This being our second field trip I knew that is was going to be an experience. We again met at the school and gathered the class in route to the Castle Mountain Fault Line and back to the Tsunami Warning Center to see just how the earths movement Is registered and how high tech out system here in Palmer, Alaska really is.
With a slight detour we caught the class at the parking lot at Arkose Ridge which is composed of sandstone. We first were told what the surrounding rocks were composed of. The Matanuska formation is composed of sandstone, siltstone, and shale underlying the Chickaloon formation which is made up of coal, sandstone, and shale. The Talkeetna Mountains I found were made up of Batholith, which is granitic rock intruded into other sedimentary rock.
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When he pointed out the actual fault line I was very surprised. I pictured a fault line to be a definite line in the surface, not an area where rocks grind against each other. An area defined as a fault zone. It makes sense knowing what I know now about how the rocks get broken up and why they have to put up that retaining fence because the rock are always moving causing them to sluff off and fall to the road.
It makes me wonder how the Parks Highway doesn’t bend, crack, and twist up where the fault line crosses it. Then to think that it goes all the way under the Houston Bridge. My only question that I have now but didn’t think to ask is that how far down does the fault line go down in the earth.
When we walked up the road away from the most breacheated zone to the less disturbed dirts sandstone we found that the angle of the surface bedding was roughly 75 degrees. We found this with the Brunton Pocket Transmitter.
Our last stop in Hatcher Pass was a short drive down the road to an undisturbed Matanuska formation where it was being uplifted what looked to be 30 degrees or so.
Then we loaded up and headed to the Tsunami Warning Center. When we got there it was almost overwhelming. The amount of information being given was so detailed and being thrown at us so fast it was almost hard to keep up.
My preconceived notion of what it would look like inside was far below what it really was. That place was flat out awesome. It looked like something you would see in a movie about NASA. I wasn’t really paying attention at first because I was in awe of the technology.
I did get that his name was Scott Irvine and he was a Geophysicist. The man really knew his stuff. He first went over what to do if there is a Tsunami coming, and where to seek shelter. He said at least a mile away 100 feet above sea level in a three story, re-enforced concrete building. He told us that Seward was the first city to become tsunami ready. Another interesting fact is that each cubic foot of water weighs 63 pounds.
He also informed us that when plates move underwater they also cause tsunami’s. Tsunami’s move 500-600 miles per hour in deep water is hard to fathom. I can type page after page of what hew told us but there is a brief summary.
He showed us pictures and a slide-show with video’s explained all the equipment and what it does. Also explaining how the P waves and S waves move and how fast.
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