The GSOC Annual Picnic enjoyed a good turnout this year at Beacon Rock State Park in the Columbia River Gorge. GSOC had not sited the picnic here for over 20 years, and members agreed that this was a very good venue for a picnic. Not only did the site have a serviceable enclosed shelter building, but also a great view of some outstanding geology – Beacon Rock, a remnant of the last known outpouring of Boring lava, dated at 58,000 years ago.

This trip began in the mind of GSOC member Dr. Benjamin Sloan after he joined the society last year and participated in the Coaledo trip last summer. By September he was emailing me and asking whether we would consider doing a trip to Crater Lake. I replied that we’d consider the trip, then added a long list of logistical considerations that needed to be worked out, thinking that would be the last I’d hear from him. Well, one month later he had researched the technical papers, gone to Crater Lake to research lodging and travel routes, and sent me a list of tasks he’d completed. Turns out that Ben has been planning field trips worldwide and teaching geology for years as well as doing oil exploration.

story text by Carole Miles

photos by Carole Miles, Denny Chamberlin, and Kate Ely

The Strawberry Mountain fault was discovered in 2019 by DOGAMI’s Ian Madin upon reviewing new LiDAR maps of the area. Andrew Dunning, looking for a project for his master’s thesis at Portland State University, realized that a lack of high-quality seismic data in this area of Oregon may have erroneously led to an inaccurate assessment of the seismic risk in Eastern Oregon on the USGS National Seismic Hazard Map. He has been working on gathering data related to timing and offset of the Strawberry Mountain fault for the past two years. He was excited to take GSOC members into the field to show us what he has learned.

Recap of the GSOC Willamette East Bank Bike Geotour - June 26, 2022

GSOC participants of the 3rd Eastbank Bike Geotour field trip met on the morning of Sunday, June 26, in order to complete the tour before the 90+ degree temperatures of the hottest day of the year (so far) set in. This tour had not been run in three years due to the pandemic, and the leaders included Ian Madin, who just retired from DOGAMI, and Dr. Lalo Guerrero, who teaches geology at Portland Community College. Take a journey with the group and think about biking it for yourself!

Recap of the GSOC Willamette Valley Transect Geotour - June 18, 2022

Thirteen happy participants of 2022’s first GSOC field trip piled into the back room of the Bear Creek Pizza parlor in Molalla this past Saturday night to eat dinner and sketch up their conclusions from the day’s journey across the Willamette Valley. GSOC Past President and Programming Director Sheila Alfsen led the group from Erratic Rock State Park on the west side of the valley to the Molalla Rosette to the east of the valley in more or less a straight line. The purpose of the trip was to observe the landforms of the Willamette Valley, concentrating on the fluvial processes at work in the sediments of the valley floor.