Geo basics

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Northwest Geology Field Trips, by Dave Tucker, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 3.0 United States License. You can use what you find here, repost it with attribution to the author, "remix" it for your own purposes, but may not use it with the intent of making money off of it.

EDUCATORS: Please feel free to use anything you find here that is useful to your mission educating people about Earth science.

Geo basics

This page links to articles I have written elsewhere on the website that illustrate some ‘basic concepts’ in geology. Bear with me as I develop these pages.

Articles on the Northwest Geology Field Trips website (click on blue links):

THE FORMATION OF PILLOW LAVA with links to where to see them in Washington.

SEDIMENTARY ROCK STRUCTURE– STRIKE AND DIP

HOW DEEP ROCKS REACH THE SURFACE– UPLIFT

If you are unfamiliar with technical geologic terms, recommended references to have on your shelf, whether you are a ‘professional’ or ‘citizen’ geologist are:

A Dictionary of Earth Sciences (1999) Second Edition, edited by Ailsa Allaby and Michael Allaby. New York, Oxford University Press. 599 pages, plus appendices and references.

The old stand-by dictionary has been:

Dictionary of Geologic Terms (1983) 3rd Edition, edited by Robert L. Bates and Julia A. Jackson. New York, Doubleday. 571 pages. This book badly needs a new edition, as it does not contain many recent terms added to the geologic lexicon.

Websites with definitions of geologic terms:

http://geology.com/geology-dictionary.shtml http://www.geotech.org/survey/geotech/dictiona.html

This one seems to have the most words: http://www.webref.org/geology/geology.htm

13 Responses

Anselm parlatore, on August 5, 2011 at 10:57 am said:

Awesome! Thank you again very much for all you do & all the sharing of knowledge, experience, discoveries! Much appreciated.

Reply
- magmatist, on August 5, 2011 at 11:08 am said:
  
  Anselm,
  Thanks for the support. I know you’ve been a subscriber for awhile./ Hope to see you on a field trip some time.
  DT
Roger Hasper, on August 5, 2011 at 1:58 pm said:

WOW! Love the new aspect to your site. This is going to be a mandatory site visit for my classes. While sixth graders new to geology will struggle with some of the information others will be challenged. Thank you for all the local (and beyond) information you share! You rock! Roger

Reply
James Roach, on September 28, 2013 at 11:42 pm said:

Any suggestions for a guy who knows nothing, but is intrigued and would like to be able to drive down the road in his RV and say something better than, ‘cool rocks’?

Reply
- magmatist, on September 30, 2013 at 8:27 am said:
  
  James,
  Thanks for subscribing and for your question. Try the books in the “Guides, Books and Maps” section of this website [tab at the top]. Also, if you like field trips [no geo background needed] sign up for updates from the Mount Baker Volcano Research Center blog. Occasional fund raiser geo field trips to the Mount Baker area. The link is in the right hand column on this webpage.
  Dave Tucker
Mary Hollen, on March 5, 2014 at 6:56 pm said:

Dear Dave,
Just discovered your wonderful website – a friend found it for me. I have submitted a request to the Sno-Isle Library System to acquire your book when it is published. I can’t wait to read it. I’m personally interested in finding where the South Whidbey Fault(s) intersect the bluffs. If you have a field trip with that purpose in mind I’d be interested.

Reply
- magmatist, on March 5, 2014 at 8:41 pm said:
  
  Mary,
  Thanks for your interest. The book will have a chapter about Double Bluff at Useless Bay on Whidbey Island. The fault doesn’t actually intersect the bluffs at that point, but there are clearly visible, swirled deformation structures that strongly suggest strong seismic movement close by. I have a field trip on my blog, as well, about Double Bluff: STart here: https://nwgeology.wordpress.com/the-fieldtrips/whidbey-island-glacial-deposits/ and then click the link for Double Bluff.
Kathleen Myers, on January 1, 2022 at 6:23 pm said:

Looks like the blog is no longer active but wanted you to know tha t i bought your book and am enjoying —- helpful to understanding the world around us
Kathleen myers MD
Prof Emerita, UW

Reply
- magmatist, on January 19, 2022 at 10:32 am said:
  
  Not really inactive, just a bit slowed down these days, Kathleen. Appreciate the comment and the book purchase.
Gail Wiesner, on January 18, 2022 at 11:10 am said:

Newish to Washington. Just started exploring when COVID hit. There are some very large conglomerates of smaller, fused rocks in the farmland in north central WA. We were told they were formed by glaciers. What are they called?

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- magmatist, on January 19, 2022 at 10:28 am said:
  
  Hello Gail. Thanks for writing and following my website. And welcome to Washington. I am not familiar with the rocks you refer to. If thery are conglomerate boulders not related to the bedrock on which they lie, they are erratics. If they are north of the Columbia river, they are most likely ‘glacial erratics’, left behind when the last continental ice sheet melted away. A map showing the extent of the last ice sheet is here https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-southern-extent-and-lobes-of-the-latest-Pleistocene-advance-of-the-Cordilleran-ice_fig1_215608414
K, on May 4, 2022 at 6:29 pm said:

So appreciate your blog! We just visited Whidbey and read your post on the geology at Double bluff.

Reply
- magmatist, on May 5, 2022 at 10:44 am said:
  
  Thanks K. Did you find everything I wrote about? I describe Double Bluff in greater detail in a chapter in my book, Geology Underfoot in Western Washington. DT