Axial Seamount, Iceland & Hawaii

Oceanic volcanic islands develop above mantle hotspots or along mid oceanic ridges where the sea floor is spreading.  The Hawaiian Ridge i...

Boreal Owls

Boreal owls are small raptors that inhabit mixed conifer-aspen forests across Alaska, Canada and northern Eurasia; their range also extends ...

Rivers of the Cascades

The rugged, volcanic Cascade Range stretches from southern British Columbia to northern California; it is bisected by the Columbia River, wh...

Formula for a Landslide

The landslide tragedy in Oso, Washington, occurred in a region of North America that is especially prone to such events.  Landslides general...

The Kuskokwim River

Second only to the Yukon among Alaska's Rivers, the Kuskokwim (which means slow-flowing) drains the remote southwest region of the State...

The Rivers of Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park covers a massive volcanic plateau in northwestern Wyoming; slivers of the Park also extend into southern Montana a...

Alaska's Collage of Terranes

As the Mesozoic Era dawned, 225 million years ago, only northern and northeastern Alaska were part of North America.  Since that time, numer...

Sage Grouse Saga

Greater sage grouse, the largest grouse in North America, inhabit sage grasslands of the Intermountain West, from Colorado to the Columbia P...

Long-Billed Curlews

While crossing the stormy Plains yesterday afternoon, I encountered a small flock of long-billed curlews, attempting to fly into the teeth o...

Lake Missoula & the Channeled Scablands

Near the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, about 13,000 years ago, a lobe of the Cordilleran Glacier that covered the Rocky Mountains blocked ...

Harney Basin

Harney Basin is a geologic and topographic basin in southeast Oregon; while it sits adjacent to the northwest corner of the Great Basin, it ...

The Arctic Falcon

Gyrfalcons are the largest and most powerful falcons on our planet, inhabiting Arctic and Subarctic regions of the globe. Those that live n...

Vancouver Island Earthquake

Along the Pacific Coast, from southern British Columbia to northern California, three small tectonic plates lie between the Pacific and Nort...

Washington's Eocene Coast

During the Eocene Period, some 50 million years ago, sediments collected across what is now western Washington. The majority of these depos...

The Pineapple Express

Produced by an atmospheric trough over the eastern Pacific, the Pineapple Express is a plume of deep, tropical moisture that is swept into t...

Salmon Farms

On our last day in Vancouver, an article in the Globe and Mail explored the controversy surrounding salmon farming in British Columbia. Ini...

Science and Legend

During our visit to Vancouver Island, we took a boat tour of the Broken Islands National Park, south of Ucluelet. Though marketed as a wildl...

Birding the Island

Despite the spectacular scenery, fair weather, varied habitats and interesting mammals, my birding experience on Vancouver Island was somewh...

Vancouver Island

Like the many other exotic terrains that, collectively, make up the western portion of North America, Vancouver Island drifted in on oceanic...

The Cascades

The Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest began to form during the Oligocene, 36 million years ago, as the Farallon Plate subducted beneath...