geology

Underground Water Flow

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This entry is part [part not set] of 3 in the series Starrigavan Slide

Rowan provides some scale as I tried to document the water coming out of the slope cut by the washout of the landslide. It’s a little harder to see the flowing water in the lower photo, but there were several places all along this cut bank where water was streaming out of the rocks/gravel. My … Read more

Starrigavan Slide Revisited

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This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Starrigavan Slide

The forecast for tomorrow called for additional rain, possibly heavy, so I suggested to a friend who wanted to visit the Starrigavan slide area that we go this evening when it was still relatively dry. This time of year evenings are getting short, so we did not have a lot of daylight hours, but having … Read more

Starrigavan Landslide

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This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Starrigavan Slide

I was curious about the Starrigavan valley landslide, so this past Wednesday morning my kids and I went out to see what we could see. We were not the only ones, as we passed another father with kids and a couple with a dog both coming back. I noticed an aerial photo posted on the … Read more

St. Lazaria Basalt Formation

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St. Lazaria is a basalt island just off of Kruzof Island. It is easy to see columns of basalt going in various directions. The formation pictured here tops out well above the high tide line, but is no doubt kept clear of vegetation by the pounding it receives from storm waves where it is situated … Read more

Not Like the Others

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One a recent trip to Low Island, I noticed and photographed a couple of conspicuously different rocks along a part of the shore that consisted mostly of watermelon-sized basalt rocks. The two different ones appeared to be graywacke like is common along the Sitka road system (though of course I am not sure that’s where … Read more

Shoals Point

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Looking North from near Shoals Point

While a hoped-for trip to Low Island didn’t seem like a good idea due to a north wind, we ended up spending the day on the beach north of Shoals Point instead. The beach was protected from the wind, and despite an adventurous landing and departure from the beach, it was a nice day to spend outside.

I was interested to note that there was no evidence that I could recognize of glacial smoothing on the rocks there. This was expected, based on past experience, but I hadn’t really looked for that sort of thing specifically before. I don’t know how old the formations are, maybe 10,000 years, maybe longer? However, it seems quite likely that no ice over ran that location since that time.

Bird-wise, it was fairly quiet on the beach. A few shorebirds flew by from time to time. Just as we were getting ready to leave, a small flock of 9 Semipalmated Plovers (first for me this year) came running down the shore in that run and stop pattern they seem to share with robins. Also we saw two Caspian Terns flying along the shore (also first of year for me).

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