Saturd80's: Stan Rogers Edition

A terrific song writer, with a magnificent voice, I don't think I've ever featured Stan Rogers here before. This first one, "Fisherman's Wharf," laments the loss of the traditional fishing life of Canada's Maritime region, and some thirty years later, still gives me goosebumps.

Rodgers died tragically young, at age 33, in a fire on board an airliner, which makes his musical accomplishment all that much more stunning. Despite his relative youth, his knowledge of- and respect for-  Canada's laboring class never ceases to move me. "Rawdon Hills" is his ode to gold mining.

And "The Field Behind the Plow" has given me a whole new perspective on farming... you can hear their struggle to get it all done, in their short 16-hour days.

"Watch the field behind the plow turn to straight, dark rows
Feel the trickle in your clothes, blow the dust cake from your nose
Hear the tractor's steady roar, Oh you can't stop now
There's a quarter section more or less to go "

I think the highest praise I can offer Stan is that I can't think of a single one of his songs that I don't at least like, and the vast majority of them, I feel even more positively about.

"Put another season's promise in the ground." You did, Stan, you did.

Geo 365: March 23, Day 82: Central Oregon Skyline

Coming into La Pine on Route 31, there's a nice long straight stretch with a lovely view of the central Oregon Cascades, over what I refer to as the East Cascade apron (not a formal term). From the left to right in the above photo, South Sister peeks over the shoulder of Mount Bachelor, and either North or Middle Sister sits to its right. (I think North, but I'm not sure.) Finally, off in the trees is Broken Top. Bachelor is significantly closer to the location of this photo, so it appears to be the largest and tallest of these peaks, despite the fact that it's the lowest and smallest. Nevertheless, it's still a significant volcano, at 9068 feet.

Photo run through the Auto Levels processor in Paint.net, to cut through the haze. August 20, 2011. FlashEarth Location (approximate, shot at 60 mph, and backed out enough to see the peaks I mentioned).

Geo 365: March 22, Day 81: Debris Apron and Ponderosas

Turning away from the Hole-in-the Ground crater, and looking off to approximately the northwest, the debris apron from the series of phreatic explosions that created the feature is subtle, perhaps, but still clear to me, at least. I can't really tell if the slope down and away from the crater is as clear as it seems in the photo, or if I'm simply imposing my own memories in interpreting what I'm seeing. What I will say is this: you can definitely tell you're heading uphill as you approach the turn-off and spur up to the rim, and once you turn onto that spur, there's a very distinct, though fairly gentle, grade up to the parking area. The road cutting across the bottom of the photo circles the crater, though I've never got up the courage to see if it's navigable for regular passenger vehicles.

As I alluded yesterday, I do find it a bit puzzling that the ponderosa pines do so well here, but simply can't get established in most of the crater. The only difference I can point to is elevation, but it seems odd that only a few hundred feet can lead to such a stark contrast.

Photo unmodified. August 20, 2011. FlashEarth Location.

Geo 365: March 21, Day 80: The North Side

Looking to the north side of Hole-in-the-Ground. Comparing this to yesterday's photo, you can see how barren it is with respect to the ponderosa pines. Interestingly, there's enough elevation difference between that bowl and the tableland where I'm standing that there's a quite healthy ponderosa forest behind me  Also, note again the fault on the opposite wall, shown previously on Tuesday.

Photo unmodified. August 20, 2011. FlashEarth Location.

In Which Bif Scares the Living Crap Out of Me

Bif greets me at the door every night... and by that I mean every night. He's either at the door when I come in, or bounding at me as fast as his (not so little, any more) kitty paws can carry him. He immediately starts yowling in what I believe is both relief and scolding me for leaving him alone all day. He and I have a call-and-reply relationship: if either of us lets loose with a "Meow!" the other responds in turn.

So last night, I walked in the door and... no Bif. "Meow!?" Nada. "Meow!?" Nothing. Uh-oh. My heart froze. Then I thought I heard a muffled, piteous cry, but I wasn't really sure. "Is he trapped in the sofa?" I wondered. Walked over and gave a tentative call. No response. Lord. He's gone through a screen, and got out, or he's strangled himself. I was convinced I'd lost him.

As a reminder, he's spent a total of ten minutes of his life outdoors and I was keeping a pretty close eye on him, until a jay dive-bombed him, squawking loudly. He dove under a car, and I lost track of him. By the time I thought to look, he'd vanished. When I finally gave up looking, and went back to the apartment to get a book, planning to come back out and read while waiting for him to reappear, he was pawing madly at my door, trying to get back in.

You'd think that experience with the big, scary, outdoors was enough. You'd be wrong. It's still a game every morning to try to dodge through Lockwood's legs without being caught. He's succeeded quite a number of times, but he's almost always distracted by a new scent before he gets more than a few feet from the door. So he gets caught.

So I went out to the parking lot in back, and called. Nothing. Walked around the edges, calling. Nothing. Walked up to the front, steeling myself to walk the curb and finding his mangled body. Nothing. Called... and wait! There's that piteous howl again! Front door, and there he is, cowering on the basement landing (I'm on the midlevel). He shied away as I started down the stairs, but came bounding at me when he saw who it was. He has a habit of hugging when he's been frightened or feeling particularly affectionate, normally one of my arms. He's never wrapped his legs around my neck and hugged like he did last night. Once we got indoors, he didn't seem terribly traumatized, but he sure acted that way until we got him back into familiar territory.

So my guess is that, for the first time, he won his little game yesterday. And he increased the total of his time spent outdoors by a factor of 42, much to my dismay. You'd think that was enough. You'd be wrong. This morning he seemed especially excited to make a run for it.

He got a foot in his face- not kicked, but a very firm stop. Two things: a squirt bottle to keep by the door, and a harness and tether for extensive walks in the rain.

He's an eminently trainable cat, for a cat, and my heart can't take this game any more.

Geo 365: March 20, Day 79: The South Side

Looking south into Hole-in-the-Ground, I have always presumed that the sparse ponderosa pine forest was due to the effects of more shade, thus slower evapo-transpiration, on that north-facing slope. But while writing up Fort Rock a few days ago, I realized that the south-facing amphitheater there indicated prevailing winds from the south. I had known that for decades, but never made the connection to Hole-in-the-Ground. Another contributing factor to the ability of pines to colonize in that area may be that snow drifts deeper there. That is, it may not simply be an area of slower moisture loss, but it could be that it receives more moisture on average than the rest of the crater.

A comment I received yesterday links to an older post, shortly after we returned from this trip, by Cujo 359, AKA Intrepid Companion. I didn't think to get a series of photos suitable for stitching into a panorama, but he got a really nice one, showing the full extent of this feature in one image. In addition, he wrote up a really good compare-and-contrast between the above and Meteor (Barringer) Crater in Arizona. As he points out, the two are of similar size, share a surprisingly similar form, are of similar ages, but have very different origins.

Below is a cross-section of Hole-in-the-Ground, taken from USGS Circular 838, Road Log 6, Mile 25.1.

This is based on two drill holes, indicated on the left interior of the crater by I and II, in addition to a geophysical survey. Here, phreatic explosions blew out pre-existing bedrock, and a portion of the new magma, then the walls slumped in to create the pit. At Meteor Crater, there is no underling magmatic rock, and the layers of country rock blasted out by the impact are folded over- literally upside down- like blankets in a neatly made bed. Another thing I found interesting is that the layer of faulted basalt illustrated yesterday is marked as "Paulina Basalt Flow No. 2," indicating it came from Newberry Volcano, something like 40 miles away. I had no idea flows from there had made it that far in this direction.

Photo unmodified. August 20, 2011. FlashEarth Location.

Geo 365: March 19, Day 78: Hole-In-The-Ground

Dana admires Hole-in-the-Ground, a classic maar on the tableland to the west-northwest of Fort Rock. There's a foot path to the bottom from this point- you can see it to Dana's left. However, most geology people probably are aware of the problem of hikes that start downhill: the easy part is when you're fresh, the hard part comes when you're not. So I used to tromp down with kids, but didn't on this trip. (It's a serious slog, coming back up that slope, roughly 400-500 feet  (correction- closer to 200 meters or more, looking more carefully at the guide linked in the next paragraph, so maybe a bit less than) 700 feet vertical, and relentlessly steep.)

The reason I chose this photo as an introduction to Hole-in-the-Ground can be seen above that little tree past and to the left of the central playa, on the opposite wall. The offset in that layer of basalt marks a fault which bisects this crater, and it's thought that this was the weak feature that allowed the basaltic magma to migrate upwards at this spot. More detailed information on HIG can be found in USGS Circular 838, at mile 25.1 in this road log.

In one of those nice little bits of synchronicity, @Cmdr_Hadfield tweeted yesterday, "What is this little perfect round hole in Africa? Likely in Ethiopia near 7.99N, 37.19E. pic.twitter.com/G57OBpL1j7" I replied,"@Cmdr_Hadfield Given location- not too far off axis of rift- & water, guessing maar. Funny, just looking at another: http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=43.410204&lon=-121.198268&z=15.6&r=0&src=msl" And a few minutes later, I was able to pin it down in FlashEarth: "@Cmdr_Hadfield Yep, definitely looks like a maar- explosive interaction between magma and groundwater, steam blasts hole open." and "@Cmdr_Hadfield location, oriented ~same, scale ~same, as your photo http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=8.04363&lon=38.351359&z=12.7&r=74&src=msl Maar def.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maar" However, my comments got no reply, so I don't know if he saw them.

Photo unmodified. August 20, 2011. FlashEarth Location. (You can see the fault on the crater wall in that view, almost directly across from the center cross hairs.)

Geo 365: March 18, Day 77: Pluvial Delta?

Toward the west end of the Fort Rock basin, there's this odd, flat-topped, steep-sided, plateau-looking landform. It's a feature I'd been by many times before I even really noticed it, and I recall being a little puzzled when I did. It's off the road far enough that it's not really practical to get closer to look carefully- I don't doubt there's dirt roads that could get one closer, but there's too much else to see in the area to spend the time. But this is getting close to where Fort Rock Road intersects Route 31. Turning north from that intersection, 31 quickly heads up a large gorge. There's little water visible, but it makes sense that, at times, it carries substantial flow. This would have been even more true during the Pleistocene, when the basin we're in for this view was filled with water. The flat top of that feature appears to be roughly congruent with the high water stand in Fort Rock Valley, so my suspicion is that it represents a delta that developed into this pluvial lake during that time. Another possibility is that it's a fault scarp, but doesn't look right to me for that. For one thing, it's not as linear as I would expect; for another, the top surface looks too horizontal.

This is a situation where getting up close and personal would put an end to a lot of questions.

The FlashEarth view (which is approximate- as you can probably tell, this was taken on the fly) I've chosen for this shot is backed out more than normal, so you can see both the feature in question and what clearly is a fault scarp to the south. In addition, Fort Rock is in the upper right middle, and Hole-In-The-Ground, our next destination, is on the top edge to the left. Photo unmodified. August 20, 2011.

Sunday Funnies: RSStless Edition

So despite all the big news this week, the biggest bit for me is that Google is discontinuing its RSS service, Reader. Apparently, the thought is that social media like G+, Twitter and Facebook are superseding RSS, but for any serious information geeks, that is obviously absurd- none of those are useful for aggregating information systematically, on topics of one's own choice. The user counts on what others find- which is, particularly on FB, often garbage. However, I've identified a couple of attractive alternatives to Reader, I have over three months to make the switch, and thus plenty of time to wait out the flood of other users making quick switches.

But once again, Google has gone out of its way to forget the first word of its motto, "Don't Be Evil."

Noise to Signal- and click over to read the first paragraph, at least. I couldn't have said it better.

I expected this would happen, and it did. You Tube

Wil Wheaton's Tumblr

Sober in a Nightclub

Bits and Pieces

Funny to Me

Bizarro

Sober in a Nightlub

What Would Jack Do?

"SUDDENLY, A BOOP! Funny to Me

Blackadder

Pygalgia

Sober in a Nightclub

 Very Demotivational

Tastefully Offensive

Sober in a Nightclub

"How I feel about most aspects of crystallography" Geology is Hard. (Actually had a harder time with mineralogy, but most of my classmates would have related to this.)

Funny to Me

Bits and Pieces

Jim Benton, via Tastefully Offensive

Are You Talking to Meme?

Very Demotivational

Wil Wheaton's Tumblr

When they select the new Pope dope... Bits and Pieces

Very Demotivational

Cheezburger

Funny to Me

Senor Gif

Bits and Pieces

"I’m a bit disappointed this didn’t happen." Blackadder

Funny to Me

Blackadder

LunarBaboon

Cheezburger

What Would Jack Do?

Criggo

Blackadder

Bits and Pieces

Criggo

Bits and Pieces

And this coming week is finals here at OSU. I'll just wish students good luck with studying... if you have that, you won't need good luck for the finals. Senor Gif

Geo 365: March 17, Day 76: The Big Picture

A view from a distance of Fort Rock, looking directly into the breached face. The terraces and notches are not as obvious in this view, but you can still get a sense of where the high water stand was. I imagine how this would have looked with the lake lapping slightly into the interior of the ring, and how appealing it would have been to the Native Americans who settled the area by 10,000 to 13,200 years ago.

This was taken from near a reconstructed historic village, which is open Thursday through Monday, Memorial Day through Labor Day. There's little in the way of geology, of course, but a nice collection of artifacts, and a huge display of arrowheads. It's a good place to get some insights into the lifestyles of the people who settled this area.

Photo unmodified. August 20, 2011. FlashEarth Location.