Geology topics

D.K. Yamaguchi

Publications and source records attributed to D.K. Yamaguchi.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS1992

The oldest known Rocky Mountain bristlecone pines ( Pinus aristata Engelm.)

We have found 12 living Rocky Mountain bristlecone pines ( Pinus aristata ) more than 1600 yr old, including four that are more than 2100 yr old, on Black Mountain, near South Park, and on Almagre Mountain, in the southern Front Range, Colorado. A core from the oldest of these trees has an inner-ring date of 442 B.C. This tree is therefore at least 2435 yr old and exceeds the age of the oldest previously reported Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine by 846 yr. The ages of these trees show that Rocky Mountain bristlecone pines, under arid environmental conditions, achieve much older ages than have been previously reported. The ages also show that previously inferred trends in bristlecone pine ages, where maximum ages in the eastern range of Rocky Mountain bristlecone pines are much less than maximum ages in the western range of Great Basin bristlecone pines ( Pinus longaeva ), are less strong than previously supposed. Ancient Rocky Mountain bristlecone pines, such as those found in this study, have the potential to expand our knowledge of late Holocene climatic conditions in western North America.

Arctic and Alpine Research↗

USGS1991

Radiocarbon test of earthquake magnitude at the Cascadia subduction zone

The Cascadia subduction zone, which extends along the northern Pacific coast of North America, might produce earthquakes of magnitude 8 or 9 ('great' earthquakes) even though it has not done so during the past 200 years of European observation 1–7 . Much of the evidence for past Cascadia earthquakes comes from former meadows and forests that became tidal mudflats owing to abrupt tectonic subsidence in the past 5,000 years 2,3,6,7 . If due to a great earthquake, such subsidence should have extended along more than 100 km of the coast 2 . Here we investigate the extent of coastal subsidence that might have been caused by a single earthquake, through high-precision radiocarbon dating of coastal trees that abruptly subsided into the intertidal zone. The ages leave the great-earthquake hypothesis intact by limiting to a few decades the discordance, if any, in the most recent subsidence of two areas 55 km apart along the Washington coast. This subsidence probably occurred about 300 years ago.

California, Oregon, Washington↗

USGS1991

Sudden, probably coseismic submergence of Holocene trees and grass in coastal Washington State

Growth-position plant fossils in coastal Washington State imply a suddenness of Holocene submergence that is better explained by coseismic lowering of the land than by decade- or century-long rise of the sea. These fossils include western red cedar and Sitka spruce whose death probably resulted from estuarine submergence close to 300 yr ago. Rings in eroded, bark-free trunks of the red cedar show that growth remained normal within decades of death. Rings in buried, bark-bearing stumps of the spruce further show normal growth continuing until the year of death. Other growth-position fossils implying sudden submergence include the stems and leaves of salt-marsh grass entombed in tide-flat mud close to 300 yr ago and roughly 1700 and 3100 yr ago. The preservation of these stems and leaves shows that submergence and initial burial outpaced decomposition, which appears to take just a few years in modern salt marshes. In some places the stems and leaves close to 300 yr old are surrounded by sand left by an extraordinary, landward-directed surge—probably a tsunami from a great thrust earth-quake on the Cascadia subduction zone.

Geology↗

USGS1990

A new tree-ring date for the "floating island" lava flow, Mount St. Helens, Washington

Anomalously narrow and missing rings in trees 12 m from Mount St. Helens' "floating island" lava flow, and synchronous growth increases in trees farther from the flow margin, are evidence that this andesitic flow was extruded between late summer 1799 and spring 1800 a.d., within a few months after the eruption of Mount St. Helens' dacitic layer T tephra. For ease of reference, we assign here an 1800 a.d. date to this flow. The new date shows that the start of Mount St. Helens' Goat Rocks eruptive period (1800-1857 a.d.) resembled the recent (1980-1986) activity in both petrochemical trends and timing. In both cases, an initial explosive eruption of dacite was quickly succeeded by the eruption of more mafic lavas; dacite lavas then reappeared during an extended concluding phase of activity. This behavior is consistent with a recently proposed fluid-dynamic model of magma withdrawal from a compositionally zoned magma chamber. ?? 1990 Springer-Verlag.

Bulletin of Volcanology↗