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GSA 2017 GSA 2017 ANNUAL MEETING & EXPOSITION

Message from the Meeting Co-General Chairs

Don’t Miss the GSA Annual Meeting in Seattle!

Our rapidly developing city is in the news a lot as the home of Amazon, Microsoft,
Starbucks, and, yes, the true future home of the Big One. But if you look beyond our
culture built on coffee, aircraft, and technology, you’ll agree it is set in a geological
wonderland. Seattle itself is built on glacial/marine deposits left by a lobe of the
Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which buried the site of the city under more than a kilometer of
ice until just 16,500 years ago. Look only 100 km southeast of the Space Needle at the
heavily glaciated, active stratovolcano of Mount Rainier rising to 4,392 m above sea
level. Look west across Puget Sound, a great inland arm of the Pacific Ocean, at the
Olympic Mountains, an accretionary wedge formed by the ongoing subduction of the
Juan de Fuca oceanic plate beneath the continent on the notorious Cascadia megathrust.

Field trips for the meeting will radiate outward from the downtown convention center to visit bedrock terranes in the North
Cascades, the course of the Missoula Floods, and tsunami deposits from Cascadia earthquakes. Field trips will also inspect the
puzzling Mima mounds south of Seattle and tour the wine districts of south-central Washington. A special opportunity will be
a trip into one of the tunnels being dug under the city to add new light-rail routes or to replace the aging Alaskan Way
Viaduct along the waterfront.

Tired of geology? Take advantage of the Seattle Art Museum, local music, microbrews, eclectic restaurants, and, just
maybe, the 2017 World Series featuring the Seattle Mariners. And, where else but at world-famous Pike Place Market on the
waterfront can one learn to pitch and catch freshly caught salmon like a pro?

Alan Gillespie and Darrel Cowan
Co-General Chairs

Thanks to the

GSA 2017 Organizing Committee

Co-General Chairs: Alan Gillespie, University of 22–25 October
Washington; Darrel Cowan, University of Washington
Seattle, Washington, USA
Field Trip Co-Chairs: Ralph Haugerud, U.S. Geological
Survey; Harvey Kelsey, Humboldt State University Student Committee Chair: Linnea McCann, University
of Washington
Technical Program Chair: Dick Berg, Illinois State
Geological Survey Student Committee Members: Madeleine Hummer,
University of Washington; Michael Zackery McIntire,
Technical Program Vice-Chair: Kevin Mickus, Missouri University of Washington; Virginia Littell, University of
State University Washington; Keith Hodson, University of Washington

Sponsorship Chair: Brian Butler, Landau Associates Inc.

K–12 Chair: Michael O’Neal, University of Delaware

Host University: University of Washington

12 22–25 October 2017 • Seattle, Washington, USA