Owyhee River LiDAR drape on low-res Google Earth images

Ok. So Google is apparently never going to upload the high-res NAIP
imagery of the Owyhee River study area. Here is a work-around. Draping
the LiDAR on the bad imagery. Looks pretty damn good. Now we are very
proficient at doing this. On our way to developing some more elaborate
geologic projects in Google Earth. Should probably start with adding the hi-res imagery ourselves....

Thanks to Heather...she made it to the LiDAR class in San Diego last week!

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Killer Owyhee Pic of the Week #2

A nice oblique shot of the Saddle Butte and West Crater lava convergence zone. Lots of important features are clear in this one. Look for your favorite!

New and Improved Profile figure and other...

Ignore the mixed units and bask in the glory of a better long-profile:

Today, I learned some very cool techniques for extracting key data from the LiDAR as well as for analyzing and displaying the results in Arc. I had never experimented with the graphing tools in Arc, but Natalia showed me some really interesting applications of them while we rode the train from Portland to Eugene.

I suspect that some of you may be in the know, but I put together an explanation of sorts that includes some interesting data from the Owyhee here:

http://geologicfroth.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/turns-out-that-graphs-in-arcgis-are-pretty-damn-handy/

I didn't finish the lava profiles, but got a good start today. In the field all next week down in Vegas worrying about a different project. Back on Owyhee when I return.

Lyell was a closeted catastrophist?

A recent (re?)-discovery by fellow Yeehow JEO:

Not so fresh geofroth, but insightful nevertheless:

Our historical figure states thusly...

"The power which running water may exert, in the lapse of ages, in widening and deepening a valley, does not so much depend on the volume and velocity of the stream usually flowing in it, as on the number and magnitude of the obstructions which have, at different periods, opposed its free passage."

which follows upon...

"It is evident, therefore, that when we are speculating on the excavating force which running water may have exerted in a particular valley, the most important question is not the volume of the existing stream, nor the present levels of the river-channel, nor the size of the gravel, but the probability of a a succession of floods, at some period since the time when some of the land in question may have been first elevated..."

Who is our extrafluvial catastrophist?

None other than Charles Lyell!

Lyell, C., 1830, The Principles of Geology, vol. i. John Murray, London.
The first quote is from page 192, and refers directly to floods resulting from breached obstructions as key to forming valleys. The second quote is from page 188.

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Sweet Owyhee Pic of the Week

A nearly complete shot of the East Spring (Greeley) landslide. Yowza.

Short clip of the Owyhee fly-over...

Worth a look. Gives a good impression of what the flight was like. Certainly quicker than a raft.

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Slide Show from Today's Owyhee Fly-over

As promised, here are the pictures. If you would rather seem them on the Picasa site, you can go there with this link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/drjerque/OwyheeFlyOver?feat=directlink

Once there, choose view on map, or grab the kml link for a better overall experience. Note however, that the geotagging is locally off...I wasn't totally prepared to deal with a tracklog derived from a trip in a vehicle that was usually moving more than 150 mph or so. In that case, the clocks need to be tightly calibrated (to the second) and the track precision needs to be high. I will manually fix the egregious ones using the new and nifty interactive geotagging interface in Picasa.

An amazing day in the field...

Today, I had the opportunity to fly over our field area in a spiffy little experimental aircraft with my UNR colleague, Greg Arehart. Greg built the plane and is an accomplished pilot. It was an excellent time. From Reno, it takes less than two hours to reach the Owyhee in his plane. Once there, we followed an improvised flight plan driven largely by my whims and Greg's skills at maneuvering an aircraft. The map below shows the path:

It was mind-bending to be able to see the field area from this vantage. I took around 200 photos from the cockpit. Below is a very nice example. Note that it was a beautiful day to be in the field.

Best of all is the underwing camera that Greg installed on the plane. It is controlled by a laptop computer in the cockpit and takes absolutely amazing vertical air photos with overlap adequate for stereo viewing. The image below should suffice to prove that. I took 190 of these photos.

All of the photos will be posted or otherwise made available soon!

Will be visiting the field area tomorrow...in a plane!

Tomorrow I get a chance to fly over the field area in a small plane
fitted with an underwing camera. This was part of the deal that got me
to agree to teach field camp this last summer...and it is finally
coming through. Greg Arehart, my UNR colleague, has offered to fly me
over the area and snap many, many photos with his spiffy camera. These
will be ideal for creating large scale stereopairs of key areas
(failed blockages, landslide dams, etc) and also many great oblique
shots.

Below are some photos Greg took while flying over the field camp site in June.

See the full gallery on posterous

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Flash Earth and Geohacks...Who knew? Not me.

Just happened upon a sweet and simple geobrowser called Flash Earth...very smooth and easy to understand. Added bonus for me is that it links to high-res images of my favorite field area that are available only in Yahoo and Bing Maps:

Seems my pals at Google still just don't care about SE Oregon. Anyway, I found the site by perusing the details in an exif header in one of my geotagged photos. Was checking that out in Irfan View, a program I was aware of but hadn't tried yet. Turns out, it is well worth a look:

Which led me to the GeoHack wiki:

The internets are amazing, no? Totally cool.

 

 

 

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Croall et al. Poster from GSA

SR 410 Nile Valley Landslide (west of Naches)

SR 410 Nile Valley Landslide (west of Naches), originally uploaded by Washington State Dept of Transportation.

An excellent view of the landslide...nicely done.

SR 410 Nile Valley Landslide (west of Naches)

SR 410 Nile Valley Landslide (west of Naches), originally uploaded by Washington State Dept of Transportation.

Check out the great photoset of the recent landslide near Naches, Washington.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/sets/72157622438776353/

Impressive lava-river interaction in Argentina

Some images from Google Earth and Google Maps of an area of significant lava and river interaction in Argentina. Field Trip! The center of the image is approximately 36.40 S, 69.42 W.

This site was discussed in the following talk:

GEOMORPHIC HISTORY OF RIVERS DRAINING THE EASTERN ANDEAN CORDILLERA (34–37°S) CONSTRAINED BY TEPHROCHRONOLOGY, U-SERIES DATING OF PEDOGENIC CARBONATE AND COSMOGENIC ³HE DATING OF BASALT FLOWS

HYNEK, Scott A., Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, 115 S 1460 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0119, scott.hynek@utah.edu, MARCHETTI, David W., Geology Program, Western State College of Colorado, 600 N. Adams St, Gunnison, CO 81231, FERNANDEZ, Diego P., Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, 115 S. 1460 E. Rm 383, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, and CERLING, Thure E., Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112Alluvial deposits and associated geomorphic features are dated by their relation with volcanic rocks. The age range and geologic setting requires a broad approach to constraining the history of rivers draining the Cordillera. Maximum age estimates are provided by identification of the ~ 450 ka Diamante Tuff in fill terraces. Along the Río Diamante this ash bed is observed >100 m above modern river level. In the Río Papagayos and Río Atuel drainages, the Diamante Tuff is associated with alluvial surfaces much closer to modern river level. Coarse Diamante pumice in the Río Atuel implies significant changes to the headwater drainage system since 450 ka. The maximum age constraint implied by occurrence of the Diamante Tuff in fill terraces has been successfully combined with minimum age estimates from cosmogenic ¹⁰Be approaching 350 ka (Baker et al., 2009). The relatively old age of alluvial surfaces in the region is additionally supported by U-series age estimates derived from pedogenic carbonate in volcanic soils. A minimum age in excess of 100 ka is conservative. The dated surface is underlain by a pumice/lapilli tephra deposit and basalt flows both of which have the potential to provide maximum age estimates for the surface. Conversely, the U-series data implies that the basaltic volcanism is older than 100 ka. Our age estimates of flows in several drainages are much younger. Cosmogenic ³He concentrations in hornblende from basaltic-andesites erupted along the Río Salado indicate exposure, and therefore eruption, ages younger than ~ 6 ka. These flows temporarily dammed the Río Salado in one location and bedrock incision below the level of the flows has occurred since. ³He concentrations in olivine from basaltic rocks at northeastern Volcán Payún Matru indicate a shield-building phase at ~ 40 ka. Recent basaltic aa flows from multiple vents are morphologically quite young and ³He exposure ages are forthcoming for one of them. The Río Grande has incised the older flows, and provides an average incision rate over a full glacial cycle. Combination of geochronological data from the region indicates provides accurate, if not tightly constrained, ages for alluvial surfaces and identifies spatially variable geomorphic rates influenced, in part, by contemporaneous volcanism.

See the full gallery on posterous

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Lava v. River example from British Columbia

Kathy C. turned me on to this example yesterday. I had no idea. Lava flow is only about 250 yrs old. It is in the Stikine Volcanic Field. There is a related, somewhat brief, paper:

Roberts, M.C. and McCuaig, S.J., 2001, Geomorphic responses to the sudden blocking of a fluvial system: Aiyansh lava flow, northwest British Columbia. The Canadian Geographer, v. 45, n. 2, p. 319-323.

The vent is located at 55.11 N, 128.89 W.

Field trip!

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Submerged tree in Clear Lake, Oregon

This underwater picture shows a lone submerged tree in Clear Lake, OR.
There are many more than this. One (maybe most) date to about 2700 yrs
bp when a lava dam blocked the McKenzie River. Freezing water,
exceptionally clear.

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Intracanyon lava flows: Does the river give a dam?

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Intracanyon lava flows: Does the river give a dam?

View more presentations from Kyle House.

Owyhee lava and river profiles: location

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Owyhee lava and river profile figure...draft

Finally devised a way to confidently and easily extract profile data from the LiDAR data set in GlobalMapper. Surface profiles are simple. Basal profiles shown here are estimates based on some point measurements. Will vastly improve the basal profiles when GSA is over. Needed this figure, however, so spent too much time devising the method. 

Only issue now is to develop a technique for efficiently normalizing all the profiles to a reference thalweg of some sort. Already have data in xyz, so a quasi 3-D diagram would be the most realistic. 

Need to talk about this with the group.

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Nice renditions of the Owyhee River area map

Preparing for my GSA lava talk and came up with these new versions of
the map of the Owyhee River study area. The second one is just the lava.

See the full gallery on posterous

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