2014 Geotechnical Symposium at UW

It had been twenty years since a Geotechnical Symposium for graduate students from universities in the Pacific North-West (PNW) was last organized.

The University of Washington (UW) was the host for the symposium 2014, which took place between the 8th and the 10th of May. The purpose was an exchange of ideas, research findings, and to professionally connect with other students and professors. The event consisted of a lecture and reception on Thursday evening, a whole day of presentations and poster sessions on Friday, and a field trip on Saturday to explore geohazards.

In this post, I am going to give some detailed information about the field trip itself. And in my next post, I will provide some detailed information about student research.

On Saturday, our group went to a field trip to the surrounding area of Seattle, WA to explore geohazards in the Seattle Fault Zone (SFZ). During our field trip, we listened to Thomas Doe, our geology guide for this day.

Craig Weaver and Brian Sherrod, USGS, Sound Shake '08

The Seattle Fault Zone is one of a series of major faults that cut across the Puget Sound basin. During an earthquake in 900-930 A.D., the Seattle Uplift occurred and resulted in an uplift of up to 9 yards or 8 meters. During our field trip we were able to stand exactly on top of the northern line of the uplift on a parking lot of the Eastside Christian Community Church. The whole uplifted area is indicated in the picture above. The field trip went on to Lake Sammamish east of Seattle, where the same earthquake, which caused the uplift, caused a still visible landslide.

Finally, we finished our tour at Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park. This park has a rich coal mining history. At first, we hiked on beautiful trails and over creeks to get to closed entrances to old coal mines. We discussed the hard work at first with mules, later with rails and oil lamps back in old times, and looked at the provided pictures on-site. The coal mining started in 1863 and went for 100 years. The mine worker tunneled up to 6 miles under the mountain to get the coal, which was then transported with Seattle's first railroad to a harbor and shipped to San Francisco. Most mines are multi-story, like underground apartment complex, leaving the ground above unstable and susceptible to sinkholes. Nowadays, the park is full of green leaves, trees, beautiful creeks, waterfalls and wild animals - nature took it back completely. But at the time of the coal mining, this same area was a big city of more than 600 homes, a rail line, hotels, stores, and churches. While hiking on trails through the forrest, one can still find pieces of coal, the mountain is made off.

Besides the historical importance of this huge park, for me, it is an astonishing beautiful landscape to hike.

The field trip ended with "goodbye's" and "hopefully till next year" comments and expressions. The success of this symposium could most likely result into an annual repetition of meetings in the PNW.

In my next post, I am going to give some detailed information about research of two graduate students and in addition, I will give an overview of results of the panel discussion about education at universities in the PNW.