December’s geology image of the month of the Nisqually Glacier was taken by State Geologist Dave Norman. The glacier, located on the southern flank of Mount Rainier, is the source of the Nisqually River that wends its way along the boarder between Pierce and Thurston Counties before emptying into southern Puget Sound at Nisqually Reach. […]
Category: Geology Image of the Month
November Geology Image of the Month: Exploratory Geothermal Well Logging in Snohomish County
Pictured are geothermal geologist Jeff Bowman (DNR) and Adam Lewis (Snohomish Co. PUD) logging an exploration well for temperature gradient. This well was located on private land next to the Garland Hot Springs in Snohomish County. The trip to the well required a 3 hour Snowcat (in picture) ride each way. They logged the well […]
October Image of the Month Errata
Apologies for the misidentification of the Glacier Peak glaciers named in the description of the October Geology Image of the Month. The revised description: The Glacier Peak photo shows the west side of Glacier Peak (elev. 10541 ft.), a young stratovolcano located in the Cascade Range, eastern Snohomish County, Washington. Prominent glaciers are the slightly […]
October Geology Image of the Month: Glacier Peak along the Pacific Crest Trail
The October Geology Image of the Month was submitted by DGER Geologist, Eric Schuster. It shows the west side of Glacier Peak (elev. 10541 ft.), a young stratovolcano located in the Cascade Range, eastern Snohomish County, Washington. Prominent glaciers are the Kennedy Glacier, center of photo, and the Ptarmigan Glacier, to the left. Striking is […]
September Geology Image of the Month: Angular Unconformity at Beach 4, Olympic National Park
The September Geology Image of the Month was taken by State Geologist, Dave Norman. It shows a well-exposed angular unconformity in the rocks at Beach 4, located along coastal Highway 101 between Ruby Beach (to the N) and Kalaloch (to the S), and within the bounds of Olympic National Park. An angular unconformity is created […]
July Geology Image of the Month: Ghost Forest Near the Mouth of the Copalis River, Grays Harbor County
The ghostly tree trunks of once-submerged red cedars pictured in the July Image of the Month have played a key role in helping geologists reconstruct the events of the last Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) magnitude 9 earthquake. As DGER chief hazards geologist, Tim Walsh, recently explained to a National Geographic television crew (see image below), […]
June Geology Image of the Month: Columnar Dacite in Mount Rainier National Park
June’s geology image of the month was taken by State Geologist Dave Norman. The dacite columns, located on the northeastern flank of Mount Rainier along Sunrise Road, are part of the Burroughs Mountain flow. They were formed as lava that erupted from Rainier traveled along the periphery of the glacier that once filled White River […]
May Image of the Month: Mount St. Helens, WA
Unsurprisingly, we highlight Mount St. Helens for our May Image of the Month. May 18 is the anniversary of its violent 1980 eruption. This image was taken at sunrise during a September 2012 thermal and mineral spring geothermal sampling trip conducted at the Pumice Plain and Breach areas on the north flank of the volcano. […]
April Image of the Month: Ledgewood–Bonair Landslide, Whidbey Island, WA
Thanks to our hazards geologists and landslide experts, Isabelle Sarikhan and Stephen Slaughter, we were able to bring you detailed pictures (including this month’s photo) and information on this large Whidbey Island landslide event immediately after its occurrence on March 27, 2013! As we blogged last week, the hazards team released a Quick Report on […]
Image of the Month Addendum!
We received some great feedback from geologist Stephen Slaughter with reference to the March Image of the Month (showing a honeycomb-like sedimentary structure on Sucia Island in San Juan County) that we want to share! Stephen wishes to highlight the work of George Mustoe (WWU) in describing these features, saying “[Mustoe] attributes the honeycomb shape […]
WASHINGTON STATE GEOLOGY NEWS 