CWU's Nick Zentner presents 'Mount Stuart: A Closer Look' - the 1st talk in his ongoing Downtown Geology Lecture Series. Recorded at Raw Space on October 13, 2010 in Ellensburg, Washington, USA. www.nickzentner.com
Wow, I found Nick during the Covid-19 shutdown. He has kept me sane (although my wife would beg to differ). I love your lectures and if I had had a teacher like you, I would be a geologist today (retired). Please keep up the good work. You have a follower for life.
I am Dutch, so a long way away from Washington. I stumbled on these lectures and now I do now more of the geology of Washington then of my own province (Limburg) We had some coal underground etc. Well thanks for them.
Hello from the US, Peter! Thanks for watching. A new lecture on this topic will be posted soon. Exotic Terranes of the Pacific Northwest. All of my stuff is at nickzentner.com if interested.
Thanks Nick, you are aware of the fact that your last name in German means 100 kilo? I will check out your site and keep looking at your presentations.
@@Ellensburg44 We were planning a month trip through Washington and I used your lectures for the planning. We would go 18th July, but this is probably unrealistic due to the current restrictions, so we have to wait a least year more, better be safe.. I will continue watching those lectures, they are great! Greetings from another Dutch and Limburger, from the place the Maastrichtian era is named after.
I would have loved to have been taught by this guy........................he makes learning both interesting and fun. I had a UK education in the 60’s/70’s and it was mind numbingly dull. Great teachers/educators are worth their weight in gold. Even today at 60 years old..........I am learning something new and loving these lectures.
The enthusiasm and knowledge of this teacher is superb, the presentation is not. I think it is terrible to draw scratchy, messy, barely visible illustrations on a chalkboard when you’ve had half a lifetime or more to produce a lecture that is brilliantly illustrated. I am not a lecture, but I have produced many publicly presented documents including scientific research papers as well as public service documents, graphical information, charts, you name it at meetings for professionals as well as the general public. This kind of lecture is shameful. I don’t live in Washington, I’ve never seen a goddamn Mount Stewart. It would be nice to see an actual picture of it without me having to look it up. He could’ve started the lecture with this. Why not a 3-D view of Mount Stewart compared to a 3-D view of The counterpart he uses, volcano Mount Rainier? The problem in academia is a simple one, there are a lot of smart people that are lousy teachers. This guy is not a lousy teacher because of his enthusiasm or his knowledge, it is his presentation that is absolutely terrible.. Besides everything else wrong with his illustrations, the lighting is terrible. One of the good things about the Internet is that a lot of presentations about a particular subject will be produced, and some of them will be done with meticulous beauty, the real art of teaching. And those will live long and teach many people. This one won’t.
@@steveperreira5850I hear what you're saying - and I do agree about the lighting at least for this one. But you have to understand that these are presentations that are free of charge for the general public - they aren't designed as a RU-vid post. I actually like the relative roughness of the proceedings - and I especially like his interaction with his audience. I prefer this to any of the glossier posts on the topic on RU-vid. Most RU-vid posts are way over produced - as is most everything in this era Nick has become more high tech over the years and if you look at his more recent posts this is reflected. I actually prefer these older ones. I guess Nick needs a live audience...
Nick is one of those rare rare teachers where no one could possibly fall asleep, where those of the audience will never forget Nick's analogies. and a blackboard teacher? I've been on field trips for the NW geology (I was at a geology PARTY when Mnt. St. Helens blew)? I feel like I am on a field trip with every one of his lectures...this guy is one hell of a teacher, I hope you guys see this!
I'll second that- my dad always went on about the the interesting geology of the PNW. It was gneiss, but I really took it for granite. Now I do give a schist. I've sent Mom and Dad links to your lectures, and we get so much out of them. Thank you.
This is my favorite lecture of the series. It makes me wish that I could have been in attendance to ask all of the questions that I think of when I watch this lecture.
I'm back AGAIN watching The Dirt Commander! I don't know what it is but I have been coming back 2 or 3 times a year to rewatch his lectures. Only videos I do this with?? Thanks again Sir. If I ever go to the opposite side of the country I will be able to appreciate the area
Nick has what only good teachers possess: knowledge, enthusiasm and the ability to explain without preaching. I wish all my teachers had been like him!
Great lecture Nick. Very informative. Years ago my father-in-law told me that he knew a geologist that informed him that the Stewart range was formed after the ice age and that there is a mother load of gold somewhere inside Mt Stewart. I’m really leaning a lot watching your videos. Thank you.
I've been a rock hound all my life. I've been recommending your lectures to people interested in rock hunting around the northwest because I've learned so much myself by watching. I pick up details I missed previously, each time I watch again. I'm glad it's on video. I can sit through it more than once at my convenience. I find your teaching style to be comfortable for the beginner yet packed with tidbits that even a grizzled old timer finds value in. Thanks Nick
I can't reiterate to you all as to how much I've enjoyed these programs. I've been recovering from sinus surgery, so these videos have really helped me focus on something other than facial pain. :) The truth is that I feel I'm getting a world, first class college education for free right here on RU-vid! I live near the coast of Washington, so the next time I go past Copalis Beach, I will think about Mr. Nick's and Brian Atwater's discussions about the ghosts forests, mega thrust earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.! Again, thank you for posting all of these videos! Your passion for all these subjects comes through without question! You are sharing invaluable information too! Again, thank you!
I like your closing explanation of how you strategically teach the process of searching for answers ...that science is a process of discovery not of rigid boring academic recitation
Thanks much. Glad you enjoyed it. A new lecture expands on this old lecture. It is here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fibDx4CDNRc.html
Walking on Bodega Beach in Sonoma county California, specifically Duran Park. You can find rounded granite that's not from around here at all making up the Bodega head proper. The closest we have the coastal granite I believe is Baja, not too far I thought to think given enough time and transit north could have been the same contributor? 🤔 Thanks for the great talks!
When I left for China in 1963 the North Magnetic Pole was in the middle of Canada. It is now in the Bering Sea. That's fast enough to change the bearing of the cooling Granite...I think.
Hey Nick, so glad my wife turned me on to your channel. I've been binge watching for a couple of weeks now. I especially liked the Liberty gold lecture and the Yellowstone connection. Now that I think of it, 40 years ago this week I was camped out above the Cambrian Poleta folds near Bishop, California learning how to make maps and cross-sections. Dr Ralph Higgins led the field camp that year. I remember sweet old Bob throwing chalk at the unruly students. Jack Powell was still a student that year and I can still remember a 3/4 inch chalk missile ricocheting off the side of his head when he interrupted one of Doc Bentley's Mineralogy lectures. When you drew the line of calderas moving back in time to the 17 my old location at the Or Nv Id border I was reminded of a time about 15 years ago, I was driving down hwy 95 and pulled off on a side road for a comfort break. I decided to hike up to what looked like some basalt outcrops, and was surprised to find that I was hiking over
Nice to hear from you, David. Are you an alum of CWU Geology? Am not sure that we've met. You'll probably enjoy a new lecture on the history of the department at nickzentner.com
Mr. Zentner. An excellent video Sir, on a very interesting subject. Please, keep up your very hard work, in bringing to us neophytes your type of teaching in Geology. Thank you very much again.
Love these lectures! Nick is a fabulous teacher! I live in Texas and I'm fired up about the geology of the West coast. I'm not a geologist, looks to me like their is something missing in both theories. Hmmm, perhaps landmass in the ocean, that is not known between Pangaea and today?
Interesting lectures. It occurs to me as a fellow Geologist that there are two lines of evidence I would be interested in seeing: 1. Magnetic reversals in the granite, and 2. Sediments associated with serpentinites. Both of these could be used to constrain geometry. For 1, we would expect a similar dip on the reverse field if the granite is not deformed. If it is deformed you can go some ways to determining by how much and to removing the effects of deformation. For 2, you could use the sediments to give you So (original bedding). One could then use this to remove the effects of deformation. I have spent quite a bit of time puttering around BCS (Baja California Sur) as far south as Los Cabos, and there are a bunch of interesting terranes there as well. Of particular interest are eolian sandstones that look similar to those of Arizona...
Pausing at the 8m 15sec mark because there are some things running through my brain that I can't ignore. I know the concept of accreted terrain. James Michener mentioned it in his novel about Alaska. The amazing thing is learning that Washington is also accreted terrain. What occurs to me to conclude from all of this is that the classic picture of the Earth with all the continents shoved into one vast landmass which we call Pangaea and the rest of the planes a vast ocean called Tethys with absolutely no solid land is dad wrong. There was land out there, islands, and fair sized ones. Next thought leads me to hotspots. There's one under Yellowstone, there is also one in the middle of the Pacific which created the Hawaiian Islands. You look at the chain of the Hawaiian islands, it's a long arc and the Pacific Plate has moved over the hotspot in a generally WNW direction. So why not the same thing for the Yellowstone Hotspot? 200MYA the Yellowstone Hotspot was not under Wyoming. It was not even under North America. It was out somewhere in the Tethys with a now submerged plate over it, and that plate was slowly moving. However, the the beginnings of the Mid-Atlantic Rise split Pangaea and North America motored right over the hotspot picking up the lands it had created in a pile along the leading edge. How does that sound?
Where were the magnetic poles when the Mt Stuart granite formed? At the time the granite formed was future N. America moving (west and twisting south?)
Thanks for the explanation , Nick. I really learn alot watching your presentations. I live in upstate New Your and wish I could find that kind of lecture for the geology here. Keep up the good work.
I think Baja-BC can be confusing to some, because it sounds like one is suggesting land from Mexico just conveyor belted north. But on the proposed reenactment cartoon, it looks more like North America (Laurentia) rotated as a whole as it also moved relatively west such that the Mexico portion was closer to the leading edge as it were then took a relative south turn as the continent/craton rotated anti-clockwise. To me that's not so much conveyor belt north as the continent veering/rotating while it was plowing into these various terraces, like when a car deals another a glancing side-swipe like blow and leaves elongated traces of paint along its edge.
Cool. I’m also wondering what the time frame of ocean plate movement is. Like, looking at the Hawaiian archipelago, the underlying crust is carrying the islands away from the spot of formation. So if the Stuart Range is the deep root of an oceanic volcano, couldn’t it have moved away from its source latitude even before it collided with North America? Or is it believed that it was still active at the time of collision?
I really enjoy listening to these. I honestly think I might have missed my calling. I am a PM now.. But maybe I should go back to school and get a Degree in geology.
For most of the lecture, I was asking myself how the geologists can be sure the rock's orientation didn't change over time. Why should I believe the rock, after such a long period of time, retained the precise orientation that it had when it solidified? I still don't know the answer. If there's no certainty that the rock remained oriented precisely the same as when it solidified, then the orientation of the grains is meaningless, at least with respect to using them to determine where it was when it solidified. Moreover, since the Earth's magnetic north pole changes over time, this whole debate is moot.
Just recently discovered your site and love the way you go about teaching geology. Just had one thought on the magnetite lines. What about magnetic pole reversals. Would that come into play in this case, as far as giving a false reading if the magma was cooling during a pole shift?
Thanks much, Matt. The paleomag geologists have taken much into account - the reversals, the polar wander, etc. And just this past week, I heard from a number of field geologists at a conference that the Baja-BC movement has rock matches now...it looks like the tilt-in-place people are losing the battle.
~1,800 miles = ~2,900km The mountain is 93Ma and the Cascades are 40Ma. So a mountain must move within 10's of millions of years. How fast is this really? Well 2,900km divided by 10 million is 29cm per year for 10 million years, 16cm p.y. in 20Ma, or 8cm p.y. over the course of 40 million years. Currently, the entire North American continent is moving 3cm per year. Sounds fast at first, but not out of the realm of possibility as I had first assumed. Thanks for the upload, and wow the production quality has improved dramatically with the newer stuff :-) -Jake
The Pinnacles National Park near Soledad, California may or may not assist in the Baja BC argument. The Pinnacles are part of the Neenach Volcano which erupted 23 million years ago near present-day Lancaster, California. The movement of the Pacific Plate along the San Andreas Fault split a section of rock off from the main body of the volcano and moved it 195 miles (314 km) to the northwest. It is believed that The Pinnacles came from this particular volcano due to the unique breccias that are only found elsewhere in the Neenach Volcano formations.
+Laurie Gale Thanks Laurie. Good info, but the elusive faults to move Stuart granites need to be older. Local field relationships show Stuart arriving here long before the San Andreas Fault began to form.
Since this lecture was given 9 years ago I wonder if the scientists have gotten any further along in disproving one or the other of the two hypotheses. I did find this article online: www.researchgate.net/publication/283298636_Dismemberment_and_northward_migration_of_the_Cordilleran_orogen_Baja-BC_resolved
Great Lectures. Has anybody put thought into the location of the magnetic north's location so long ago? Edit: currently the magnetic North pole is shifting toward Russia. That should effect the angle. Just a thought.
I'm sure none of the scientists who spend decades of their lives studying and researching these matters have ever considered the common knowledge of random pole migrations that you have so cleverly illuminated and, in so doing, invalidated their entire bodies of scientific work. Nice job internet scholar.
The granite formed with the magnate crystals on a 35° angle, then it moved around on the earth and ended up as Mount Stuart in Washington. Wouldn't the moving around make it impossible to know where the granite was when it formed? Okay so you can tell latitude but not longitude?
I am willing to bet that Mt. Stuart and the whole Stuart range is the site of at least several phantom stratovolcanoes, as the whole thing is made out of granite, which originates in magma chambers under such volcanoes. I was watching the lecture on ghost volcanoes the other day, and it would seem to me that many of these ghost volcanoes are located east of the Cascade crest, and the further west across the Juan de Fuca plate the North American continent drifts, the further west this phenomenon would happen, if indeed the Juan de Fuca plate will be obliterated 5 million years.
island stuff like Vancouver and the islands north that ? traversed the dip ? and moved north ? from ? San Andres cast off going north ? and those that came in were caught! where did my mind go on this one! Maybe possible.
So did the entire Stuart range tilt the same amount? Did it tilt like a board? Does that mean more of it eroded away than another? Are there slip faults in the range to allow sectional tilting?
I’m also wondering this. Also wondering if all the “exotic” plates acted like horizontal sheets in one layer, or if there were overlapping layers. I’d think subduction could create overlapping sheets, especially if the batholith was originally rooted in a subducting oceanic plate, but slowly bubbled up as younger overlying material eroded down over a long period.
Does anyone know what lecture Nick talks about rocks that are volcanic in nature and hard to break open with a hammer (they are bumpy and conical)? I saw it once when I was half asleep a month ago and can't find it so now I'm wondering if it was just a dream.
So…the vector on the Farallon Plate shows a northeastern trend. Mt. Stuart is part of an exotic terrane that may have been crystallized some 12-20° south (sans tilting). Why not have them form part of an island arc well off-shore in the Pacific, then being rafted along with the Farallon Plate northeastern into the Washington area? I'm sure this is not an original idea. Have not been a practicing geologist in nearly 30 years, but I studied accretionary terranes in North Wales dating back to the Iapetan Ocean's closure over 400Ma. So the thought of an exotic terrane drifting placidly across the Pacific instead of being smeared along the North American margin just seems more elegant. Again, though, I'm out of touch with a lot of the modern work on Washington. So THANKS for the wonderful lectures! (BTW, I was at WSU from 73-78, BSc Geology, BA Math, then grad school at Illinois for the Welsh work.)
Thanks for watching, Pete. New stuff (this week at GSA in Seattle) has most geologists now buying the 2000 mile movement north after accretion. Similar offset for WA stuff now in Alaska.
Thanks for getting back to me, Nick! Really enjoy your videos. Brings back fond memories of trips I took as an undergraduate (as well as WSU's field camp I attended at Northport and Sucia Island).
This just makes me wonder about the magnetite in all the other batholiths. What angle/ age is the magnetite in the Snoqualmie batholith, just a few miles away? Surely, comparing batholiths would give more clues.
Exotic terraines: foreign land, that migrated, acculturated, and acclimated in the geological area, and became part of the greater substrate of Washington state. And more and more of the West Coast, continues to push north, breaking off greater and greater chunks of the Mexican landbridge, and trans-shipping them N/NW toward Canada.
I am more of a tilt in place guy and as your lecture on the Liberty gold taught me and with all of the squeezing of the state it sure could have tilted Mt. Stuart as well. I have learned so much from your lecture I almost want to send you a big check lol
+Scott aka Ivape Wheeler Ha! Thanks. I'd lean your way too, but there are some geologists that I trust and admire that swear that long distance travel is needed due to that crazy paleomagnetism.
Hi Nick If you would like new idea's for a future lecture I would love to find out how nd why we have 2 shield volcano's in Washington St. with Basaltic lava. I just been doing some more research and found we do have some of them here but not who or why. Thanks Nick
Depending on the age of Monte Stuarte dying, then the paleomagnetics would be that of the 93 MYA, while the rest of the accretions would be of the different ranges (that 50 - 93 - 200 MYA) in that WA corridor.
I would propose another theory based on Nicks lecture on super volcanos. Could Mt. Stewart be the remnant of a volcano that formed south along the line of ghost super volcanos and then have been rotated north with the North American plate?
I just recently moved to the east slopes of the North Cascade Mountains 7 miles west of Okanagan and I've noticed on the east side of Okanogan River the Highlands seem to be a different geology than the North Cascades are they two different terrains?
If every subject was taught the way Nick teaches Geology you would never here the words "Oh I didn't like chemistry/calculus/organic.... because it didn't make any sense". The subjects aren't horrible the teachers are. Lord knows I feel that way about Quantum Mechanics because the prof I had was a nice guy but he could teach you to pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel.
The problem I have with the "tilt-in-place" story is that it seems to ignore the northward movement altogether. There clearly has been a northward movement along transforming faults similar to the St Andreas fault, so even those who sympathize with the "tilt-in place" story should wonder where the stuff from the south is! Or are they denying that there is any movement north?
so I have 2 questions when we go back the movie and Pangea, where North America is moving away from the whole. North America, is at different places relative to the poles so wouldn't any granite cooling there have different angles because of that instead of picking up different terranes, the terranes cool on North America while its migrating. also keeping with this idea we know that the earth's poles have flipped and moved on its own through time wouldn't that affect how we see these angles being created even under shorter geologic times than just the breaking up of Pangea?
Thanks Tony. Yes, those ancient latitudes and magnetic reversals, etc have all been considered...and still there is unusual paleo mag with some of the Cretaceous batholiths in the West.
Was there an Earth magnetic polar shift 93 million years ago. That could account for the magnetite misalignment. I'm sure that a shift was looked into, because Nick and company are thorough, but it wasn't addressed. Just wondering.
Paleomagnetism has been studied all over the Earth, so there are records of magnetism throughout history. 93M is a relatively small period in these studies
What about the wandering magnetic poles which would move your magnetic line around. So when it formed the poles could have been somewhere else and your magnetite could have been just at the correct angle.
So if the "tilt in place" hypothesis is true, wouldn't you have a bunch of east-west faults (akin to the Seattle fault), so the terrane would be like a row of books on a shelf tilted to one side? It seems like such faults, or lack of them, might be evidence for/against this hypothesis.
Has the Baja/BC connection been disproven yet? Beyond zircons, isn't there some sort of isotopic relation between mainland Mexico and certain PNW terranes?
Thanks, you shameless self-promoter. I've tried finding other lectures about geology but nothing compares 2 u. I'm lucky enough to live in western Washington, and I pity the fools who have to listen to you rambling on about local stratification/eruptions/terranes/etc while they're trying to extract geological principles that are relevant to their terrain. It would be awesome if you wrote and/or narrated a 101+ course on general geology....you make the science fun and easily understandable.
So, if what you just said at 55: min, about basically the entire west coast being added to the mainland of the US, then it could be possible what I've seen of 'old' maps, showing that California was not completely connected as it is today, and with a large body of water separating it from the rest of the U S..
Imagen going around a turn , will say on a dirt bike so many times , there will eventually be a wall formed around that corners ... The United States west corner Washington , is at the split of the Pacific Ocean's magnetic field ... So possibly Washington is Newly formed in sense ...
45 active and extinct volcanoes on the Mexican landbridge, ... and how many others were shipped up the Sierra Nevada range, and part of the WA, OR, and CA volcano scene in ages past.
