1/ Wednesday in the Chehalis Valley with Carie-Ann Lau, ex grad student, now session instructor EASC 411 Terrain Analysis. This weekend students will be field checking their terrain and terrain stability map. Interesting terrain types and stratigraphy. (thread) #SFUGlacialGeology
2/ Oldest sediment in the valley are these oxidized fluvial gravels. Ages in the lowest gravel are 29 ka. Alternating gravel and lacustrine represent blockage by glaciers at the mouth of Chehalis. Wood present at ~19,000 years old.
3/ Detail of tree at contact between gravel and glaciolacustrine dated to ~19,150 years old.
4/ Lots of glacial lake sediments in the valley resulting in >100 m of sediments in some areas. Ice in the Fraser Lowland blocked the mouth of the Chehalis during both initiation of glaciation and deglaciation. Some sediment have been deformed by overriding ice.
5/ Love this advance subaqueous outwash (proximal sorted sediments deposited in a lake). Till on top. This confuses the students a bit since it is unusual, so a little difficult to write a terrain symbol for.
6/ Looks like some good old boys enjoy the subaqueous outwash as well! Nothing like shooting holes in propane tanks, plus anything else that is handy, and burning TV’s, as well as anything else that is handy. #yeehaw!
7/ Paraglacial fans (a la Church and Ryder 1972) occur immediately after deglaciation, this increased sedimentation is the result of abundant sediments and little vegetation. The fan at Boulder creek is exceptionally large and is also a road maintenance issue.
8/ Other side of valley is not as well traveled. Uncontrolled road drainage makes the road a little sketchy and fallen trees required some pruning.
On August 29 examined some active layer detachment slides Near Arch and Quill creeks, SW Yukon. Around 25-30 slides occured on August 17, the same time the Alaska Highway was blocked by debris flows. A thread of these. This is the slides near where we landed. 1/10
Landed on the deposition zone of one of the landslides and flew the drone. Helicopter indicated for scale. 2/10
This is part of Crey Ackerson’s MSc thesis supported by Kristy Kennedy from the Yukon Geological Survey. 3/10
Finally some pictures of the Koidern Landslide. Start with some aerial pictures and then some more details. Some really interesting mollards, and some have remobilized! It is a long thread as it was a really cool landslide! 1/10
Looks like several phases. Initial failure crossed the small valley and then turned the corner. Then remobilization with a more fluid flow down the valley, blocking the larger stream. Then a smaller failure from the headscarp, where we first landed the helicopter. 2/10
Margin of the slide with lots of mollards. Nice streaking of the bedrock. 3/10
Spent a beautiful Friday at Point Grey (aka Wreck Beach) looking at the stratigraphy. He we have two advance sub-units below the till. The lower is interstratified sand and silt with peats, with ages from 26-24 ka, the upper, cross stratified sand. 1/
These advance sediments are called Quadra Sands and some diatoms in the lower sub-unit sediments indicate marine incursion. The upper sands show tidal influence. With eustatic sea level at this time, indicates >100 m of isostatic depression! 2/
The accumulation of ~70 m of Quadra sands indicates significant accommodation space. The two sub-units are exposed all along the escarpment. 3/
Friday’s Seymour valley fieldtrip examined the stratigraphy of the thick valley fill. The base is 42-29 ka MIS 3 gravel, sand and peat, indicating warmest climate at the base and progressively cooler to the top. 1/9
The MIS 2 Fraser Glaciation, has two advance stades. These are advance glaciolacustrine sediments of the older Coquitlam Stade, a mix of laminated to finely bedded silt and sand and diamicton. 2/9
Indicates ice blocked the mouth of the Seymour valley, forming this lake. There is wood in these advance sediments, dating to around 21 ka. Implies there is a spruce-fir forest in the area as ice advanced. 3/9