About 7,000 years ago two major tephra-falls blanketed the
Pacific Northwest in volcanic ash. These two tephra-falls, identified
as the Llao and climatic tephra-falls, were a part of the eruptive
events that led up to the collapse of Mount Mazama to form Crater Lake
in the southern Oregon Cascades.
The...
A geoarchaeological investigation was conducted at the Devils Kitchen archaeological site, located in the Devils Kitchen State Park along the southern Oregon coast. In this thesis research, the author paired previous and recent excavated stratigraphy profiles to define culturally significant deposits. These stratigraphic units were defined further geochemically using a...
This study illustrates geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental approaches to the
investigation of an active margin coastal setting and provides examples of how information gleaned through examination of the stratigraphic record can reveal depositional signatures that provide insights into the geomorphic and tectonic forces active within coastal river basins. Three case studies...
Locating archaeological sites that predate the arrival of modern sea level has been difficult along the Oregon coast. This is in part believed to be the result of geologic processes that have influenced the preservation, distribution, and visibility of sites within the Oregon coastal landscape. Because of these changes, researchers...
Many sediments, including the fine-grained pelagic deposits,
possess polymodal grain size distributions. Resolution of individual
modes show them to be related either to compositional fractions or to
depositional processes or both, and sometimes permits the tracing
of dispersal patterns. The Cahn sedimentation balance provides a
means of obtaining continuous cumulative...
Northeast Pacific Ocean sediments were analyzed to determine the past
relationship between northeast Pacific sea surface conditions and the climate on the
adjacent continent, the Pacific Northwest of North America. Studies of modern
ocean-atmosphere interactions demonstrate the significant effect sea surface conditions
and atmospheric circulation in the Northeast Pacific Ocean...