Eleven sedimentary and volcanic rock units are mapped and described in the thesis area, and chronicle the dynamic geologic history of the Tillamook embayment from the Oligocene through the middle Mlocene. The
oldest unit is the Zemorrian to early Saucesian Smuggler Cove formation, a bathyal tuffaceous mudstone with some thin-...
Since 1979, over $114 million of natural gas has been produced at the Mist Gas Field, currently the only commercial gas field in the Pacific Northwest. In the Mist Gas Field, the sandstone-dominated Clark and Wilson member of the upper Eocene Cowlitz
Formation is the reservoir and the overlying upper...
The middle Eocene Tillamook Volcanics form the oldest rock unit in the Elsie-lower Nehalem River area. K-Ar age determinations and age constraints imposed by foraminiferal and calcareous nannofossil assemblages of overlying sedimentary strata indicate an absolute age of about 42 Ma for the uppermost Tillamook Volcanics. Major oxide values indicate...
Eight Tertiary sedimentary and volcanic units crop out in the thesis area. From oldest to youngest they are the: Sager Creek formation (informal); Pittsburg Bluff Formation; Northrup Creek formation (informal); Smuggler Cove formation (informal); Wickiup Mountain and Cannon Beach members (both informal) of the Astoria Formation; the Grande Ronde Basalt,...
The middle to upper Eocene Tillamook Volcanics form the basement in the Rock Creek - Rocky Point area. These tholeiitic to alkalic basalts, basaltic andesites, and andesites were erupted as shield volcanoes seaward of the strandline ontop of an older deep-marine mudstone unit (Yamhill Formation) and an accreted portion of...
Six early to middle Tertiary geologic units crop out in the
Saddle and Humbug Mountain area. They include the late Eocene to
early Miocene Oswald West muds tones, the lower Silver Point and
the upper Silver Point tongues of the middle Miocene Astoria Formation,
and the middle Miocene Depoe Bay...
The upper Eocene to lower Oligocene Oswald West mudstone is
the oldest formation (informal) in the Green Mountain-Young's
River area. This 1,663 meter thick hemipelagic sequence was deposited
in a low-energy lower to upper slope environment in the Coast
Range forearc basin. The formation ranges from the late Narizian
to...
Lower and Middle Devonian strata crop out on the former
stable carbonate platform that existed in the Quinn Canyon Range,
through the carbonate shelf edge in the Pancake Range, to the
carbonate slope and outer-shelf basin in the Reveille Range.
The strata of the Reveille Range record a transition from...
