@earthstory / earthstory.tumblr.com
"The mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore have ignited imaginations for decades - an enchanted realm formed by nature and hand sculpted with trails of triumph and confronting challenge.
There is a life force at play here - intertwined with every rock, root and trail relic. It draws you in and alters your perception of the impossible, leaving an undeniable, indelible mark."
[March 2017] Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, Vancouver, Canada
williamdrumm
The Eagle Show with @biganimalencounters . Never before have I seen anything quite on the scale of “The Eagle Show” which I witnessed a few days ago off of Vancouver Island. Once a day in a secret passage two currents collide creating a natural phenomenon of epic proportions. One current pushes the other current up from the bottom with such force that any small fish in the area is rocketed up to the surface, then held there unable to go back down. Hundreds of bald eagles have caught wind of the phenomenon, and essentially form an eaglenado of roughly 200 birds for less than an hour of intense feeding right around tide change. Other animals including giant lingcod also take part in the daily feast. I snagged a few shots of the eagles snagging fish, including this one. If you are ever looking for something special and unique while visiting Vancouver Island definitely check out @biganimalencounters . Follow @williamdrumm
for more wild wildlife footage.
lavishearth
Pinolite is a Graphite pigmented dolomite that has white Magnesite grains that look like pine kernels.
Trembling
Every dot on this map of the US and Canadian Pacific Northwest is an earthquake that took place during the months of April and May. Just to make sure – no, as of right now that area has not been totally destroyed by these events, they are all small earthquakes with moment magnitudes from 0-3. Most, if not all, are too small to be felt by people at the surface. While these small earthquakes have not damaged the region, they are indicating something else – slow movement on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, of a sort that seems to occur every 14 months or so. Oregon, Washington, California, and British Columbia all sit above a subduction zone, where the oceanic plates to the West (The Gorda plate and the Juan de Fuca plate) are being pushed down into the planet. This subduction zone, like others around the world, is capable of producing great earthquakes with magnitudes >9; the last major one occurred in the year 1700 and was powerful enough to trigger a recorded tsunami in Japan, giving an exact date for the Earthquake.
Large earthquakes like those occur when a patch on the fault becomes locked. The plates are always slowly moving, trying to slide past each other at this boundary but the force of friction between two parts of rock sliding past each other is strong. Even though the plates move, the rocks don’t instantly break; instead, the whole plate bends as the stress builds up, locking energy in the plates much like stretching a rubber band. Only when the stress on the fault becomes too great do the rocks fail, releasing that energy as an earthquake.
These small earthquakes are occurring in a different part of the fault from the zone that locks up and produces major earthquakes. They are occurring inland, where the fault is deeper and the stress conditions on the rocks are different. Here, the rocks build up a little bit of stress and then break in small earthquakes, in a pattern that occurs every 14 months. These small earthquakes allow some motion – right now these quakes are allowing the surface parts of those states to move to the west by a few millimeters.
This motion is taken up on one part of the fault, but it does not propagate throughout the entire subduction zone. Only part of the fault is moving in these earthquakes, so this is likely transferring additional stress to the locked zone in the fault. It is thought that the risk of a major earthquake is higher during these events, but the record of monitoring them is too short to be able to really say how much these events change the chances of a great earthquake. They can be a good “Every 14 month” reminder to double-check your emergency supplies and evacuation plan if you live in this area or could be exposed to tsunami risk.
These sets of small earthquakes were discovered on the Cascadia subduction zone a little over a decade ago and have since been recognized on other subduction zones, including Japan, Mexico, and New Zealand. The timing at each fault and the pattern of earthquakes is different at each fault, but in all cases they are likely an important process; they allow the deeper parts of the fault to move and transfer stress up to the shallow, locked zones. The technical term for this repeating pattern of minor quakes is “Episodic Tremor and Slip”.
-JBB
Image credit: https://pnsn.org/earthquakes/recent
Read more: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/series-of-small-earthquakes-detected-in-washington-oregon-and-canada/ https://www.king5.com/article/weather/earthquakes/quakes-you-cant-feel-being-recorded-south-of-seattle/281-0c9be3cd-6b81-406d-96bd-e6328ad3684d https://science.sciencemag.org/content/300/5627/1942
brennanthepaleodude
I led yet another fossil hunting trip to #kitsilanobeach for the @vancouverpaleosociety and it went really well!
I will be posting some longer videos of the fossil site to YouTube, so if you would like to see more, check out my channel Brennan The Paleo Dude!
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So we crossed Canada from Montreal to the Vancouver Island / East to West / Right to Left. It was quite pleasant. Quite.
IG @lauriegindumonde
We do not own music rights for this video. Lou Reed - Walk on the Wild Side
Foggy day pierced by little needles of sunlight in Lynn Canyon.
Joel Schat on Instagram: “Saw some jellyfish today 👻 🎶 diamond child - Aayushi”
Haslam Formation of the Nanaimo Group (Upper Cretaceous) viewed in the Cowichan River Provincial Park. Comprises interbedded argillite, siltstone, shale, and minor sandstone.
The Cowichan River Footpath lines the high banks on either side of the river, and are great for a short Sunday hike!
Hiking, Camping, and boating on Vancouver Island, British Columbia
Vancouver Island
jfam_bc Spiny Lobster Linuparus vancouverensis from the Upper Cretaceous (Upper Campanian - Lower Santonian, Haslam formation) of Chemainus River, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, 🇨🇦. I still remember how I found this lobster over 22 years ago. It was in the middle of the river where I picked up the loose concretion. I gave it one hit with my hammer and exposed the best Linuparus that I have ever found to this date. Simply an amazing feeling.
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A timelapse and video discovery of Canadian landscapes.
I recently took in the Canadian Rockies - driving from Vancouver, to Whistler, Jasper and Banff - and timelapsed as I went. It was such an amazing trip, with so many awe inspiring landscapes and spectacular visuals. This video is my attempt to sum up the amazement I felt while experiencing these locations.
