From 0’ – 3,000’ in 70 Million Years:  Building Oregon, Dry Canyon, The Shaping of Redmond and the Geology of the Paleo-Deschutes, Part 3

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Cascade Volcanic Arc –

Over the last 2.5 million years, roughly corresponding with the Pleistocene Ice Age, there have been at least 1,054 volcanoes in a ‘belt’ from Mt. Hood running 210 miles south to the California border and then, after a break, continuing to Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen, in a band 16 to 31 miles in width. These latter two, southern most of the Cascades, show no effect of glaciation from Glacial Periods. They were far enough south of the Glacial Ice to be unaffected. The material ejected and flowing from these many volcanoes and vents come from the crustal material of the subducting Juan de Fuca plate. The Cascades are a defining feature of our region in terms of aesthetics, but also as a shaper of climate, as well as being a physical barrier limiting the movement of organisms and thus goes to determining the ‘shape’ of our lives here. The Arc is still active, magma is still being ‘delivered’, building incredible pressure below through these same processes which have shaped this place to date. While we may assess its various mountains as ‘active’ or not, the volcanic arc, is still very much a factor in determining our long term future. Where it will next erupt from, and what form that will take, is impossible to say within any degree of confidence. But the earth’s tectonic plates are still in movement. Magama is still slowly, but inexorably, coursing through its crustal layers and the movement and pressures will continue to result in further eruptions. Continue reading →

From 0’ – 3,000’ in 70 Million Years:  Building Oregon, Dry Canyon, The Shaping of Redmond and the Geology of the Paleo-Deschutes, Part 2

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Clarno Formation – 54 to 39 million years ago.

Getting back to Central Oregon, the Clarno Formation formed much of the region’s base rock, an accumulation of volcanic rock, their sediments and soils in layers to as much as 6,000’ thickness. 6,000’. The area was what geologist call an ‘extensional basin’, a broad low basin between the Blues and Wallowa Mountains and the accreting and volcanic landscape forming to its west.

As the Clarno was forming so was Siletzia off the coast of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, building up relatively rapidly from intense and volcanic activity between 56-49 million years ago to the west. Siletzia was then accreted to the continent due to plate tectonics. In Oregon this terrane became the area we now recognize as our Coast Range and Willamette Valley.

This area looked far different before this period than at its end. It looked far different again, from when it attained its maximum elevation, to how it appears today. Trying to tack all of this is a bit like trying to follow a 3 ring circus…with many more rings, all proceeding at the same time, with generous overlaps. When looking at our landscape we are faced with the problem of the never ending processes of ‘addition’ and erosive ‘subtraction’. The ‘end’ of the period we define as the Clarno Formation is not one of some final result. The regions canyons, have today been deeply eroded, cut steep, with broken slopes, below the rim tops we see today. These were very different 39 Ma and they will look far more different in another million or ten million years from today, likely unrecognizable to us. Even if we were able to somehow survive until then to observe them, our ‘snapshot’ and pliable memory of them would have likely transformed over the many centuries. Erosion will have been at work over the intervening time together with those forces working to ‘build’ and ‘lift’, the working of plate tectonics locally continuing to drive the process as they continue in their slow motion crashing, transforming the surface from below.

During the Clarno those forces continued with, explosive eruptions, lava and pyroclastic flows, lahars that poured down from volcanoes of the Mutton Mountains in the formations northeast corner and Ochoco Mountains area, just west and south of the Blue Mountains, along with their mudstone, and conglomerates derived from the erosion of both accreted terranes and that of volcanically ‘built’ structures. And thus was ‘built’ the Clarno and the later John Day Formation. The three largest volcanic structures of the period in the Ochocos remain today as the Crooked River, Wildcat Mountain, and Tower Mountain Calderas. These volcanos have not been active for many millions of years. The center of volcanic activity in the region began to shift westerly during the Clarno with the tectonic changes accruing to the expanding continent’s edge developing into what would be the Cascade Volcanic Arc. The Ochoco Volcanic Area remained an active factor on through the development of the John Day Formation Period. Continue reading →

From 0’ – 3,000’ in 70 Million Years:  Building Oregon, Dry Canyon, The Shaping of Redmond and the Geology of the Paleo-Deschutes, Part 1 

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This first installment is more general, addressing plate tectonics and the various forces and processes active in the Pacific Northwest. As a horticulturist with a strong interest in the biological sciences I also make an attempt to link the two. Biology and geology are inseparable. While geology is largely determinative, at a microscale biology has a direct effect on soils and the micro-climate. Geology is the overall, and changing structure, while biology is the ‘living’ surface, the interface between the mineral and the thin, living ‘skin’ between earth and space. The following two installments will look more specifically into the local and regional geologic forces in play. The third installment will be the most focused on the Canyon and our immediate locale.

Story is essential to the process of our understanding, it is the linking of the bits of memory together into a coherent whole, how we can share it with others and confirm or restructure it, otherwise it’s just data bits, useless in a social context and confusing to our understanding. Without story we are reduced to being merely reactive, unable to share/communicate, perceiving then reacting in the moment. Even without a group to share it with, story allows us to remember, learn, plan and act. Without it we live out of relationship, like bumper cars across the landscape. To move beyond this we must be engaged with our place. In relationship. Sharing a story with the place and organisms with which we occupy it. Language provides us with the tools to do this or simply to examine it in our heads. How do you tell the story of a place? Not the human ‘his-story’ but that of the physical land, on and with which, it occurs. We tend to think of the land on which we live as a stage, fixed, static, that this place, has ‘always’ been this way. But that is far from the truth and Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, is the geologically ‘youngest’ region of the North American continent. It has a particularly dynamic story…one that is ongoing, proceeding at a pace largely below our notice, unless we do a deep dive into its past. Continue reading →

Redmond’s New Community Center/Pool and the Anti-Government Bias: This is What Community Failure Looks Like

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This is the rendering of the new facility’s south entry. It’s the banner on the RAPRD’s announcement of Novembers funding levy for the new facility.

Much of what I write of and post here are topics concerning ‘place’, its centrality to life, including our own. This post is specific and narrow, focusing on a non-gardening, non-horticulture, activity important in my life, swimming. I am recently turned 70 years old and their are many physical things I can no longer do and others I have had to modify, given my record of injuries and ‘weaknesses’ of my body particular to it. I have always ben physically active, craved movement and enjoyed the sensations of moving through ‘space’, of strength and competence, of engagement with….I would run, climb over things in my path, do things to prove that I could, explore the world in front of me; physically, and test that understanding. I enjoyed, and still do, the feeling of being ‘capable’. It is a necessity for me, just as is my mental engagement. It is of the same piece. As I age now, while my physical capacities have lessened, sometimes because of my past efforts, I, like a machine, have been wearing out. But, unlike machines, that physical activity, that stressing and testing of ourselves, allows us to stay capable and strong, a response within limits, to the stressing we subject ourselves to, as long as we get enough rest, have a healthful diet and recognize our own limits.’

I haven’t been able to run or participate in sports that require it, without significant consequence, for quite a few years now. The recognition of my own limits, lead me first to yoga, which I practiced regularly and incorporated into the physical movement of my daily work during my working years. While not ‘slavish’ to my practice, I still do this adding in some specifically core strengthening exercises. When, almost thirty years ago, a local public pool was significantly renovated, I began to lap swim, to help with my upper body and core strength as well as my flexibility. The demands of my work were such that if I didn’t do something, the physical demands of my work, which were greatly lessened during the continuous running around of summer, lead to a weakening of my upper body, just as I would be back to placing it under most demand. As I was aging my spinal anomaly was becoming an ever bigger limitation and I was looking about for solutions. I wanted to be able to continue my work in horticulture/parks and was afraid my career might end with me in chronic pain and incapable of doing the things that gave my life purpose and direction. I overcame the idea of boredom and tediousness of swimming face down in a pool lap after lap, as well as my unease with breathing while face down in water, and both my health and sense of well being improved. I still swim. It has become essential. I know what stopping for a significant amount of time means for me. So when we moved, having ready access to a pool was a top priority for me. We bought a home in a community with a lot on which I could garden, with a view of the Cascades and a pool…at least the promise of one. The pool has not yet been built. Continue reading →

John Vaillant’s, “Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World”

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‘Global warming’ and ‘climate change’ have become trigger phrases, hot buttons for millions of Americans. What were originally coined as descriptive, short hands to signify a complex climatological process induced and accelerated by human action, has been thoroughly politicized. Today they separate ‘us’ from ‘them’.

For those on one side, the earth, is a closed, limited and complex system we are ‘pushing’ beyond its inherent abilities to maintain dynamic balance within margins which organisms can live in a vital, healthy state, biological processes continuing in a familiar manner. This ‘side’ understands that we are adding vast quantities of carbon to the atmosphere causing the earth to retain more heat, heat which ‘spins’ the entire system faster, potentially beyond the limits that life evolved with. Such a more ‘carbonized’ atmosphere resembles that here of many millions of years ago, of a warmer earth, that was nonsupportive, too warm, for the vast majority of organisms which exits today. Too much carbon released into the atmosphere? These effects are easily demonstrable in a lab experiment. These people have some understanding of what they must do to slow and halt these changes, what we must do  to ameliorate the damage we’ll inevitably face. Pushed too far the system won’t return to the old ‘normal’ in a few weeks, months or years. It will be with us for generations to come.  Continue reading →

The Gene: An Intimate History, a Review

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I finished reading Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book from 2016, “The Gene: An Intimate History”, a dense, engaging book, written in a prose style, conversational, thorough, accessible and personal, exceedingly rare qualities to find in a book covering such technical topic. Mukherjee, trained and worked as an oncologist, won the Pulitzer Prize for his earlier book on cancer, “The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer”. He is currently an associate professor of medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University. Understood to be the ‘best’, or most complete and thorough history of genetics, our understanding of it and the ethical questions of its increasingly influential applications in medicine, society and evolution. Of such broad scope in the changing landscape of medicine and its science, it has expectedly, become subject to an array of criticisms. The practice of science is not perfect. Our understanding is forever evolving and as much as promoters might insist that theirs is solid and fixed, our knowledge will always be imperfect. We circle around a topic, defining it closer and closer, but never quite understanding it fully, questions leading us to more questions, our knowledge shaped by what we already ‘know’, and very occasionally propose entirely new ways of explaining, new theories, that dislodge previous established theory. Continue reading →

An Immense World: A Review of Ed Yong’s Latest Book

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I’m a member of a natural sciences book group. We all share a mixed range of personal experiences as hikers, Gardners, horticulturists, ecologists, wildlife biologist and a fascination with the natural world. There are always so many good titles to choose from. I’ve written of several in the past. Our current book is Ed Yong’s, “An Immense World”, a look into the senses and perceptions of organisms, to understand how an animal ‘sees’ its world. of course, we can only do this from our own limited, human biased vision heavy view of the world. We should never assume animals ‘see’ the world as we do. Many animals primary sense isn’t vision at all. In this book Yong writes of how even when we share particular sense organs with other animals, our perception is very different. Perception is something beyond the senses. It occurs after sensing, an attempt to make sense of the world around us in a way that works for us with our needs and limitations…It is not the world itself. Perception gives us our personal understanding of the world. It is shaped by the combination of our several senses and our need to understand. In evolution what ‘works’ shapes us. We, the biological we, that is, all organisms, are in turn shaped by the world around us…our bodies, our sense organs and our understanding of the world around us. We are shaped by necessity and possibility. While discussing this Yong writes repeatedly of a species’ and an individual’s ‘Umwelt’, our individual view of the world around US. Each is distinct. Individual and limited, making it near impossible for us to imagine another’s, but this does not give us permission to dismiss that of others…any others. Continue reading →

The Much Maligned Western Juniper: The Role of Juniperus occidentalis in Central Oregon

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Old growth Junipers near Cline Buttes. These two rooted down long ago on top of this lava flow. Much of the lavas here were produced during the Deschutes Formation over many thousands of years more than 5 million years ago. Surface lavas, cliffs and slopes define the area with a few sediment filled basins dominated by Sagebrush and Bitterbrush.

The Western Juniper is the  singular native tree of Dry Canyon and the immediate Redmond area. I grew up with it here in Central Oregon. When we moved here in ’61 i remember driving north after passing through miles and miles of various Pine forests, which eventually yielded, riding in our VW bus, as we left Bend. Bend sits within the ecotone, the relatively narrow transition zone, between Ponderosa Pine forest and Juniper steppe. What were these trees? Coming from California’s Salinas Valley, the landscape could hardly be more different to a six year old. So different in form and detail, Junipers squatted darkly across the landscape, nothing like the tall, majestic Pines or Oaks I was more familiar with or even the Lodgepole Pine we drove through across the pumice plain of the LaPine area. Continue reading →

Two Summers into Our New Garden in Redmond, Oregon’s High Desert Country

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Part of the S’W Arc Garden’ featuring plants from the SW US. My Cupressus grayii Sulphurea showing the damage wrought by a rutting buck last fall. The low berm was created from the material produced by regrading the abrupt drop to the sidewalk. The rock was used here and in back. I also collected a couple tons of rock to use from elsewhere on undeveloped parts of ‘Dry Canyon Village’ and placed an additional almost 20 yds of topsoil.

We’ve just gone through our second summer season in the new garden beginning with a blank slate other than the local weeds. While I grew up here we’d been ‘gone’ in Portland where we lived, worked and gardened between the Fall of ’85 and ’22. It’s a world of difference here three USDA hardiness zones colder where our last two winter’s have subjected us to long Zn 6b conditions, -5F while Portland experienced its far shorter winter and cold down into the mid-teens, which is colder than their new ‘normal’ range of lows which puts them in Zn 9. One of the biggest differences is that in the past rain year, running from Oct. 1 – Sept. 30. we’ve received only 6.66″ of precip around 2.5″ less than our 9″ or so normal. It’s colder here; the growing season is far shorter, yesterday, Oct. 5, we dropped to 30ºF; drier; the wind blows more consistently and the solar radiation is more intense at 3,000′; all of which greatly effect both what you can grow here and how it performs. Gardening ‘know how’ can only get you so far. I’m not really going to get into the deer problem here and it is a problem as we are on the edge of town adjacent to a major Mule Deer wintering area. Anyway, as gardening is always at least a bit of an adventure, these last two have been far more than a ‘bit’. Continue reading →

Origin Story: The Trials of Charles Darwin, A Review

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Evolution, natural selection and Darwin are often triggers for many conservatives. On their announcement people will often enter into angry diatribes which nearly just as often sets off others into a defense of shared ancestors, adaptation and descent, sometimes with a reciprocal attack against a determining role for God. It quickly moves into a polarized argument, one side embracing a christian, all knowing and powerful God who created all things in their particular ‘fixed’ forms, with man in God’s ‘image’, railing against those who would have us descending from monkeys, as if one day a monkey simply ‘birthed’ a modern human, an idea that completely ignores the substance of Darwin’s theory. The public argument seems to remain the same despite the passing of decades with little change, the battle lines firmly established, arguments entrenched. So, it is interesting to read, “Origin Story: The Trials of Charles Darwin”, by medical doctor and author, Howard Markel, which came out earlier this year, 2024. This divisive, get nowhere, pattern was set from the very beginning. Continue reading →