Geo 365: Nov. 10, Day 314: Terrace Burrows

Looking at a cut into the Cape Blanco terrace deposits, one can see a generally fining upwards trend, meaning the environment was becoming less energetic over time. There appears to be a very specific horizon that appeals to some sort of burrowing creature, likely some sort of shore bird. But we didn't see any inhabitants, and I don't know birds well enough to hazard a guess as to what kind they might be.

I have presumed these were of marine origin, but if you look carefully at the gravel in the lower portion of the cut in the full-size image, it looks imbricated (clasts are consistently tilted in a particular direction), in this case up to the right and down to the left. This would indicate a consistent flow, as in a river, to the right, and weigh against a shore environment. So perhaps this was deposited by an ancestral Sixes River? As always, I reach a point where I have to say, "I don't know."

Followup: When I went to find the FlashEarth location, I realized this was taken looking almost directly south, and the face we're looking at is nearly east-west, with west on the right. This means flow was to the west, and would be entirely consistent with a river draining to the ocean.

Photo unmodified. May 7, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Nov. 9, Day 313: Greywacke

A boulder near the parking area at Cape Blanco. I guess the things that jump out most strongly to me are the veins and patches of secondary calcite, simply because they're so high-contrast in comparison to the rest of the rock

Looking at a crop of the above photo, the nature of the rock itself is more apparent. It is (according to the nomenclature I learned, which may now be dated) a lithic greywacke- poorly sorted and texturally immature: the clasts are mostly angular to poorly rounded. Despite my statement a few days ago that this is Cretaceous in age, it is in fact Jurassic Otter Point Formation, according to this (2 MB) PDF of an Ore Bin issue from 1975 (See near the top of the second page of text). "Melanges" were, I suspect, only beginning to be comprehended at the time of that publication, but by the time I was finishing up my first year of geology in 1981, they were tentatively explained to us younglings as likely representative of old, exhumed, eroded and exposed subduction zones. That idea seems to have been thoroughly accepted. Indeed, if you look at the sorts of lithologies that can be found in the Otter Point Formation, nothing else comes close to making sense. Tagged with "Accretionry Wedge," because it amuses me... this may be the first time I've used the term in its literal sense,as opposed to the Geoblogosphere's carnival.

Photo unmodified. May 7, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Nov. 8, Day 312: North Cove

Looking down into the north cove at Cape Banco, there's a trail down to the beach. We went down as far as the sign, but didn't feel compelled to go all the way down- we learned our lesson the previous year: multiple walks down to the beach mean multiple climbs back up, so choose wisely. The interpretive sign is a rather generic one I've seen many times, picturing and naming some common tidepool organisms. Looking at the point, there appears to be some bedding striking roughly parallel to the line of sight, and dipping maybe 20 degrees or so to the left. The rock here is poorly sorted, texturally immature sandstone to conglomerate, with a low grade metamorphic overprint. We'll have a closer look at it tomorrow.

Photo unmodified. May 7, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Nov. 7, Day 311: Cape Blanco Lighthouse

Looking roughly west from the same spot where yesterday's photo was taken, the elevated terrace of the cape is apparent. I don't quite "get" some people's infatuation with lighthouses; nothing against them, I just don't grasp the intense appeal. I'm guessing the tower farther to the left is some sort of navigation aid, and that the little white box in the left middle is for weather observations. As one might expect on a promontory such as this, some of the most intense winter storm winds on the west coast are measured here, not infrequently gusting over 120 miles per hour. Between the tower and the weather station, semi-consolidated terrace deposits are exposed. Sometime in the next few days, I'll post a shot of how these are used by some of the local biota.

Photo unmodified. May 7, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Nov. 6, Day 310: Cape Blanco

After a good lunch in Bandon, we continued south to Cape Blanco, the western-most point on the Oregon Coast. The rock here is Cretaceous Jurassic (See Geo 365: Nov. 9, Day 313: Greywacke) in age, and appears to be low-grade meta-sediments, with a lot of fracturing and faulting. As such, it's much more resistant to weathering and erosion than the Coast Range sediments farther north. (The boundary between the Coast Range and Klamath-Siskyou rocks is between Coos Bay and Bandon.) As a result, the coast in southeast Oregon is more rugged, with many more sea stacks, than most of the central and northern coast, with the main exceptions being basalt headlands in the Coast Range province. The tectonic disruption also means much greater heterogeneity over short distances, which further enhances the development of sea stacks.

A small delta from the Sixes River can be seen in the right-middle of the panorama. It's not terribly obvious here, but there is a series of quite well developed elevated marine terraces in this region; Cape Blanco State Park includes examples of at least three I can identify. This is also the closest one can get on land to the Juan de Fuca/Cascadia subduction zone; it's only about 35 miles offshore here.

Photo stitched in HugIn, auto-leveled in Paint.Net for improved contrast and color. May 7, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Nov. 5, Day 309: Honeyman State Park

A bit south of Florence, a smallish park is easy to overlook: Honeyman. Dana and I did a quick inspection last spring, and the thing that struck me hardest was the invasion of non-native Scotch broom. Apparently, unlike any other woody shrub that I know of, it can colonize bare sand. If this is happening widely, it's a terrible threat to the dunes. Aside from that, Honeyman is a beautiful stop, with a nice mix of woodlands and open sand dunes. However, we were looking for distance that day, and didn't spend much time here. Another point of geologic interest: Cleowox Lake is landlocked; it drains by groundwater directly to the ocean.

Photo unmodified. May 7, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Nov. 4, Day 308: Darlingtonia Twofer

Since I mentioned the Darlingtonia flowers, I felt compelled to show a couple views of them- though I think this is a pair of views of the same one. The above shows the color, and how shy they are about showing themselves.

This one is a view looking directly upward, and I like it not so much for the flower, as for the way it shows the translucent "skylights" in the adjacent insectivorous leaf. Insects are attracted by odor and nectar to the portal on the bottom of the hood. When they go to fly away, they mistake the translucent spots as "sky", and become disoriented and exhausted bouncing off the ceiling. The throat of the column is covered with downward-pointing hairs that ultimately direct the victim into a pool of digestive enzymes and bacteria commensal with the plant, where it is digested.

Frankly, for flower photos, you're better off with Dana's post, and the importance of the geological setting was discussed on February 7th.

Photo unmodified. May 7, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Sunday Funnies: Sad-Sized Edition

This is a shorter than average edition; a lot of the funnies that would have been posted here went to the Halloween post instead. So if you missed it, you might want to check that, too.

Tastefully Offensive- True, dat. I got a couple of these; I can cover them with my thumb.

Bits and Pieces

Are You Talking to Meme?

"After spending tears in grad school" What Should We Call Grad School?

Bits and Pieces

ChannelAte

Are You Talking to Meme?

"Princess Iron Man," from Wil Wheaton. The name for this costume that immediately popped into my head was "Iron Maiden."

Fake Science

Wil Wheaton "Samantha Bee, you beautiful Canadian."

 Wil Wheaton

"This is why you don't microwave cellphones." Senor Gif
This is a sort of short edition;

Funny to Me

What Would Jack Do?

Dr. Boli

 "This kitten has looked into the abyss." Senor Gif

Bird and Moon

Wondermark

Are You Talking to Meme?

The Far Left Side

"'Titanic' as directed by Michael Bay." Senor Gif

Geo 365: Nov. 3, Day 307: Blooming Darlingtonia

(right-click image here for size options) The day after we visited Newport and Otter Rock, we headed south down the coast, with our ultimate goal being the Josephine Ophiolite in northern California and southern Oregon. Our first stop was at Darlingtonia Wayside SP. Dana wanted to see if her readers could ID the plant by their flowers, which while quite colorful and pretty, are small, hang upside down, and as a result, not terribly easy to get a good look at. Her readers, incidentally, identified it hours before I even got in to Interzone and saw the post. She describes the situation more clearly here, and I wrote about the geological setting in the Geo 365 series earlier this year from a different trip.

Photo unmodified. May 7, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Nov. 2, Day 306: Cloudy Coast

Back on Route 101 from the Otter Crest Loop, the view down to Beverly Beach was pretty hazy, but the cloud line where moist coastal air was being pushed up the mountainside was very clear. Seeing the clouds forming like this helps clarify why the coast gets so much more rain than we do: here the air is rising. On the valley side of the Coast Range, the air is descending. We have plenty of gloomy, damp weather in Corvallis, but our actual precipitation rate annually is fairly moderate, at just over 40 inches. The actual coast gets 100 to 120 inches per year, and higher areas up near the Coast Range crest can get up to 160 inches or more.

Speaking of the Loop road, I meant to mention that its northern portion is one-way, north to south, and much of it is single lane. There are lots of bikers and pedestrians, so take it slow. But it's a beautiful few-mile drive I hadn't done before, and very much worth while.

Photo unmodified. May 6, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Nov. 1, Day 305: A Tortured Tree

From the same pocket park as yesterday's view of the bridge, we're looking south along the terrace here. This poor tree is probably a shore pine- most other conifers can't tolerate the salt spray this close to shore. These pines can colonize pretty close to shore, but frequently show forms such as the one above, as a result of frequent winter storms with hurricane-force winds and gusts occasionally in excess of 120 miles per hour. Even without the ocean visible, it's easy to tell which direction it's in.

Photo unmodified. May 6, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Follow-up: Looks like the winds that have deformed that tree are going to be up to their game tomorrow.

#TwoSentenceHorror

So another Halloween Post happened to happen. After being reminded of the #TwoSentenceHorror meme from July by the video clip next to last in the previous post, I decided to look at some others, and write a few of my own if I could, to fit the limitations of Twitter. I'm not going to claim these are any good; I don't yet have the distance necessary to judge my own writing. But there is a real pleasure in accomplishing "creepy" not only within the confines of two sentences, but within 121 characters, as well (The hashtag name + a space equals 19 characters). The first batch is my sole responsibility.

• My dog simply won't stop begging for attention. I thought that was over when we buried it.
• Had a dream I was on an African safari, & pack of hyenas was chasing me. Woke up with a gasp, realized they'd caught me.
• I was the first victim of a plague that killed 90% of humanity. I'd just like to say, "I'm awfully sorry."
• Some years ago, gave poison candy to neighbor kid. It killed him; wasn't caught, but brat still shows up every Halloween.
• My cat brought me a "present" today. It was a still-warm human hand.
• That old graveyard has always creeped me out. I just learned the reason: that's where I was buried.

Here's one that I'm not sure was intended to fit the bill, but it did:

• MT @MGhydro "Ice cream scoop?" "Dammit Smithers, this isn't rocket science, it's brain surgery!"

And here are a few from this archive (Some very good ones, there, if you're enjoying these) that fit the Twitter constraint.

• "You know that sensation on the back of your neck, that lets you know someone’s watching you? You should." -Gregory Lynn
• "Day 312. Internet still not working."
• "Wife woke me up last night to tell me there was an intruder in the house. She was murdered by an intruder 2 years ago."

The Obligatory Halloween Post

Because, no, I can't let Halloween go by without this song. Look at all the cool, weird instruments.

Buttersafe

"This cat has seen some things." Senor Gif

Cheezburger

Bits and Pieces

Liz Climo

Bits and Pieces

Spud Comics

Darius Whiteplume

Derpy Cats

Wil Wheaton

Very Demotivational

To fully understand the humor, horror, and Halloween in this picture, go read "Menace," at Hyperbole and a Half.

Derpy Cats

One in a series of magnificent pumpkin carvings at Funny to Me.

Medium Large

Fake Science

Funny to Me

Bits and Pieces

Funny to Me

Blackadder

Medium Large

Liz Climo

Wil Wheaton

Unnatural Disaster

Tastefully Offensive

Tastefully Offensive

Unnatural Disaster

Formal Sweatpants

Senor Gif

Art of Sarah J.

Maximumble

Blackadder

Bits and Pieces

Tastefully Offensive

Via DinoChick

"Incubus" and the etymology of "nightmare." Firedoglake

Cyanide and Happiness

 "Another terrifying pumpkin carving." Tastefully Offensive

Bizarro

Sober in a Nightclub

Blackadder

Cat Addicts Anony-mouse's Photos

Izismile

Imgur

Gotta admit, this one made me flinch. Badly. One of seven at Broccoli City.

Funny to Me

Surviving the World

Funny to Me

"Norwegian store forced to apologise for stocking realistic human limbs in its frozen meat section as part of a Halloween joke." Daily Mail

"Lost" Wil Wheaton

Shannon Wheeler

APOD posted this five years ago, then again yesterday. So did I (putting this together on Wednesday).

The Little Witch, a two sentence horror story- this is really creepy, even if you know where it's going, which I did. You have been warned.

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Funny to Me