Headquarters at Menlo Park--

Geologists Probe Deeper Into Mysteries of Earth

By Jack Viets

No man is closer to understanding the earth than the geologist.

His job and his life are the core of his understanding of its eons of history and its future course.

It is part of him to want to know why the earth has continents and oceans, mountains, valleys, deserts, riversÑall the features of its landscape.

He must know the forces and processes that shaped this landscape.

What pushes mountains up? Why do they erode and fall back? What causes earthquakes and volcanoes?

He is eternally probing this landscape, searching to learn what lies beneath its crust, charting the way to its deposits of oil and minerals.

He is forever trying to learn and understand more about what is going on deep within the earth.

QUESTIONS

Does its energy start from a molten central core? What is happening to it? Is it heating up or cooling off? What is the source of its magnetic field?

How did the earth get where it is and where is it going?

These are questions that shape the daily lives of the men of the Geological Survey’s Geologic Division in Menlo Park.

The bulk of their work involves field studies of the geologic "landscape" of the seven Western states and Alaska.

Much of the field data the division’s geologists amass is used to make geologic maps, the "very foundation" of any appraisal of the potential resources of the nation, said the geologist in charge of the division, Paul Bate of 338 No. Clark Ave., Los Altos.

The large effort in general geologic mapping means that every geologists in the division spends at least three months of the summer out in the field, "doing the work he loves," said Bateman.

For every three months in the field, the geologist must spend about nine months back in the Menlo Park headquarters, working up his field data to the point where it can be incorporated into geologic maps, reports, and research.

SURVEYS

The geologic division also conducts mineral deposits surveys, urban and engineering geology studies, and experimental research.

Bateman said the research now being carried out by the division in Menlo Park includes studies of earth heat flow, remnant magnetism, geochronology or the dating of rocks, geochemistry, geophysics, and paleontology, the science of determining the age of rocks by the type of the fossils they have enclosed.

The division is also doing astrogeology studies of the moon for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Bateman said.

Some idea of the magnitude of the geologic division’s operations can be gained during a walk with Bateman through its offices and laboratories at the Geological Survey’s Pacific Coast Center in Menlo Park

The job of mineral resources exploration, for example, is continuously changing.

Parke Snavely of USGS Larnel Place, Los Altos, chief of Pacific branch regional studies, will remind you that it’s a dynamic search, because man’s needs for minerals never remain static.

It is up to the geologist to determine the potential of all the nation’s resources, so the nation will know what its resources are and where they are when it needs them.

MAPS

Geologists are a long way from knowing all the answers. Only 18 percent of the United States has been mapped by the latest techniques of geology he noted.

How the Geologic Division led the way to one of the best lead and silver mines discovered in recent years, a $150 million deposit located near Tintick, Utah, 85 miles south of Salt Lake City, was recounted by Hal Morris of Lexington Drive, Menlo Park.

Morris, chief of the division’s base metals branch, said the key to the discovery was the geochemical changes in the lava cover over the ore deposits that had been caused by ore solutions.

Geologists theorized the area was a potential source of lead and copper during World War II, but it was not until 1949 that the first Geological Survey drill hole was put down.

Concentrated exploration work by the Geological Survey and the Bear Creek Mining co., subsidiary of the Kennecott Copper Co. paid off in January, 1957, when a Bear Creek tunnel struck pay dirt.

GEOLOGICAL EVENT

In the office of Jack Vedder, a division field geologist who lives in the Alpine Hills section of Portola Valley, a vital but entirely different type of geologic project is under way.

Vedder is reconstructing a fascinating geological event that took place 12 to 20 million years ago near Santa Maria.

He has a rather intriguing problem. He has to establish a relationship between marine clam and snail fossils found in an unbroken section of rock 20,000 feet thick with the fossil remains of horses, antelopes, pigs, camels, rhinos, large cats and other mammals found next to the marine fossils to the same coastal range in Cuyama Valley.

Because the nearly five-mile-thick range of rock containing the marine fossils is standing on edge in the mountain range, it is apparent to the geologist that it was once under the sea. But how it got stood up in a mountain range of rock containing the marine fossils is standing on edge in the mountain range, it is apparent to the geologist that it was once under the sea.

But how it got stood up in a mountain range is up to Vedder to explain.

From the reconstruction of events million of years old to building construction in the 20th century and its close relationship to urban and engineering geology is just a few offices apart in the strata of the division’s headquarters buildings.

George Gates of 1912 Lexington Ave., San Mateo, a veteran geologist who specializes in urban and engineering geology can give the reasons for its mushrooming importance in a brief, well-known phraseÑthe population explosion.

ROCKS VARY

Rocks vary in their ability to support the structures of man; his buildings, highways, dams, and tunnels.

But because of the population explosion and man’s ever increasing use of the land, he is continually building on "less favorable areas---from the geological aspect," Gates said.

This is where the urban and engineering geologists makes his contribution. He tells the building engineers what they can expect from a building siteÑwhether it be for a nuclear power plant at Bodega Head or a 16-story office building in downtown Palo Alto.

Well equipped laboratories specially designed for geological research and to support the work of the Geologic Division’s geologists are scattered throughout the Geological Survey’s Pacific Coast Center.

Among the many laboratories is a Rock Magnetics Laboratory

Palo Alto Times
February 19, 1964

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