Andrew Dunning
Portland State University, Masters Project

Grant amount: $1,083 awarded March 2021

Project: Evaluation of slip history and Holocene activity on faults in the Strawberry Mountains, Grant County, Oregon

This project will determine how long ago an earthquake occurred on this recently-discovered fault in the Strawberry Mountains using carbon-14 in charcoal trapped within deposits along the fault. We will also use glacial deposits and volcanic rock stratigraphy to determine how long this fault structure has been active. Most importantly, this project will create data for faults and glaciers where very little currently exists. These faults in the Strawberry Mountains could pose a notable seismic hazard to the residents of the John Day Valley.

Michelle Simone Jordan
Oregon State University, Undergraduate Project

Grant amount: $489 awarded March 2021

Project: Explosive volcanism in the Bend area of central Oregon: Unraveling the path of pyroclastic flows and location of source vents using anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility

In this project, the focus will be mainly on the magnetic properties of the Desert Springs Tuff, the Tumalo Tuff, and the Shevlin Park Tuff, three pyroclastic flow deposits from the Tumalo Volcanic Center in central Oregon near Bend and Sisters. It is intended to use the orientation of magnetic minerals to understand the flow directions of the pyroclastic flows. When high temperature pyroclastic flows deposit and cool, magnetic minerals record the flow direction. This is a technique known as Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility (AMS) and will be used to infer a source vent(s) and indicate flow and transport direction of the pyroclastic flow deposits by evaluating the magnetic minerals locked inside and their magnetic orientations.

Charles Tyler Lewis
Oregon State University, PhD Project

Grant amount: $1,000 awarded March 2021

Project: Volatile contents of Newberry Volcano rhyolitic magmas and implications for explosive eruptions

Newberry Volcano located near Bend, Oregon has a history of eruptions characterized by rhyolite (high-silica) magma. To understand the history and how it may play out in the future we need to understand why these eruptions occur. It is well known that high volatile contents (water, carbon dioxide) in magmas can fuel such eruptions. So, understanding the production and budget of volatiles in the rhyolite magmas will assist in hazard assessment by broadening our understanding of the explosivity and subsurface processes that lead to eruption. Geochemical analysis of rocks and their constituent minerals will be combined to reveal what the volatile budgets of the magmas were, and how this influences the eruptive behavior of Newberry. This study will contribute to a better understanding of the eruptive behavior and hazards of the Newberry volcanic system.

Ellen K. Olsen
University of Oregon, PhD Project

Grant amount: $1,158 awarded March 2021

Project: Improving paleoclimate interpretations: Kinetic isotope effects in calcite from saline, alkaline lakes of southern central Oregon

Some minerals, such as calcite, record trace element and isotopic information that can be a window into past climates and environments. The equilibrium isotopic partitioning of oxygen between the mineral calcite and the water it grows from reflects the temperature of the water. However, natural calcite often grows too quickly to achieve equilibrium partitioning and will record kinetic isotopic effects that depend on environmental variables such as growth rate, lake pH, or lake composition. I will treat five closed-basin saline, alkaline lakes in Central Oregon as natural laboratories in which to grow calcite in the near-surface lake water while measuring environmental conditions, in addition to sampling past calcite deposits along the lakeshores. Quantifying disequilibrium isotopic effects recorded in calcite under known conditions will help me interpret isotopic signatures, and consequently, paleoclimate and paleoenvironment signals recorded in the ancient lake calcite.

Ana Mercedes Colón Umpierre
University of Oregon, PhD Project

Grant amount: $1,000 awarded March 2021

Project: Ice, ice, baby! Understanding ice-magma interactions in the Oregon Cascades

Central Oregon has a wide range of glaciovolcanic deposits (meaning, volcanic deposits showing interaction with ice). Studying these deposits provides a unique opportunity to not only constrain a portion of Oregon’s rich volcanic history, but its glacial history as well. The goal of my project is to understand how the presence of ice affects the emplacement of magma, and to constrain the local paleo-ice conditions in the Cascades using these deposits. To address these objectives, I am proposing conducting fieldwork on two subglacial volcanoes, or tuyas, in the Cascades, with the goal of characterizing the geometry and emplacement history of deposits of intermediate compositions in a subduction arc setting, where most ice-covered volcanoes occur.