The 1999 Pacific Cell Friends of the Pleistocene

This year's Friends of the Pleistocene Pacific Cell Fieldtrip will focus on late Quaternary faulting in the northern Quinn River and Alvord Valleys and the lake record of pluvial lake Alvord and Coyote Lake. The trip will take place in the northern Basin and Range province in north-central Nevada and southeastern Oregon.

A list of trip leaders and a brief summary of what they will present:

Charlie Narwold - Humboldt State University (HSU), is completing a master's thesis in the northern Quinn River. He volunteered this year’s trip, and will show us the end members of a carbonate soil chronosequence that were used to constrain the time of faulting along the Quinn River fault zone.

Marith Reheis - USGS, has done reconnaissance work investigating regional pluvial lake records in this region and will present evidence for a catastrophic flood eastward from the Coyote Basin, likely driven by overflow from pluvial Lake Alvord to the west of Coyote Basin.

Mark Hemphill-Haley — Woodward Clyde Consultants (now we call him Dr. Hemphill-Haley) has conducted MS thesis work (HSU) and NEHRP research on the late Quaternary activity of the Steens fault zone and pluvial/alluvial stratigraphy of the western margin of the Alvord Valley. He will also present recent Ph.D. research (Univ. of Oregon) related to kinematic and dynamic modeling of contemporary deformation in the interior of the western US.

Dave Lindberg — LACO Associates, investigated as his MS research at HSU, late Quaternary faulting along the east side of Alvord Valley and the lake record of pluvial Lake Alvord. David will present the upstream evidence for overflow from pluvial Lake Alvord and the potential source of the catastrophic flood evidence we will visit on Friday with Marith.

Silvio Pezzopane - USGS, completed a Ph.D. at the University of Oregon mapping and

trenching young faults in the state of Oregon and will provide an overview of the regional

tectonics.

Tom Sawyer - Piedmont Geosciences and Ken Adams — DRI, will present the results of their recent fault compilation of the McDermitt and Vya 2 degree sheets.

Bud Burke — HSU, has been involved with some of the above research projects and will help to coordinate the trip.

If you plan to attend, please complete and mail the attached registration form with your check. The cost for registration this year is $26.00 which includes guidebook costs.

For people planning to stay at the rodeo grounds the evening of Thursday September 23rd (this is the location of the Gathering of Friends), there will be a $5.00 fee per vehicle for use of the facilities - payable upon entry at the rodeo grounds. We encourage people planning to arrive on Thursday the 23rd to stay at the rodeo grounds for there are no campgrounds in the area.

If you are interested in checking out the lay of the land before (and during) the trip, we

will be on the McDermitt and Jordan Valley 1:250K sheets for Day 1, and the Adel sheet for Days 2 and 3.

If you would like to view a digital map of the field trip area as part of a map of pluvial lakes of the western Great Basin, go to:

Note: Due to the personal schedule of our web master, the earlier promise to keep our 99 FOP web page updated is no longer valid. It will not be updated prior to the trip.

Thursday September 23rd: Gathering of Friends - Pre-trip sign-in and guidebook distribution (about 2 PM - 10 PM) will take place at the rodeo grounds approximately 0.4 miles north of the town of McDermitt, NV on the west side of Highway 95. The rodeo grounds is also where we will be camping for the night. The town of McDermitt, NV is approximately 73 miles north of Winnemucca, NV. For those of you planning on flying and renting/hitching a ride, Reno and Boise are about equidistant from McDermitt but there are apt to be more folks coming through Reno than Boise. It is about a four hour drive from either city to McDermitt. The geology along either route is interesting but the outcrops between Boise and McDermitt are more spectacular (in Charlie’s opinion). We encourage people to fuel up and resupply upon arriving in McDermitt on September 23rd so we can start promptly the morning of Friday Sept. 24th. A fee of $5 per vehicle is payable upon entry to the rodeo grounds for use of the facility. There will be toilets and running water available at the rodeo grounds and plenty of room for parking and camping. Be sure to top off your water supply upon leaving the rodeo grounds for THERE IS NO WATER (nor fuel) AVAILABLE ALONG FRIDAY’S ROUTE OR WHERE WE WILL BE CAMPING FRIDAY NIGHT SEPTEMBER 24TH. People will have the opportunity to get water on Saturday September 25th in Fields, Oregon.

Friday September 24th: The roadlog for the trip starts upon exiting the rodeo grounds. We will exit the rodeo grounds ~7:30 A.M. and the trip will begin atop a compound fault scarp approximately 2.6 miles south of McDermitt, NV at 8:00 A.M. Directions to STOP 1-1 are as follows: From Highway 95, turn east onto North Road which is approx. 2.6 miles south of McDermitt, NV and the NV/OR border. There will be a BLM fire station on your east. After 0.6 miles turn left onto a dirt road and look for the FOP participants assembled atop the compound fault scarp approximately 0.5 miles to the east for Stop 1-1. From Stop 1-1, the trip will generally move north along Highway 95 throughout Friday until we are 47 miles north of the state line in McDermitt. From here we will turn back to the south and travel 12 miles to the Whitehorse Ranch road trending off to the west. We will end the day at the Willow Creek Recreational Area (BLM — no official signs to mark it — look for FOP sign) in an unofficial campground, 23 miles to the west of Highway 95 on the Whitehorse Ranch Road (The Highway 95 - Whitehorse Ranch Road intersection is 35 miles north of the state line in McDermitt).

Saturday September 25th : We will depart the Willow Creek (Friday night) campsite in time to reassemble at Stop 2-1 by 9:30 A.M. on Saturday — this will begin day two of the trip. The drive from Willow Creek to Stop 2-1 takes almost exactly an hour without stops. The road is in good shape, but is narrow and windy — PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY and know there are many ranchers not expecting this type of heavy traffic. We will travel less than 150 miles today and camp about 35 miles to the north of Fields, so if you need fuel, ice, or other supplies, plan on a time consuming stop in Fields where both gas and diesel are available. We have requested that plenty of fuel, ice, and liquids be on hand for the weekend. When you first reach the paved Fields - Denio road some 34 miles from Willow Creek campground, the trip route will travel north eventually bordering the western shore of Pluvial Lake Alvord. Stop 2-1 is at a bar almost exactly 10 miles north of Fields (on a gravel bar related to the pluvial lake!). After Stop 2-1 we will travel 22 miles north and visiting 2 additional stops before lunch. We will then venture across the Playa about 6 miles to the eastern shore of Pluvial Lake Alvord near Big Sand Gap. After a few hours at Big Sand Gap, we will return to a campsite in the southwestern corner of the Playa.

The annual business meeting will be held at this campsite on Saturday night — if you wish to offer to lead a trip for the year 2000, please come prepared to do so at that meeting. A special note: Gary Carver, a long time FOP participant managed to retire from the HSU geology Dept. and move with his family to Kodiak, Alaska in the middle of the summer, 1998. This summer departure allowed him to leave town without a proper retirement roast. He is going to join us for the FOP this year, as he was instrumental in getting much of this research started — Bud will MC a roast this night — please feel welcome to come prepared with any "potluck items" for the Carver Roast.

Sunday September 26th : Sunday’s formal trip will consist of three stops as we travel about 20 miles north of our Playa floor campsite. We will officially end the trip at Mickey Hot Springs (dangerously hot water — can not get into these!) near the northern end of Pluvial Lake Alvord in the early afternoon.

Motels:

For those of you not wanting to camp on the trip, few options exist for staying at motels.

Thursday night the 23rd:

* Rocky View Inn, Cafe-Motel-Lounge, Orovada, NV (about 30 miles south of McDermitt) (702) 272-3337.

* Diamond A Motel, McDermitt, NV, (702) 532-8551.

* McDermitt Service and Motel, (702) 532-8588.

Friday and Saturday nights, the 24th and 25th: We recommend you do not return to McDermitt Friday night because you would have to drive over two hours to get to where

the trip will start on Saturday morning the 25th. There is a motel in Fields, Oregon close to where the trip will begin both Saturday and Sunday mornings:

* Fields Station, Cafe-Motel-Store, (541) 495-2275. However, all rooms were reserved for Saturday night when we last checked.

* Approximately 25 miles south of Fields is Denio Junction, NV. The Denio Cafe-Motel-Store was closed during our pre-trip. However, it has been purchased by new owners and they intend to be re-opened by mid September. They were not yet open as of the 3rd of September, but they did answer the phone: (775) 941-0371.

* Alternate campground on Friday or Saturday nights: If you wish to camp but with a bit more privacy than our group will permit, there is a small BLM campground at Pike Creek at the foot of the Steens Mountains. Pike Creek is located a few miles from where the FOP group will be staying on the Alvord Playa Saturday night, and is about an hour west of where the FOP will camp on Friday night.

The weather is apt to be beautiful. Warm and sunny during the day and cool at night.

However, it could be very hot, or extremely cold, it could be windy, and snow is not out of the question. The daily average minimum and maximum temperature at McDermitt, NV for late September is approximately 40 degrees F and 70 degrees F respectively.

The roads we will be driving on this trip are generally in good shape but at some stops, folks with low-clearance vehicles will have to carpool because there is sage growing up between the tracks.

Cell Phones and CB radios:

Cell phone reception in this part of the world is slim to nil so don't plan on selling and trading stocks on this trip. Some trip leaders will have CB’s and be on channel 14.

Dust Masks for the Playa

Water jugs

Gas Cans?

Sturdy footwear

Sunscreen

Hats for shade

Sunglasses — especially for the playa

Warm sleeping bags

Fires and trash: Due to an extremely severe fire season, we anticipate a "NO CAMPFIRE POLICY" throughout the trip. Also, please come prepared to haul your own trash — we are not staying in public campgrounds.

If people have questions that are not addressed in this flyer please send inquires to

fop@axe.humboldt.edu or please call (707) 826-5243 (lab) or (707) 826-4292 (Bud’s office). We look forward to seeing everyone in 2 weeks!

REGISTRATION FORM

Pre-registration (submitting this form and $26) is required to insure you a guidebook.

Name:______________________________

Address (if different than the one we have used to get this form to you)

Daytime Phone:_____________________________

Email:_____________________________

Number of guidebooks #_____ * ( $26) = $_________

FOP donation if no guidebook required (toilet rental, etc.) $_________

Total amount included: $_________

Total # people in your group ________

Total vehicles in your group ________

Any special needs of which the trip coordinators should be aware ?

Please make checks payable to Bud Burke - FOP

and mail to:

Bud Burke

Geology Department

Humboldt State University

Arcata, California 95521