Tag: DNR

Peering into the earth: Geophysical techniques can find rock for forest roads — Ear to the Ground

Fresh off the stump and replete with water, fresh-cut timber is heavy stuff. A fully loaded logging truck can tip the scales at 68,000 pounds, which is the weight equivalent of approximately 17 average-size cars. To support this kind of weight, forest roads must be built strong with good, hard rock. How hard? Generally, the […] […]

Meet our New Landslide Hazards Program

Washington’s widely varying climate and topography along with complex geology creates many areas that are prone to landslides.  Identifying past landslides is the best way to identify future landslide hazards. After the devastating SR530 “Oso” Landslide in March 2014, the state legislature recognized the need for a greater emphasis on landslide mapping. Resources were allocated to […]

New and improved! Have another look at DNR’s landslide hazard website

There have been some important changes to our landslide hazard website since we last blogged about it on November 1, 2012. We have improved the resolution of the map by adding the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast zones. A shaded relief of elevation, along with the addition of salt and fresh water features, improves the […]

Shallow landslides can be triggered by rainy weather–Do you know the warning signs?

Heavy rain this weekend can cause more than just localized flooding and high rivers. Prolonged or intense rainfall increases the chances of shallow landslides on steep slopes. During these rain events some rain will flow on the surface to streams and rivers, some is captured by vegetation, and some rain infiltrates into the ground. The […]

New Geology Display in NRB Rotunda

The introduction of the mandate that the DGER office door must now remain closed during business hours (due to security concerns) meant that the public could no longer view our rock and mineral collection on a walk-in basis. No matter–this inconvenience motivated us to keep geology in the public eye by creating an updated display […]

New geologic maps are free to download

Originally posted on Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources:
This outcrop on the east shore of Dabob Bay contains faulted and folded sediments thought to be about 100,000 years old, which is considered young in geologic terms. Photo: Trevor Contreras/DNR. This outcrop, which features faulted and folded sediments possibly related to an earthquake fault, is…

DGER launches new homepage

We have reorganized DGER’s webpages on the DNR website! After spending many months considering user feedback along with the needs of the Division, we have launched a new (and hopefully easier-to-navigate) version of our homepage (see below). Highlights of our new page include: (refer to the red number icons) A link to the Online Interactive […]

DGER on YouTube

Have you ever wanted to be a better Geologic Information Portal (online interactive map) user? Have you wanted to dive into the world of 3D geology with Google Earth KMZs and 3D PDFs, but didn’t know where to start? DGER has recently released a number of tutorial guides for our portal and 3D data offerings […]