CWU's Nick Zentner presents 'Mount Rainier Geology' - the 4th talk in his ongoing Downtown Geology Lecture Series. Recorded at Raw Space on November 3, 2010 in Ellensburg, Washington, USA. www.nickzentner.com
You know you're watching a teacher who knows his subject and loves to teach, when he's compelling enough to keep me up at 3am watching geology lectures on RU-vid. Multiple times. Not just a one time RU-vid clickhole. Nope. I think I've watched all of this guys lectures, at this point. Does that count as auditing a class?
I agree. He has a way of getting the info re geology to those of us, who, while interested, aren't geologists. I'm a retired ER RN. His videos came up in my suggested video, after I watched a video with John Casey, re his book, 'Upheaval'.
I'm with you Elisabeth! I'm approaching 60 and feel the same way about Nick Zenter's work and the subjects he lectures about. It's alwasy great to learn new things and find new interests. Learning never stops!!!
I watch Nick's videos closely, and not for the geology. I am a teacher, and I'm learning so much from his technique. I've taught anatomy for years. It's boring to most students, who only want a passing grade to get into their professional programs. Nick keeps people engaged by pointing out the boring bits. I want to try some of his techniques next fall :)
I like the geology, but I, too, find his presentation technique fascinating. I instruct youth and ladults in BSA, so I must be entertaining as well as informative (all volunteers, so all can walk away). Nick is an excellent model.
"...pointing out the boring bits" -- and turning them into questions in basically the format, "WTF??" Which means when Nick lectures, there _are_ no boring bits. :D I had great teachers all through school, and now that you point it out... they all used variants of this technique. Cheers, and good luck with hooking your students!
Thanks in part to this lecture series we are planning a vacation to Washington state, eastern Washington. We want to lay eyes on everything he is lecturing about. My wife has started training for the trail miles we will put in.
I was going to go back and finish my engineering degree, but after getting hooked on Professor Zentner's lectures, I am seriously considering studying geology more formally, instead. Thanks a heap, Nick.
I live in Missouri. I lived up in Seattle for some time bout 10 years ago. What a great and fascinating state! I miss it very much! Nick, you are a fantastic teacher and have really piqued my interest in geology again!!
I have listened to these lectures countless times . I even did a portion of a ice age floods trip in Eastern Washington to Missoula Montana I am such a fan I am fascinated by geology and wish Nick had information about every geographical place in the world ... he’s so good
I am really enjoying these lectures. I lived in Rainier's shadow for the first 11 years of my life (I am from Tacoma). Interesting to hear about its history, so I am enjoying this one and the one about the Osceola mudflow.
Love the map showing the pacific rise, and what’s left of it in WA area, now called the ....de Fuca. The puzzle is coming together for me, I absolutely love Nick’s lectures!!
Unfortunately for me i live in San Francisco, however my aunt lives in Ellensburg and if i was there with her i would be taking this professor's class no question about it. It is so interesting to listen to the geology of our states. I wish i was in this course! Thank you for posting these lectures. They so interesting and he makes it so easy to understand, ...even for the non geologist! Bravo!
This guy is a rock star. :).. I absolutely love these videos. No idea why. Just fascinated and its probably in the way he teaches. I live in Ohio with really boring geology compared to the pacific northwest. Keep up the great work!!
I actually like to learn geology when I can, your stuff makes me want to learn and expand my mind on this. It sounds minuscule, but it means a lot to me wish I could go to these lectures in person
This man can draw Washington state on a chalk board with his eyes closed. Love the old school artistry and presentation. It's a vanishing art among college science teachers.
I love your way ! You do entice the mind. I share this with my seven year old granddaughter. She eats it up. Exciting. My daughter is faculty at U. Of A . Geology is one of her loves. Thank you , your planting the seeds of a wonderfilled journey through life.
Another great one! This is so valuable for the folks who are not students of geology per se but are potentially affected by geologic events. Understanding our environment is valuable.
My friends from Adak and myself were fortunate (and young/healthy) to summit Ranier in Aug 76. We went Northeast from camp Muir across the Ingram Glacier and across what I now know, as of a few moments ago. Across the top of the huge landslide. Thank you, Professor Zentner. That climb was a life-changing event, and now with continued ongoing knowledge. Here in central North Carolina,, boring by comparison, however, a much older topography.
Serious, I want Prof. Zentner to post an exam we can take after bingeing his videos. I think we have earned at least a credit hour or two in geoscience. This is great stuff!
He forgot about the volcano, Mammoth Mountain may still be active in CA. It is on the western end of the Long Valley Caldera and the most southerly of possible active volcanoes on the west coast.. There is still a lot of volcanic phenomena in that area, especially hot springs and even a geyser they turned into a geothermal power plant. This isn't like the Cascade volcanoes, it's leftover from the LV Caldera. Mammoth last erupted with a steam eruption or phreatic eruption about 700 years ago. It's last full eruption was 57,000 years ago so some geologists don't consider it active because it hasn't erupted for 10,000 years, but since 1989 there has been a lot of activity and they are not sure why.
"It's my lecture, damn it..." Just GO with that, Nick (as if you've done otherwise in all these years... LOL). I've prepared and presented college lectures... even as a student decades ago. I wrote and lectured in the mid 1980s on things I "got", for my classmates who didn't, and actually took up *teaching* (ugh) at a college many years later. It's your willingness and apparent talent to engage your audience *personally* in that way. I managed it with a few classes I clicked with... seldom. You seem to do it naturally, and part of my love of your videos is your being mensch enough to DO all this so the rest of us can learn :-) Cheers.
I SOOOOOO wanted to get your bit about "Julie" asking where the Cascades are, and another video where you showed a hippie for scale.... Classic! I've watched this video about Mt Rainier so often, now I'll remember it's the one with the infamous "Julie." I love screen captures!
Of the 4 visible buildings, is one of them multicare/TGH? I think it's second from the right. I love this picture. I was born right there. My family has lived there since just after we become a state and lived in Helena, MO for at least 3 generations before that. I love where we live and just wish we never forget the importance of our Salmon, Orcas, and Clams. We don't care for them and our mountain friends are going to hit the reset button much faster, I promise. We are extremely blessed. I'm so humbled by the entire area.
I really liked being a tech instructor in the military. I endeavored to make things interesting with the main goal of learning the subject. I wish I could go back in time to use some of Mr. Zentner's techniques and style.
Recently found your lectures and am hooked. I should be working on projects around home but, can't stay away. So very interesting, learn so much about Pacific northwest I hadn't imagined. Thank you so very much.
OK, just to answer the questions that some few will have - no - I am not that Julie. I do comment on several posts in here, so i am just putting this up here. Also, FYI, I am 67, with a degree in design so also not a geologist - but he is such an amazing teacher, I can't help but soak it up!!
Congratulations on your lectures! I 'm hooked! I have a question. Was Cocos plate also part of the Farralon plate or are the two plates unrelated? It seems to me as if North America has covered a protrusion of the Pacific plate (beneath California now) and now we see the Juan de Fuca and the Cocos plates as separate, but maybe once the were both part of the Farralon. Thank you in advance!
Can you give us your email address? I would like to send you information and questions regarding the Petrified Forest near Calistoga California. Thank you, you are a gifted teacher.
Great video series Nick, excellent presentation. Curious to know, what is likely to happen when the NA plate reaches the EPR? Any examples of such events around the world? Thanks
So when a continental plate moves over a sea floor spreading rift zone, the volcanism of the rift shuts down right? But why would this be? A hot spot doesn't shut down, it'll burn right through the cont. plate and a rift zone is tearing Africa apart. Why wouldn't the volcanism that causes the rifting continue to function under the cont. plate? Maybe this is why the SW USA has all those super volcanoes in almost clusters, the volcanism hasn't stopped but it can't "rift" apart the cont. plate so the magma builds up until it bursts through in a super volcano. Just an idea and my main question is why the rift zone would shut down when a cont. plate overriding it only affects the very top of the volcanism involved, especially when it seems that doing so would increase the rifting activity as more heat would build up over longer times (the overriding plate acting like a blanket).
The Geology of Mt. Hood, St. Helens, Ranier are very interesting. This region is also of major importance to an as yet Large Unidentified Bipedal Ape known as Sasquatch.
The Dutch published in 1919 in detail what lahars are and what danger they constitute. Kelud erupted through her deep craterlake killing over 5000 people. The water had combined with ash, rubble and other debris. No one took any notice till the '60's. The Dutch put in a tunnel to lower the waterlevel in the crater.
Mr Zentner, I watch these videos and want to come up and take classes from you! Can you tell me if there is any correlation between the springing back of the NA plate with it's 9.0 quakes and the eruptions in the cascades? That is are any simultaneous? Thanks in advance!
Come visit! No evidence - yet - that there is a connection between big quakes and Cascade eruptions. Doesn't mean that's impossible, just no evidence to connect.
It makes me glad that Wharfedale, Yorkshire, England is geologically a nice quiet backwater. In 53 years I have felt two earthquakes. The last one woke me up about 4am circa 2009. I rolled over in bed, reached down and touched the carpet. The floor was vibrating. My mind went, meh, tiny quake...so what. I promptly turned back over and went back to sleep. I doubt I would be quite so blasé in other parts of the world.
Hi Mr. Zentner, a question please; The East Pacific Rise is a spot where magma is welling up to create crustal plate? Is it an active upwelling force? Or is the magma just sitting there minding its own business, and rises/cools by simply getting exposed? I'm basically curious about the "drivers" in the mechanism of spreading centers, and what happens to that deep energy/magma supplier once their surface spreading centers get subducted. After all, the crust is just along for the ride, right? I'm in SoCal, so I'm curious about the the power source that was once driving the old plate, (now gobbled up) which is now presumably underneath us. What's it doing now? TY!
Hi Ben. All spreading centers (EPR, MAR, etc) are places where asthenosphere material is able to successfully rise to the surface. Am not sure we understand - even here in 2017 - what drives the plate motions. Also unclear....is the EPR still active in places where NA has drifted over the spreading ridge. The answers lie with geophyiscs - stuff I do not understand. Would love to use some of the data from those depths...but need to find data that is accepted by all in the scientific community....not sure that exists at present. Thanks for the questions.
NA has gone over EPR in California if I understand right. No more Vulcanism just plain erosion and somehow the granite mountains rise ..what makes them rise? It isn't compression because we just floated over the plate? Isn't it a case of a 'hottie' being overlooked and just 'steaming' to get one back? All that EPR work is still going on after all ..just got new 'management'.
I think what I am trying to ponder is that the 'over run EPR' isn't going to stop, it'll just find a new way to expend it's energies, or are we assuming total subduction once subducted? Sorry EPR, door is closed , go find somewhere else to spread your stuff seems a tad too main stream. Those heat discontinuities must be expressing themselves in some subtle way under continental America today?
I think what I am trying to ponder is that the 'over run EPR' isn't going to stop, it'll just find a new way to expend it's energies, or are we assuming total subduction once subducted? Sorry EPR, door is closed , go find somewhere else to spread your stuff seems a tad too main stream. Those heat discontinuities must be expressing themselves in some subtle way under continental America today?
Is Pendleton, OR (the central focus of the circling NA plate movement), like Beacon Rock pluton, like the Cannon Beach ocean plutons, and this area was a massive single or multiple hotspots (as I was told) that this hotspot moved up the Snake River, and into Yellowstone. So there would be 2 major hotspot trails (WA/OR) and the NV lava beds up to Yellowstone. And that Pendleton area would be the real locations of multiple supervolcano magma chamber like Yellowstone, and this is what caused all the ~300 lava flows, as the Columbia lava basalts are not from the Cascades, let alone from the ancient volcanic sites. If Pendleton was a supermagma chamber and cooled like these other plutons, and far larger and cooled down, as the leftover chamber of the moving to Yellostone hotspot, then this would be a massive pluton that causes the swirling land circling around Pendleton. This pluton would be stable and stay while the upper NA plate swirls around this massive pluton spot.
Rotation of Pendleton is just that, John. Shallow crustal movement in response to two oceanic plates offshore. No evidence of big magma chamber beneath NE Oregon.
Interesting note on the Farallon plate and its long reaching effects - some theories point the cause of the New Madrid seismic zone as remnants of the Farallon pulling a weakened section of the North American plate (The Reelfoot rift, The Mississippi Embayment is a good "visual" representation of this failed rift of the NA plate) down with it as it sinks into the mantle. Earthquakes come when the NA plate springs back up. I just thought it was neat the same thing that created the Cascades could also be effecting geology 1000+ miles away.
+Nick Zentner This idea comes from a paper from Allessandro Forte. Here is an article with the basic summary: www.livescience.com/4438-source-major-quakes-discovered-beneath-heartland.html I live near Memphis, TN. Out geology isn't as rich as the treasure trove you have up there in beautiful WA, but we have a few mysteries if you dig deep enough :)
Can I assume that the Sutter Buttes(in the Sacramento valley) are a remnant of subduction caused volcanism and the Smartsville block as a section of the EPR scrapped off by the NA plate? And the hot spot around Mammoth lake? What's with that? So many questions! Sorry.
MariusVan He actually suggested it in this lecture. On his pictures of maps - there is one where you are looking up the entire west coast of the US. He points out California area which has moved over (and part is of it is directly over the East Pacific Rise) and casually refers to the San Andreas and areas around it. If you observe - this area has mountains that are not nearly as big or impressive as the Cascades - and in his lecture he tells how the volcanoes have a 2 million year life cycle. Plate movement is slow - so I deduced that this area in California includes where old volcanoes are eroding away - and no new volcano activity means no new mountains are forming (at least not by volcanoes). If you call living on the San Andreas "very spicy" then yes - I think that is what will be happening when the rest of the NA hits the East Pacific Rise.
It would be fun, one of these days, to sit down with yourself and Tim, along with a few Master’s Candidates, and discus those “Vectors” and your beliefs concerning the end of the Juan De Fuca Plate. I’m in your corner, by the way, though I’m of the belief that the timeframe may be closer to 7-8 My, with current mathematical models.
I have a question about his time line though ... he says half a million years so roughly does this then the cascade formation is started roughly at the last eruption of yellow stone at 560,000 years ago?
He says in the video the cascade volcanoes have been around for 40 million years, and Rainier is 500,000 years old. The cascades and Yellowstone have no relation whatsoever
I must say the production quality is so much improved in the newer lectures compared to this. But really, even back in 2013, the damn repetitive subtitle was annoying.
David Duma He was repetitive to help students remember things he thought important enough that they were likely to be on the exam. I am betting his students loved it.
No matter whether Pacific plate is dragging NW the JDF plate, eventually if the Pacific is moving faster (and JDF also), versus the NA plate going westward, then the Cascades will cool down and erode, as the subduction zone will reverse out and back into the ocean. If the JDF plate (Farallon plate) goes under the NA plate and moves extremely eastward, and subducts, then the Cascades will cool down, and erode. Either way, the Cascades will eventually cool down, then erode, as the original previous ancient (now dead and gone) volcanoes. One wonders whether the West or East WA (and OR lands) will continue to rise, maintain, or decrease and de-elevate with these 2 geological options, and we could get back into a flat land environment as in the most ancient past of lakes, forests, and flatland lava flows.
As a science nerd, I love this geology series. But these were uploaded in 2012/13 - almost 7 years ago. You should re-upload these in a much higher resolution! I suggest 720 or even 1080p for those of us watching on 1080p or 4K monitors/TV's! And post higher resolution links in text for this AND the other corresponding videos! (PLEASE!)
Now I know why they turned off my ungulating local seismometer. The bear canyon station was recording long period undulations for months before they turned it off. Same reason gps reversed direction I think.
'They' in this instance would be Pacific Northwest Seismic Network: PNSN The station was near Ike Kinswa state park, it is no longer available or listed (may have been EO4B?) If I find my saved files on it I'll post the station ID.
Thanks for watching. Nobody knows when Rainier or any volcano will erupt. Geologists are working on developing histories for each volcano to be able to examine the likelihood of future eruptions - the best we can do in the short term.
