...

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ortttp/Oregon-Counties/Clatsop/history.htm

Lockwood said...

The diagram is pretty good, but much of the accompanying text is kind of sketchy- in the sense that the author doesn't seem clear on a lot of things. For example, he/she implies that the CRB was one flow. And consistently misspelling "techtonic" is a warning bell. Glad you're enjoying this stuff. I've been having a lot of fun with it.

Hollis said...

oh ... I should have said specifically the diagram. I didn't read the text (I'm a picture person). I was trying to figure out how forearc basin, volcanic arc and forearc ridge fit together, and the diagram looked sensible in that regard.