October 2010 - Trout Lake School

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FIELD TRIPS . . . . . . .Geology Class Field TripsJuniors and Seniors in Geology take field trips around Trout Lake and to the John Day Fossil Beds.One of the best ways for students to learn is through experience.That is why, on September 26th and 27th, the fourteen juniors andseniors in the Trout Lake School geology class went on a field trip toexplore the area around John Day in central Oregon. This region is richwith geologic history and is a great place for young geologists to studythis particular field of science.We started out in two vans from the school parking lot and madea few stops along the way to look at different rocks before making ourfirst big stop at Smith Rock. Smith Rock State Park is one of the bestclimbing sites in Oregon. It is composed of welded tuff (compressedvolcanic ash)that is smashed up against a wall of rhyolite. It is soft butvery firm, perfect for climbing. It was formed about 1.2 million yearsago from a pyroclastic flow. Erosion has worn all the soil around itaway and left these huge chunks of rocks. It is known for one of its rockformations, Monkey Face, and some of you might have seen the area ina western movie filmed nearby.After exploring the Smith Rocks for awhile we left to go to our campground at “The Fish House Inn” in Dayville. We made it there justbefore dark and set up our tents. After a few “cold” jokes, a soccer game,and a couple of card games we crawled into our sleeping bags and wentto sleep.The next day we explored Picture Gorge. It was formed 16 millionyears ago when dozens of cracks opened up in the earth’s surface andspewed tons of molten lava. Flood basalts like the Picture Gorge basaltsspread all over the Pacific Northwest and covered a total area of 2,500square miles. Over the years this same occurrence happened numeroustimes. Picture Gorge shows evidence of 17 of these lava flows. The JohnDay River has eroded a small canyon through these layers which makes8 | October, 2010. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .FIELD TRIPS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .them very easy to see.Then we went to the Fossil Beds museum. We sawlots of different fossils and went on a walk throughtime, where we got to see the history of this region andhow they discovered it through the geology. We also gotto see the inside of a lab where geologists uncover thefossils that they find in the field. A park geologist thengave us a little talk about the area and showed some ofthe different kinds of rocks they found here and whatthey can learn from it.Next we visited the Blue Basin which is a canyonmade up of very soft crumbly blue-green rock. It wasformed by ash deposits from a volcanic eruption. Geologistsaren’t exactly sure where the ash came from butthey believe it could be from the Strawberry Mountainsnear John Day. The basin is made up of alternating layersof ash deposits and tuff. The tuff layers help keep theash layers from falling apart. Water has eroded the rockto form small ridges.The Painted Hills are rolling hills that are bandedwith red, yellow, and black layers. They were formedby layers of ash from the old Cascade Mountains. Therock gets its red color when water penetrates and ruststhe iron in the rock. The colors indicate climates thatexisted there millions of years ago. The red layers showperiods of time when the climate was very wet. Thishard dry part of Oregon used to be a lush tropical rainforest. Similarly they can tell when it was very dry bythe bright yellow layers.After the Painted Hills we made one more stop toOpposite page above: This is Eli , on our trip to John Day. There are many fossils here fromClarno Layers. Maybe you can’t believe it, but the truth is it has nearly 40 million yearsold. ~ Xueyi (Kelly) PengOpposite page below: The beautiful hills behind us are the Painted Hills. That’s really anamazing place. The sand there includes red, black and grey. It was made of ash whichcame from the Cascade volcanoes. ~ Meng Zhu (Zoe) FuThis page (clockwise from below left): The class is smiling and having fun in Blue Basin.Many fossils have been found in the mud of the Blue Basin—the class stopped there on theway home. ~ Helena RustadThe class looking over Crooked River Bridge.Slater Modrich uses some help to see Sheep Rock at the John Day Fossil Beds NationalMonument. Sheep Rock is famous for its fossil finds. ~ Anna KlahnAnna Nakae , Lindsey, Liz and Anna have an abundant view up Smith Rock. It is famousfor free climbing and its geological events. Behind the girls you can see easily the weldedtuff of Smith Rock. ~ Anna Klahn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 2010 | 9
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October 2010 - Trout Lake School

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