1.
High water mark
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A high water mark is a point that represents the maximum rise of a body of water over land. Such a mark is often the result of a flood, but high water marks may reflect an all-time high, knowledge of the high water mark for an area is useful in managing the development of that area, particularly in making preparations for flood surges. High water marks from floods have been measured for planning purposes since at least as far back as the civilizations of ancient Egypt. This may be a flood level sign or other marker. A high water mark is not necessarily an actual physical mark, a landscape marking left by the high water mark of ordinary tidal action may be called a strandline and is typically composed of debris left by high tide. The area at the top of a beach where debris is deposited is an example of this phenomenon, where there are tides, this line is formed by the highest position of the tide, and moves up and down the beach on a fortnightly cycle. The debris is chiefly composed of rotting seaweed, but can include a large amount of litter, either from ships at sea or from sewage outflows. The strandline is an important habitat for a variety of animals, one kind of high water mark is the ordinary high water mark or average high water mark, the high water mark that can be expected to be produced by a body of water in non-flood conditions. The ordinary high water mark may have significance and is often being used to demarcate property boundaries. The ordinary high water mark has also used for other legal demarcations. For the purposes of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, for the purposes of Sections 9 and 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, the OHWM defines the lateral limits of federal jurisdiction over traditional navigable waters of the US. Likewise, many states use similar definitions of the OHWM for the purposes of their own regulatory programs, in 2016, the Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled that land below the OHWM along Lake Michigan is held by the state in trust for public use. In Australia, the definition of the Mean High Water Mark is. the line of the high tide between the highest tide of each lunar month and the lowest each lunar month averaged over the year. Terrace, benches left by lakes Wash margin
2.
Lahar
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A lahar is a type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris, and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley, lahars are extremely destructive, they can flow tens of metres per second, be 140 metres deep, and destroy any structures in their path. Notable lahars include those at Mount Pinatubo and Nevado del Ruiz, the word lahar is the Javanese term for flowing lava. A lahar is a volcanic mudflow or debris flow, lahars have the consistency, viscosity and approximate density of wet concrete, fluid when moving, solid at rest. Lahars can be huge.3 cubic kilometres, a lahar of sufficient size and intensity can erase virtually any structure in its path, and is capable of carving its own pathway, making the prediction of its course difficult. Conversely, a lahar quickly loses force when it leaves the channel of its flow, even frail huts may remain standing, a lahars viscosity decreases with time, and can be further thinned by rain, but it nevertheless solidifies quickly when coming to a stop. Lahars vary in size and speed, small lahars less than a few metres wide and several centimetres deep may flow a few metres per second. Large lahars hundreds of metres wide and tens of metres deep can flow tens of metres per second. With the potential to flow at speeds up to 100 kilometres per hour, and flow distances of more than 300 kilometres, a lahar can cause catastrophic destruction in its path. Lahars from the 1985 Nevado del Ruiz eruption in Colombia caused the Armero tragedy, which killed an estimated 23,000 people, a lahar caused New Zealands Tangiwai disaster, where 151 people died after a Christmas Eve express train fell into the Whangaehu River in 1953. Lahars have been responsible for 17% of volcano-related deaths between 1783 and 1997, a lahar can cause fatalities years after its precipitating eruption. For example, the Cabalantian tragedy occurred four years subsequent to the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, the word lahar is of Indonesian origin. Lahars have several causes, Snow and glaciers can be melted by lava or pyroclastic flows during an eruption. Lava flows out of vents and can mix with wet soil and mud on the slope of the volcano making a very viscous. A flood caused by a glacier, lake breakout, or heavy rainfall can release a lahar, also called glacier run or jökulhlaup Water from a crater lake, heavy rainfall on unconsolidated pyroclastic deposits. Snow and glaciers can melt during periods of mild weather Earthquakes underneath or close to the volcano can shake material loose and cause it to collapse triggering a lahar avalanche. Rainfall can cause the still-hanging slabs of solidified mud to come rushing down the slopes at a speed of more than 30 kilometres per hour, causing devastating results. Several towns in the Puyallup River valley in Washington state, including Orting, are built on top of lahar deposits that are only about 500 years old
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Washington (state)
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It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State or the State of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, Washington is the 18th largest state with an area of 71,362 square miles, and the 13th most populous state with over 7 million people. Washington is the second most populous state on the West Coast and in the Western United States, Mount Rainier, an active stratovolcano, is the states highest elevation at almost 14,411 feet and is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. Washington is a leading lumber producer and its rugged surface is rich in stands of Douglas fir, hemlock, ponderosa pine, white pine, spruce, larch, and cedar. Manufacturing industries in Washington include aircraft and missiles, shipbuilding and other equipment, lumber, food processing, metals and metal products, chemicals. Washington has over 1,000 dams, including the Grand Coulee Dam, built for a variety of purposes including irrigation, power, flood control, the Washington Territory was named after George Washington, the first President of the United States. The area was part of a region called the Columbia District after the Columbia River. The area was renamed Washington in order to avoid confusion with the District of Columbia, Washington is the only U. S. state named after a president. To distinguish it from the U. S. capital, which is named for George Washington, Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State, or, in more formal contexts. Washingtonians and other residents of the Pacific Northwest refer to the state simply as Washington, calling the nations capital Washington, D. C. or, often, Washington is the northwestern-most state of the contiguous United States. Washington is bordered by Oregon to the south, with the Columbia River forming the western part, to the west of Washington lies the Pacific Ocean. The high mountains of the Cascade Range run north-south, bisecting the state, from the Cascade Mountains westward, Western Washington has a mostly marine west coast climate, with mild temperatures and wet winters, autumns and springs, and relatively dry summers. The Cascade Range contains several volcanoes, which reach altitudes significantly higher than the rest of the mountains, from the north to the south, these major volcanoes are Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams. Mount Rainier, the tallest mountain in the state, is 50 miles south of the city of Seattle and it is also covered with more glacial ice than any other peak in the contiguous 48 states. Western Washington also is home of the Olympic Mountains, far west on the Olympic Peninsula and these deep forests, such as the Hoh Rainforest, are among the only temperate rainforests in the continental United States. Eastern Washington – the part of the state east of the Cascades – has a dry climate. It includes large areas of steppe and a few truly arid deserts lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades. Farther east, the climate becomes less arid, with annual rainfall increasing as one goes east to 21.2 inches in Pullman, the Okanogan Highlands and the rugged Kettle River Range and Selkirk Mountains cover much of the northeastern quadrant of the state
5.
Mount St. Helens
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Mount St. Helens or Louwala-Clough is an active stratovolcano located in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is 96 miles south of Seattle, Washington, and 50 miles northeast of Portland, Mount St. Helens takes its English name from the British diplomat Lord St Helens, a friend of explorer George Vancouver who made a survey of the area in the late 18th century. The volcano is located in the Cascade Range and is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc and this volcano is well known for its ash explosions and pyroclastic flows. Mount St. Helens is most notorious for its major 1980 eruption, fifty-seven people were killed,250 homes,47 bridges,15 miles of railways, and 185 miles of highway were destroyed. The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles in volume, the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was created to preserve the volcano and allow for its aftermath to be scientifically studied. As with most other volcanoes in the Cascade Range, Mount St. Helens is a large eruptive cone consisting of lava rock interlayered with ash, pumice, the mountain includes layers of basalt and andesite through which several domes of dacite lava have erupted. The largest of the domes formed the previous summit. Both were destroyed in the 1980 eruption, Mount St. Helens is 34 miles west of Mount Adams, in the western part of the Cascade Range. These sister and brother volcanic mountains are approximately 50 miles from Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, the nearest major volcanic peak in Oregon, is 60 miles southeast of Mount St. Helens. Mount St. Helens is geologically young compared with the other major Cascade volcanoes and it formed only within the past 40,000 years, and the pre-1980 summit cone began rising about 2,200 years ago. The volcano is considered the most active in the Cascades within the Holocene epoch, prior to the 1980 eruption, Mount St. Helens was the fifth-highest peak in Washington. It stood out prominently from surrounding hills because of the symmetry and extensive snow and ice cover of the summit cone. The peak rose more than 5,000 feet above its base, the mountain is 6 miles across at its base, which is at an elevation of 4,400 feet on the northeastern side and 4,000 feet elsewhere. At the pre-eruption tree line, the width of the cone was 4 miles. Streams that originate on the volcano enter three main systems, the Toutle River on the north and northwest, the Kalama River on the west. The streams are fed by abundant rain and snow, the average annual rainfall is 140 inches, and the snow pack on the mountains upper slopes can reach 16 feet. The Lewis River is impounded by three dams for power generation. The southern and eastern sides of the drain into an upstream impoundment, the Swift Reservoir
6.
Gifford Pinchot National Forest
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Gifford Pinchot National Forest is a National Forest located in southern Washington, USA, managed by the United States Forest Service. With an area of 1.32 million acres, it extends 116 km along the slopes of Cascade Range from Mount Rainier National Park to the Columbia River. The forest straddles the crest of the South Cascades of Washington State, spread out over broad, old forests, high mountain meadows, several glaciers. The forests highest point is at 12,276 ft. at the top of Mount Adams and it includes the 110, 000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, established by Congress in 1982. Gifford Pinchot National Forest is one of the national forests in the United States. Included as part of the Mount Rainier Forest Reserve in 1897 and it was renamed the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in honor of Gifford Pinchot, on June 15,1949. In 1985 the non-profit Gifford Pinchot Task Force formed to protect the area, people for over 6,000 years have made an impact in the ecology of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Native Americans hunted in high meadows below receding glaciers, the natives then began to manage the forest to meet their own needs. One method they used was to burn areas to help in the huckleberry production. About 338 spots more than 6,000 culturally modified trees were identified, archaeological investigations on the forest continually find new information to this day about the past lifestyles of the Native Americans. The forest was named after Gifford Pinchot, one of the figures in the creation of the national forest system of the United States. The forest is home to the Big Tree at the flank of Mt Adams. This region of Southwest Washington is noted for its complex topography, about 65 percent of the forest acreage is located in Skamania County. In descending order of area the others are Lewis, Yakima, Cowlitz. The Pacific Northwest brings abundant rainfall to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, the forest has only one river currently designated as Wild and Scenic, the White Salmon River, fed from glaciers high on Mount Adams. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest recommends four rivers to be added to the Wild and they are the Lewis River, the Cispus River, the Clear Fork and the Muddy Fork of the Cowlitz River. There are an additional thirteen rivers in the forest being studied for consideration into the national Wild, the following listed are the major streams and rivers of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Many of these provide excellent fishing, most of the lakes offers excellent fishing
7.
Columbia River
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The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada and it flows northwest and then south into the US state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state of Oregon before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The river is 1,243 miles long, and its largest tributary is the Snake River and its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven US states and a Canadian province. By volume, the Columbia is the fourth-largest river in the United States, the rivers heavy flow and relatively steep gradient gives it tremendous potential for the generation of electricity. The Columbia and its tributaries have been central to the regions culture and they have been used for transportation since ancient times, linking the many cultural groups of the region. The river system hosts many species of fish, which migrate between freshwater habitats and the saline waters of the Pacific Ocean. In the following decades, fur trading companies used the Columbia as a key transportation route, steamships along the river linked communities and facilitated trade, the arrival of railroads in the late 19th century, many running along the river, supplemented these links. Since the late 19th century, public and private sectors have developed the river. The development, commonly referred to as taming or harnessing of the river, has been massive, to aid ship and barge navigation, locks have been built along the lower Columbia and its tributaries, and dredging has opened, maintained, and enlarged shipping channels. Since the early 20th century, dams have been built across the river for the purposes of power generation, navigation, irrigation, and flood control. Today, a reservoir lies along nearly every US mile of the once free-flowing river. Production of nuclear power has taken place at two sites along the river, plutonium for nuclear weapons was produced for decades at the Hanford Site, which is now the most contaminated nuclear site in the US. All these developments have had a impact on river environments, mainly through industrial pollution. The Columbia begins its 1, 243-mile journey in the southern Rocky Mountain Trench in British Columbia, Columbia Lake –2,690 feet above sea level – and the adjoining Columbia Wetlands form the rivers headwaters. The trench is a broad, deep, and long glacial valley between the Canadian Rockies and the Columbia Mountains in BC. Rounding the northern end of the Selkirk Mountains, the river turns south through a region known as the Big Bend Country, passing through Revelstoke Lake. Revelstoke, the Big Bend, and the Columbia Valley combined are referred to in BC parlance as the Columbia Country. Below the Arrow Lakes, the Columbia passes the cities of Castlegar, located at the Columbias confluence with the Kootenay River, the Pend Oreille River joins the Columbia about 2 miles north of the US–Canada border
8.
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
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On May 18,1980, a major volcanic eruption occurred at Mount St. Helens, a volcano located in Skamania County, in the state of Washington, United States. The eruption was the significant volcanic eruption to occur in the contiguous 48 U. S. states since the 1915 eruption of Lassen Peak in California. However, it has often declared as the most disastrous volcanic eruption in United States history. An earthquake at 8,32,17 a. m. PDT on Sunday, May 18,1980, caused the entire weakened north face to slide away, creating the largest landslide ever recorded. An eruption column rose 80,000 feet into the atmosphere, at the same time, snow, ice and several entire glaciers on the volcano melted, forming a series of large lahars that reached as far as the Columbia River, nearly 50 miles to the southwest. Less severe outbursts continued into the day, only to be followed by other large. Approximately fifty-seven people were killed directly, including innkeeper Harry R. Truman, photographer Reid Blackburn and geologist David A. Johnston. Hundreds of square miles were reduced to wasteland, causing over a billion U. S. dollars in damage, thousands of animals were killed. At the time of the eruption, the summit of the volcano was owned by the Burlington Northern Railroad, the area was later preserved, as it was, in the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Mount St. Helens remained dormant from its last period of activity in the 1840s and 1850s until March 1980, several small earthquakes, apparently beginning on March 15, indicated that magma may have begun moving below the volcano. Then on March 20, at 3,45 p. m. Pacific Standard Time, a total of 174 shocks of magnitude 2.6 or greater were recorded during those two days. Initially there was no sign of eruption, but small earthquake-induced avalanches of snow. At 12,36 p. m. on March 27, phreatic eruptions ejected and smashed rock from within the old crater, excavating a new crater 250 feet wide. By this date a 16, 000-foot long eastward-trending fracture system had developed across the summit area. This was followed by more earthquake swarms and a series of explosions that sent ash 10,000 to 11,000 feet above their vent. Most of this ash fell between 3 and 12 miles from its vent, but some was carried 150 miles south to Bend, Oregon, or 285 miles east to Spokane, a second, new crater and a blue flame were observed on March 29. The flame was visibly emitted from both craters and was created by burning gases. Static electricity generated from ash clouds rolling down the volcano sent out lightning bolts that were up to 2 miles long
9.
Debris flow
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Debris flows descending steep channels commonly attain speeds that surpass 10 meters per second, although some large flows can reach speeds that are much greater. Debris flows with volumes ranging up to about 100,000 cubic meters occur frequently in mountainous regions worldwide, the largest prehistoric flows have had volumes exceeding 1 billion cubic meters. As a result of their high sediment concentrations and mobility, debris flows can be very destructive, notable debris-flow disasters of the twentieth century involved more than 20,000 fatalities in Armero, Colombia in 1985 and tens of thousands in Vargas State, Venezuela in 1999. Debris flows have volumetric sediment concentrations exceeding about 40 to 50%, by definition, “debris” includes sediment grains with diverse shapes and sizes, commonly ranging from microscopic clay particles to great boulders. Media reports often use the term mudflow to describe debris flows, on Earths land surface, mudflows are far less common than debris flows. However, underwater mudflows are prevalent on submarine continental margins, where they may spawn turbidity currents, Debris flows in forested regions can contain large quantities of woody debris such as logs and tree stumps. Sediment-rich water floods with solid concentrations ranging from about 10 to 40% behave somewhat differently from debris flows and are known as hyperconcentrated floods, normal stream flows contain even lower concentrations of sediment. Debris flows can be triggered by rainfall or snowmelt, by dam-break or glacial outburst floods. Debris flows can be more frequent following forest and brush fires, in Japan a large debris flow or landslide is called yamatsunami, literally mountain tsunami. Debris flows are accelerated downhill by gravity and tend to follow steep mountain channels that debouche onto alluvial fans or floodplains, the front, or head of a debris-flow surge often contains an abundance of coarse material such as boulders and logs that impart a great deal of friction. Trailing behind the high-friction flow head is a lower-friction, mostly liquefied flow body that contains a percentage of sand, silt. These fine sediments help retain high pore-fluid pressures that enhance debris-flow mobility, in some cases the flow body is followed by a more watery tail that transitions into a hyperconcentrated stream flow. Debris flows tend to move in a series of pulses, or discrete surges, wherein each pulse or surge has a head, body. Debris-flow deposits are readily recognizable in the field and they make up significant percentages of many alluvial fans and debris cones along steep mountain fronts. Lateral levees can confine the paths of ensuing debris flows, through dating of trees growing on such deposits, the approximate frequency of destructive debris flows can be estimated. This is important information for development in areas where debris flows are common. Ancient debris-flow deposits that are exposed only in outcrops are more difficult to recognize and this poor sorting of sediment grains distinguishes debris-flow deposits from most water-laid sediments. Other geological flows that can be described as debris flows are typically given more specific names, the word lahar is of Indonesian origin, but is now routinely used by geologists worldwide to describe volcanogenic debris flows
10.
United States Forest Service
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The United States Forest Service is an agency of the U. S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nations 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres. Major divisions of the include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations. Managing approximately 25% of federal lands, it is the major national land agency that is outside the U. S. Department of the Interior. The concept of the National Forests was born from Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation group, Boone and Crockett Club, in 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. Hough was appointed the head of the office, in 1881, the office was expanded into the newly formed Division of Forestry. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized withdrawing land from the domain as forest reserves. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed the Bureau of Forestry, gifford Pinchot was the first United States Chief Forester in the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. As of 2009, the Forest Service has a budget authority of $5.5 billion. The Forest Service employs 34,250 employees in 750 locations, including 10,050 firefighters,737 law enforcement personnel, and 500 scientists. The mission of the Forest Service is To sustain the health, diversity and its motto is Caring for the land and serving people. As the lead agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection, management, and use of the nations forest, rangeland. The agencys ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological, economic, and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current, the everyday work of the Forest Service balances resource extraction, resource protection, and providing recreation.5 billion trees per year. Further, the Forest Service fought fires on 2,996,000 acres of land in 2007, the Forest Service organization includes ranger districts, national forests, regions, research stations and research work units and the Northeastern Area Office for State and Private Forestry. Each level has responsibility for a variety of functions, the Chief of the Forest Service is a career federal employee who oversees the entire agency. The Chief reports to the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, there are five deputy chiefs for the following areas, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Research and Development, Business Operations, and Finance. The Forest Service Research and Development deputy area includes five stations, the Forest Products Laboratory. Station directors, like regional foresters, report to the Chief, Research stations include Northern, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, Rocky Mountain, and Southern. There are 92 research work units located at 67 sites throughout the United States, there are 80 Experimental Forests and Ranges that have been established progressively since 1908, many sites are more than 50 years old
11.
Cascade Range
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The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades, the small part of the range in British Columbia is referred to as the Canadian Cascades or, locally, as the Cascade Mountains. The highest peak in the range is Mount Rainier in Washington at 14,411 feet, the Cascades are part of the Pacific Oceans Ring of Fire, the ring of volcanoes and associated mountains around the Pacific Ocean. All of the eruptions in the contiguous United States over the last 200 years have been from Cascade volcanoes, the two most recent were Lassen Peak from 1914 to 1921 and a major eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Minor eruptions of Mount St. Helens have also occurred since, the Cascade Range is a part of the American Cordillera, a nearly continuous chain of mountain ranges that form the western backbone of North America, Central America, and South America. The Cascades extend northward from Lassen Peak in northern California to the confluence of the Nicola, the Fraser River separates the Cascades from the Coast Mountains. The highest volcanoes of the Cascades, known as the High Cascades, dominate their surroundings and they often have a visual height of one mile or more. The highest peaks, such as the 14, 411-foot Mount Rainier, Mount Baker in Washington recorded a world-record single-season snowfall in the winter of 1998–99 with 1,140 inches. Prior to that year, Mount Rainier held the record for snow accumulation at Paradise in 1978. It is not uncommon for some places in the Cascades to have over 500 inches of snow accumulation, such as at Lake Helen. Most of the High Cascades are therefore white with snow and ice year-round, annual rainfall is as low as 9 inches on the eastern foothills due to a rain shadow effect. Beyond the eastern foothills is a plateau that was largely created 17 to 14 million years ago by the many flows of the Columbia River Basalt Group. Together, these sequences of fluid volcanic rock form the 200, 000-square-mile Columbia Plateau in eastern Washington, Oregon, the Columbia River Gorge is the only major break of the range in the United States. When the Cascades began to rise 7 million years ago in the Pliocene, as the range grew, erosion from the Columbia River was able to keep pace, creating the gorge and major pass seen today. The gorge also exposes uplifted and warped layers of basalt from the plateau, in early 1792, British navigator George Vancouver explored Puget Sound and gave English names to the high mountains he saw. Mount Baker was named for Vancouvers third lieutenant, Joseph Baker, although the first European to see it was Manuel Quimper, Mount Rainier was named after Admiral Peter Rainier. Later in 1792, Vancouver had his lieutenant William Robert Broughton explore the lower Columbia River and he named Mount Hood after Lord Samuel Hood, an admiral of the Royal Navy. Mount St. Helens was sighted by Vancouver in May 1792 and it was named for Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens, a British diplomat
12.
United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
