Geologic Map of the Lacamas Creek Quadrangle, Clark County, Washington
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Geologic Map of the Lacamas Creek Quadrangle, Clark County, Washington By Russell C. Evarts Pamphlet to accompany Scientific Investigations Map 2924 2006 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey INTRODUCTION PREVIOUS GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS GEOGRAPHIC AND GEOLOGIC SETTING Previous geologic mapping in the Lacamas Creek area, generally carried out as part of broad The Lacamas Creek 7.5' quadrangle is in regional reconnaissance investigations, established southwestern Washington, approximately 25 km the basic stratigraphic framework and distribution of northeast of Portland, Oregon, along the eastern geologic units in the quadrangle. Trimble (1963) margin of the Portland Basin, which is part of the mapped and described the geology of the map area at Puget-Willamette Lowland that separates the Cascade a scale of 1:62,500 as part of a general geologic Range from the Oregon Coast Range (fig. 1). Since investigation of the Portland metropolitan area. late Eocene time, the Cascade Range has been the Working simultaneously but independently, locus of an episodically active volcanic arc associated Mundorff (1964) mapped the area of the Lacamas with underthrusting of oceanic lithosphere beneath Creek quadrangle for a water-resources evaluation of the North American continent along the Cascadia Clark County. He published a 1:48,000-scale Subduction Zone. Lava flows that erupted early in the geologic map and provided detailed descriptions of history of the arc underlie the eastern half of the the basin-fill deposits. Lacamas Creek quadrangle, forming a dissected Swanson and others (1993) updated terrain, with elevations as high as 2050 ft (625 m), Mundorff’s Clark County work as part of an that slopes irregularly but steeply to the southwest. investigation of ground-water resources throughout Weakly to moderately consolidated sediments that the Portland Basin. The focus of their work was on accumulated in the Neogene Portland Basin the basin-fill units, and their map shows unconformably lap onto the bedrock terrain. hydrogeologic rather than stratigraphic units, The Portland Basin has been interpreted as a although there is substantial equivalence between the pull-apart basin located in the releasing stepover two. They analyzed lithologic logs of 1500 field- between two en echelon, northwest-striking, right- located water wells to produce a set of maps that lateral fault zones (Beeson and others, 1985, 1989; show the elevations and thicknesses of hydrogeologic Yelin and Patton, 1991; Blakely and others, 1995). units throughout the basin, thus constructing 3- These fault zones are thought to reflect regional dimensional view of the subsurface stratigraphy of transpression and dextral shear within the forearc in the basin fill. response to oblique subduction of the Pacific plate Fiksdal (1975) mapped several inactive along the Cascadia Subduction Zone (Pezzopane and landslides in the map area. Weldon, 1993; Wells and others, 1998). The southwestern margin of the Portland Basin (fig. 1B) is a well-defined topographic break along the base of ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the Tualatin Mountains, which form an asymmetric Access granted by the many landowners was anticlinal ridge bounded on its northeast flank by the essential for mapping in the Lacamas Creek Portland Hills Fault Zone (Balsillie and Benson, quadrangle. Robert Ross and Dennis Mohan of the 1971; Beeson and others, 1989; Blakely and others, Longview Fibre Co. and Brian Poehlein of the 1995). This fault zone is believed to be an active Washington Division of Natural Resources permitted structure (Wong and others, 2001; Liberty and others, work on timberlands in the eastern half of the 2003). The nature of the corresponding northeastern quadrangle. Thomas Curcio and Steven Hartung of margin of the basin is less clear, but a poorly defined the U.S. Army arranged access to restricted lands at and partially buried dextral extensional structure has Camp Bonneville Military Reservation. Diane M. been hypothesized from topography, microseismicity, Johnson of Washington State University performed potential-field anomalies, and reconnaissance chemical analyses. Robert J. Fleck and Jonathan T. geologic mapping (Yelin and Patton, 1991; Beeson Hagstrum of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and others, 1989; Blakely and others, 1995). provided 40Ar/39Ar ages and paleomagnetic data, This map is a contribution to a program respectively. Andrei Sarna-Wojcicki, Kenneth designed to improve the geologic database for the Bishop, and Judith Fierstein of the USGS made Portland Basin region of the Pacific Northwest urban available essential laboratory facilities. I obtained corridor, the densely populated Cascadia forearc water-well drillers’ logs from the Washington region of western Washington and Oregon. Better Department of Ecology website (http:// and more detailed information on the bedrock and apps.ecy.wa.gov/welllog/). Connie Manson and Lee surficial geology of the basin and its surrounding area Walkling aided in extracting information from the is needed to refine assessments of seismic risk (Yelin Washington Division of Geology and Earth and Patton, 1991; Bott and Wong, 1993; Palmer and Resources Library in Olympia, Washington, and others, 2004), ground-failure hazards (Wegmann and Carol Edwards helped me obtain the unpublished Walsh, 2001), and resource availability in this rapidly field notes and map sheets of Donald E. Trimble growing region. 1 125° 120° 49° BRITISH COLUMBIA WASHINGTON PUGET- WILLAMETTE LOWLAND C C O A A S S C C T a A s P c D A a Portland E d C i Basin a I F I Mount St. Helens * C S u b R d Area of 1B u A 45° c N t i R o G n A E N G E Z O o n C e E A N OREGON NEVADA CALIFORNIA 0 100 200 KM A 0 50 100 MI Figure 1A. Regional setting of the Lacmas Creek quadrangle showing major tectonic and physiographic features of the Pacific Northwest. from the USGS Field Records Library in Denver, carried into the Portland Basin by the ancestral Colo. I have benefited immensely from discussions Columbia River. Northwest-striking faults offset the on various aspects of the regional stratigraphy, Paleogene basin floor as well as the lower part of the structure, and geologic history of southwestern basin fill. In middle Pleistocene time, basalt and Washington with Roger Ashley, Michael Clynne, basaltic andesite erupted from three small volcanoes Paul Hammond, Keith Howard, Alan Niem, Jim in the southern half of the map area. These vents are O’Connor, William Phillips, William Scott, James in the northern part of the Boring volcanic field, Smith, Donald Swanson, Rodney Swanson, Terry which comprises several dozen late Pliocene and Tolan, Karl Wegmann, and Ray Wells. Roland Tabor younger monogenetic volcanoes scattered throughout and Jim O’Connor reviewed the map and offered the greater Portland region (Trimble, 1963; Allen, many helpful suggestions. 1975; Fleck and others, 2002). In latest Pleistocene time, the Missoula floods of glacial-outburst origin inundated the Portland Basin. The floods deposited poorly sorted gravels in the southwestern part of the SYNOPSIS OF GEOLOGY Lacamas Creek quadrangle that grade northward into Bedrock exposed in the Lacamas Creek finer grained sediments (Trimble, 1963). quadrangle consists entirely of basalt and basaltic Because of extensive dense vegetation, andesite flows erupted in early Oligocene time from natural outcrops in the map area are generally limited one or more vents located outside the map area. The to steep cliff faces, landslide scarps, and streambeds; flows dip gently (less than 5°) west to southwest. In many exposures are in roadcuts and quarries. The the western part of the map area bedrock is buried surface information was supplemented with lithologic beneath middle Miocene to early Pleistocene(?) data obtained from several hundred water-well sediments that accumulated as the Portland Basin reports in the files of the Washington Department of subsided. These sediments consist mostly of detritus Ecology; well locations were taken as described in 2 123 00' 122 00' 46 00' 46 00' YALE LAKE OregonO Coast Range River LAKE MERWIN r e Cascade Lewis g Amboy Woodland o n Saint Helens Yacolt EXPLANATION C Ridgefield Quaternary-Miocene sediments o a Quaternary-Pliocene volcanic and s Battle Ground volcaniclastic deposits t Scappoose Miocene Columbia Columbia AREA OF MAP Range River Basalt Group Tertiary granitic rocks 3 Elkhorn R Portland Mtn Paleogene volcanic and volcaniclastic a Portland Hills Fault Zone rocks, undifferentiated n Paleogene marine g sedimentary rocks e Vancouver WAS Tualatin Mountai River HINGTON OREGON W Camas Columbia River Gorge ill am e t te Basin Troutdale ns R Portland iv e B r 45 30' 45 30' 123 00' 01020KM 122 00' 0 510MI Figure 1B. Simplified geologic map of the Vancouver 30' x 60' quadrangle, modified from Phillips (1987a). the reports and were not field checked; only wells No dikes were found in the map area. The considered reliably located were used to infer the thick sequence of flows probably represents part of a distribution and thicknesses of units in the large mafic shield volcano centered east of the map subsurface. area. Outcrops of bright red scoria about 3 km northwest of Little Elkhorn may be the remains of a parasitic cinder cone constructed on the flank of this BEDROCK large edifice. Flows in the Elkhorn Mountain unit range Trimble (1963) mapped all Paleogene rocks from aphyric to highly porphyritic. Aphyric and in eastern Clark County as the Skamania Volcanic sparsely phyric flows commonly exhibit a closely Series. I have not adopted this name because regional spaced platy parting that is parallel to the alignment mapping has shown the term to have limited utility. of feldspar microlites observed in thin section. Neither the top nor the base of the unit were Seriate to porphyritic flows contain phenocrysts of adequately defined, and as used by Trimble the term plagioclase and olivine, with or without augite, in an is essentially a synonym for Tertiary volcanic rocks intergranular to trachytic groundmass.