August 12, 2018 at Rice NW Museum of Rocks and Minerals, Hillsboro

This year’s GSOC annual picnic was at the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals in Hillsboro. It was attended by over 70 club members and was a very great success! The money collected at the picnic was used to purchase a one-year membership for all GSOC members and to secure a guest speaker, Dr. Nicholas Famoso, USNPS Chief of Paleontology of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, who will also be a guest field trip leader at Camp Hancock in September.

One outstanding happening at the picnic was that Rosemary Kenney, GSOC member for 54 years, presented 45 fossil items to Famoso for donation to the John Day Fossil Bed’s collection. The presentation followed the conclusion of Nick’s lecture at the picnic. Some of the major items were also displayed the day before in a case at the NARG Fossil Fest, also at the Rice Museum.

Synopsis of July 13, 2018 GSOC Friday Night Lecture by Emily Cahoon, PSU PhD Candidate

PSU PhD Candidate Emily Cahoon spoke to GSOC at the July Friday night meeting about her research into the origin of the Clarno and John Day magmatism. Her research is part of an ongoing push in the geoscience community to determine the origin of the magmas to erupt in Oregon. This is a tricky question when the magma originates somewhere in the earth’s mantle, is filtered by partial melting of intervening subducting plates and/or continental crust, erupts onto the earth’s surface, and is then is pushed and pulled, rotated away from its original location, covered up in some places and eroded away in other places.

Sarah Starr
Gabrielle Clifford
William Brown
Henry Johnson
Dana Willis
Laura & Kevin Foster
Carole & Mike Miles
Ron Sonnevil & Dorothy Dutton
Jon & Barbara Stroud
David Selby
Samuel Giese
Ann McKinney
Mike Hiner
John Lillie
David Wilson & Lynne Williams
Clark Niewendorp

Board members Paul Edison-Lahm, Sheila Alfsen, Rik Smoody, Dawn Juliano, Larry Purchase, Bo Nonn and Megan Faust were in attendance at the Rice NW Museum of Rocks and Minerals constituting quorum. Marty Muncie and Dave Olcott also attended the meeting.

May’s GSOC Friday night lecture from retired USGS research geologist Ray Wells gave the listeners a big picture of the tectonic motion of the Pacific NW and explained much about the distribution and function of shallow crustal earthquakes and their associated faults in the region. This picture had sharpened over Wells’ 40-year career at USGS, as our understanding of plate tectonics evolved and new techniques contributed to the store of information and provided corroboration for earlier findings. 

Deborah Sather
Joel Wilson 
James Bell
Chris Wiley 
Sarah Rehwalt
Lisa Goode 
Robin Smith
Nancy Floyd 
Jack & Susan Carlson 
Patricia Sexton & Cecile Bennett 
​​​​​​​Roger Hall 

Synopsis of GSOC Friday Night Lecture, April 13, 2018

Tom Pierson has been a research scientist at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory (USGS CVO) since 1981. His field-based research focuses primarily on the hydrological response to volcanic eruptions—lahars, debris avalanches, and floods. Pierson spoke to GSOC in February 2014 about the debris flows following the eruption of the Chaiten Volcano in Chile. Pierson’s April 2018 topic hit a lot closer to home, although the Pacific Northwest also has plenty of volcano hazards.

Synopsis of the GSOC 83rd Annual Banquet lecture given on March 11, 2018, with speaker Dr. Ellen Morris Bishop

Dr. Ellen Morris Bishop – geologist, writer, and photographer – drove from her ranch near Enterprise, Oregon, to speak to an enthusiastic GSOC audience at the 83rd Annual Banquet on Sunday, March 11, 2018. The purpose of her talk was to introduce GSOCers to the geology of Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains and Hells Canyon (WMHC).

Bishop began by showing the location of WMHC on a terrain enhanced road map of Oregon, then a satellite view, and finally a geologic overview as depicted by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries’ (DOGAMI’s) online interactive map. Studying the DOGAMI map one sees that the bulk of the Wallowa Mountains consists of outcrops of the “Wallowa Terrane” and “Nevadan Intrusives”, which can both be viewed as a result of the docking of ancient island complexes to the North American continent by the mechanism of plate subduction.

The Central Oregon Geoscience Society (COGS) has formed as a central-Oregon based, non-profit organization promoting a greater awareness and understanding of the geological sciences through technical presentations, field trips and educational outreach to schools. They plan to have eight presentations per year, as well as field trips in the late spring through early fall. Presentations are held at Deschutes Brewery Tap Room (upstairs), 1044 NW Bond Street in Bend. Join them at 6:00 PM for food/beverages and presentation at 7:00 PM.

by GSOC Past President, Bo Nonn

Why not audit a class at PSU? It's free, practically, and you get to hear the same great professors who've addressed our Friday night meetings. I've been auditing mostly geology since I retired, over 30 to date, from entry-level to heavy-duty senior/grad. You can arrange with the instructor on how deeply you want to get involved, from just sitting in on the lectures all the way to labs, quizzes, term papers and exams.  If you're interested, read more!

Moments after the election of the new GSOC board at our February 9th meeting, President-elect Paul Edison-Lahm addressed a near-record crowd with his presentation “An Amateur's Guide to the Geology of Johnson Creek and Eastside Portland.” He explained that since a creek cuts down through vegetation and construction into layers of earth otherwise unseen, the rocks in the creek can tell us the geologic history of the surrounding countryside. Grey basalts and dull orange quartizites, found in the Reed College Lake near his home for example, are clues to earlier epochs of catastrophic volcanism and icy inundation.

Association for Women Geoscientists (Pacific Northwest Chapter) will be hosting a field trip to the Klamath Mountains and Oregon Caves National Monument on September 8-10, 2018. Our own Vice-president Sheila Alfsen will be one of the leaders. More information at AWG Klamath Field Trip.

Nicholas T Legg
Nelda and Ronald Skidmore
Thomas Kaldenbach
Terrance and Dennea Hedding
Trish Rolin
Jonathan and Dana Tree
Kathleen Kerner
Rafael Suarez and Akiko Sulisufaj
Andrea Bowen
Bruce Thiel
Hank Schottland and Elka Grisham
William Burgel and Charlotte Finn
JoLynn Lords
Sally Kenney
MaryAnn Amann
Bruce Howard
Madison Ball
Melanie Klym 

The following slate of officers for 2018 was elected by acclamation at our Feb. 9 meeting:

• President Paul Edison-Lahm

• Vice President Sheila Alfsen

• Secretary Carol Hasenberg

• Treasurer Dawn Juliano

• Director, 3 years Megan Faust

• Director, 2 years Julia Lanning

• Director, 1 year Larry Purchase

Also serving on the 2018 board will be Past Presidents Rik Smoody and Bo Nonn. Terms for the 2018 board begin March 1.

Norm and June McAtee
Carrie Gordon
Kent Snyder
Nicholas Legg
Nelda and Ronald Skidmore

President Rik Smoody called the meeting to order at the home of Carol Hasenberg. Other board members in attendance constituting quorum were Dawn Julian o, Sheila Alfsen, Marty Muncie, Paul Edison-Lahm, Larry Purchase, and Janet Rasmussen. The minutes of the October 2017, board meeting were approved. The Treasurer’s report was approved.