The geology of the Elk Mountain-Porter Ridge area, Clatsop County, northwest Oregon

Graduation date: 1988Presentation date: 1987-10-16Eight Tertiary sedimentary and volcanic units crop out in the thesis area. From oldest to youngest they are the: Sager Creek formation (informal); Pittsburg Bluff Formation; Northrup Creek formation (informal); Smuggler Cove formation (informal); Wickiup Mountain and Cannon Beach members (both informal) of the Astoria Formation; the Grande Ronde Basalt, and Frenchman Springs Member of the Wanapum Basalt, both of the Columbia River Basalt Group. Also, areally limited, unnamed sedimentary strata interbedded between flows\ud of the Columbia River Basalt Group crop out in the study area. Quaternary deposits consist of alluvium, colluvium, and landslide\ud debris. Rhythmically-bedded, foram-bearing, carbonaceous to micaceous mudstone and graded, fine-grained, feldspathic turbidite sandstone are the dominant lithologies of the upper Eocene (Refugian) Sager Creek formation. Plane-laminae and climbing ripple-laminae typical of Bouma b,c, and d intervals are common in the thin turbidite sandstone beds. Contemporaneous, rare, thick, sandstones may represent submarine feeder channels that supplied the more widespread, thinly-bedded overbank turbidite sandstones. Foraminiferal paleobathymetry indicates that deposition was in bathyal water depths.\ud Sager Creek deposition was followed by a regression or offlap of the late Eocene to early Oligocene (Refugian) sea as indicated by the molluscan fossils and thick, bioturbated sandstone of the predominantly\ud shallow-marine Pittsburg Bluff Formation. The lower part of the formation consists of outer shelf, glauconitic, fossiliferous sandstone and subordinate mudstone. Higher in the section are middle-shelf, fine-grained, bioturbated, tuffaceous, arkosic sandstones. These sandstones contain minor glauconite, wave- and storm-generated molluscan shell hash beds, carbonized wood fragments, and calcareous concretions. Deposition occurred in 20 - 50 m open-marine shelf water depths; however, the depositional environment may\ud have shallowed to a bay-like setting (Moore, 1982, written communication). The upper part of the unit consists of thin- to medium-bedded, carbonaceous siltstone and mudstone with minor ashfall tuffs. Therefore, deposition of the Pittsburg Bluff Formation\ud occurred as a shallowing-upward, then deepening depositional episode, punctuated by contemporaneous, intermittent eruption of nearby calc-alkaline western Cascade volcanoes. The deep-marine Oligocene to lower Miocene (Zemorrian to Saucesian) Northrup Creek formation is predominantly composed of\ud thinly-laminated mudstone interbedded with thin, very fine-grained, graded, micaceous arkosic sandstone. Bouma c-d-e and a-b-e sequences are common in the turbidite sandstone; Bouma a-e intervals occur locally in sandstone/mudstone couplets. Paleocurrent indicators suggest that the predominant transport direction of these turbidite deposits was northeast to southwest. Abraded, carbonaceous plant debris and mica are abundant in the sandstone laminations. The upper part of the formation consists of thick, mollusk-bearing, moderately- to\ud well-sorted, arkosic sandstone and minor polymict grit beds. A shallowing-upward, high-energy, shallow-marine shelf environment of deposition is indicated for the upper part of the formation. Contemporaneous with shelf and slope deposition of the Sager Creek, Pittsburg Bluff and Northrup Creek formations, the deep-water late Eocene to early Miocene Smuggler Cove formation was deposited as a distal or lateral correlative in a low-energy, outer shelf to slope\ud setting. This foram-bearing unit consists of thick, bioturbated, bathyal, tuffaceous mudstone and siltstone with minor thin- to\ud thick-bedded ashfall and current-reworked tuff. A marine onlap is indicated by the conformable relationship between the upper sandstone unit of the Northrup Creek formation and the overlying Smuggler Cove\ud formation in the eastern part of the thesis area. The overlying lower to middle Miocene Astoria Formation contains two members in the thesis area: a high-energy, shallow shelf, fine- to medium-grained, fossiliferous, micaceous arkosic sandstone (Wickiup Mountain member), and an overlying, thinly-laminated, deepmarine mudstone (Cannon Beach member). Diatom floras indicate that a thermal "oceanographic irregularity" (water warmer than normal) may have occurred during deposition of the Cannon Beach member. At least six, and possibly eight, flows of the middle Miocene Grande Ronde Basalt (Columbia River Basalt Group) are present in the thesis area. Individual flows have been ascribed to the (N1?), R2, and N2 magnetozones. Geochemically, the flows consist of low MgO high Ti02, low MgO low Ti02, and high MgO subtypes. These subaerial to submarine flows are correlated to Mangan and others (1986) chemical subtypes 2D, 5C, 5A, and 4A of the Columbia Plateau-derived Grande Ronde Basalt of eastern Washington and eastern Oregon. The correlations are based on similarity of age, major element chemistry, stratigraphic position, and magnetic polarity. Field evidence suggests that thick, submarine pillow and breccia complexes generated sufficient pressure to autoinvasively inject into the Eocene to middle Miocene sedimentary strata of the Plympton/Porter ridge and Elk Mountain areas. This process apparently formed many randomly-oriented dike- and sill-like intrusions in the western part of the thesis area. However, in the eastern and central parts of the thesis area, three sub-parallel dikes (the Northrup, Beneke, and Fishhawk Falls dikes) extend along linear trends for tens of kilometers. This suggests that their emplacement was, in part, influenced by earlier or contemporaneous regional tectonism. At least two, and as many as five, flows of the Frenchman Springs Member of the Wanapum Basalt occur in the thesis area: one to two abundantly plagioclase-phyric Basalt of Ginkgo flow(s), and one to three Basalt of Sand Hollow flows (terminology after Beeson and Tolan, 1985). These flows consist of subaqueous pillow\ud palagonite breccia and vesicular, columnar-jointed, subaerial basalt. No Frenchman Springs flows are invasive in the thesis area. Local middle Miocene sedimentary interbeds between flows of Grande Ronde and Frenchman Springs Basalt are lithologically and sedimentologically diverse. Common lithologies are fine- to mediumgrained,\ud arkosic sandstone, coarse-grained basaltic sandstone, and structureless mudstone. Depositional environments represented by\ud these strata are fluvial, marginal-marine, and shallow-marine. Thicknesses of individual interbeds range from 0.2 to 50 m. The thesis area is located on the northwest flank of the Oregon Coast Range anticline, adjacent to the Nehalem Arch. Large-scale northeast-trending oblique to strike-slip left-lateral faults coupled with northwest-trending oblique to strike-slip right-lateral faults dominate the structure of the area. These faults may have formed as conjugate shears (Riedel shear) caused by north-south compressive stress related to the oblique subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate beneath the North American Plate. Five episodes of deformation are\ud suggested by faults, dike orientations, unconformities, and other geological relationships within the thesis area: a late Eocene north-south compressional episode, an early Oligocene to early Miocene uplift, a middle Miocene northwest-southeast extensional episode, a post-middle Miocene to Pliocene (?) north-south compressional episode, and a north-south extensional event that occurred between the post-middle Miocene and Recent. Although crushed rock (for road and revetment construction) is currently the primary mineral resource within the thesis area, several potential fault traps on this northwest flank of the Nehalem Arch may contain significant reserves of natural gas. This conclusion is based upon field, laboratory, and subsurface (well) data. The Clark and Wilson sandstone of the middle to late Eocene Cowlitz Formation, the producing unit at the nearby Mist gas field, represents the most attractive target horizon. Additionally, the porous and permeable upper sandstone unit of the Northrup Creek\ud formation could contain shallow hydrocarbon reserves beneath the northern part of the area