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Living with Thunder: Exploring the Geologic Past, Present, and Future of Pacific Northwest Landscapes
The Pacific Northwest is a region defined by its geology as much as its rugged coastline, drippy westside forests, fertile farms, and canyoned eastside grasslands. These landscapes have been forged by volcanoes, crumpled by faults and sculpted by water and ice. But the Northwest’s geologic DNA is rooted in volcanic activity. From the ancient lavas of Washington’s Selkirks that freed the planet from a global ice age, to the world-class flood-basalts that dominate the Columbia Basin, to the restless peaks of the High Cascades, the thunder of volcanic eruptions echos through the ages.
In Living with Thunder, geologist and photographer Ellen Morris Bishop offers a fascinating and up-to-date geologic survey of the Northwest—Washington, Oregon, northern California, and western Idaho. New discoveries include Smith Rock as part of Oregon’s largest (and most extinct) volcano, portraits of Mount Hood’s 1793-1795 eruptions, and new ideas about the origin of the Columbia River basalts, and the course of the ancestral Columbia River.
Intended as an introduction for the general reader and geological non-specialist, Living with Thunder enlivens Northwest geological history by combining engaging science writing with the author’s stunning color photographs. In addition, color maps and time charts help guide the reader through time. The book presents evidence of changing ecosystems and ancient life, as well as the Northwest’s exceptional record of past climate changes and the implications for our future. The title harks to the Klamath Indian recounting of Mount Mazama’s cataclysmic eruption, and the book also examines the confluence between scientific findings and Native American documentation of several major geologic events.
An important work by a gifted scientist and storyteller, Living with Thunder offers a key to understanding the Northwest’s unique, long-term volcanic heritage.
In Living with Thunder, geologist and photographer Ellen Morris Bishop offers a fascinating and up-to-date geologic survey of the Northwest—Washington, Oregon, northern California, and western Idaho. New discoveries include Smith Rock as part of Oregon’s largest (and most extinct) volcano, portraits of Mount Hood’s 1793-1795 eruptions, and new ideas about the origin of the Columbia River basalts, and the course of the ancestral Columbia River.
Intended as an introduction for the general reader and geological non-specialist, Living with Thunder enlivens Northwest geological history by combining engaging science writing with the author’s stunning color photographs. In addition, color maps and time charts help guide the reader through time. The book presents evidence of changing ecosystems and ancient life, as well as the Northwest’s exceptional record of past climate changes and the implications for our future. The title harks to the Klamath Indian recounting of Mount Mazama’s cataclysmic eruption, and the book also examines the confluence between scientific findings and Native American documentation of several major geologic events.
An important work by a gifted scientist and storyteller, Living with Thunder offers a key to understanding the Northwest’s unique, long-term volcanic heritage.
160 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 19, 2018
One of my own ... like to read bits and pieces when other books don't hold my interest. If you live in the Pacific Northwest and appreciate geology, you might enjoy the photos and facts. Below are quotes about where I live:
"As a graduate students in the 1980s, I learned Smith Rock, a cathedral of tawny cliffs that enshrine the Crooked River 30 miles north of Bend, Oregon, was the product of a fizzy, but demure, volcanic eruption. A separate diminutive volcano crafted Powell Buttes, 25 miles to the south. Ditto for Grizzly Butte, 15 miles northwest. All these, my knowledgeable professors explained, were separate volcanoes, and nothing extraordinary." (Along side this paragraph an awesome picture of Smith Rock from an angle I hadn't previously seen. Hike needed.)
"But in 2006, things changed. Called in to explain a mysterious paucity of groundwater for local developments, two geologists ... discovered that all these disparate small vents were actually part of a single, huge volcano--a supervolcano, in fact--that erupted with unimaginable fury 29.5 million years ago.
"Smith Rock still looks pretty much like it did in the 1980s. But the meaning of the place has changed completely. Now when I examine the tawny cliffs along the river-banks, I envision very different things than I did--or anyone did--a decade ago. The newly discovered supervolcano, 25 miles in diameter, Yellowstone in size, and incomprehensible in power, is a newly discovered landscape. Until McClaughry and Ferns unveiled it in 2006, no one knew that the Crooked River caldera, Oregon's biggest volcano, existed." ...
Some quotes from Chapter 7 ... Calderas and Cooling
"The Oligocene, 33.9 to 23.03 million years ago, began with an abrupt cooling event ... This shift triggered the temperate world in which we live today.
"In central Oregon, vegetation changed from viney subtropical forests to deciduous woodlands similar to the native vegetation of today's Willamette Valley ..."
p50 - "The Oligocene was perhaps the most bombastic time in the geologic history of the American West. Huge explosive volcanoes, known as calderas, erupted torrid ash flows in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. And Oregon. This geologic temper tantrum is known as the Oligocene ignimbrite flare-up. Its cause is uncertain.
"Calderas are deceptive volcanoes. Their topography is subtle. Instead of building mountains of lava, ash, and mudflows, they blast most of their erupted material into the stratosphere where it usually drifts far from the volcano before landing. They dispatch clouds of hot ash away from the vent at almost supersonic speeds to coagulate and cool elsewhere. Some of their ejecta goes straight up, and then comes straight back down to refill the great cavity left by the explosion. They leave little obvious evidence at the crime scene. But they are monsters when they erupt. Think supervolcano. Think 40-mile-high columns of ash. Think Yellowstone.
"The largest volcano in the Northwest, 25 miles wide and 20 miles long, is an Oligocene caldera that erupted 29.5 million years ago. Known as the Crooked River caldera, its crater extends north to south from Oregon's Smith Road State Park to Powell Buttes, and east to west from Prineville's Ochoco Reservoir almost to Redmond. Smith Rock is part of the towering north wall of the volcano. It is a place that dwarfs the human scale. ... Just north of Prineville, Barnes Butte--a resurgent dome that filled the vacated caldera ..." (Barnes Butte has lightly used hiking trail ... it's just across the ridge from where I live. Years ago, I could cross the ridge, the little valley between, and climb up. No people in between then. Now it's a subdivision.)
"The Crooked River caldera produced huge amounts of ash, now ensconced in the Painted Hills, including the well-documented Picture Gorge Ignimbrite, perched atop Carroll Rim, which is the same age and same composition as Smith Rock." (The Painted Hills and Smith Rock are places my camera craves. Hope my GR-Friends who have visited those sites share my pleasure at seeing Bishop's geologic link.)
**
Having lived 18 years in the Portland area, mostly near Troutdale, at the windy western end of the Gorge, I found Bishop's "Beacon Rock and the Boring Volcanics" informative :
"Beacon Rock, dated at 57,000 years, is the youngest volcanic feature in the Columbia River Gorge, ... the youngest of the ... Boring Volcanic Field, which occupy the Portland Basin and extend eastward into the Cascades. Beacon Rock rises abruptly 848 feet above the Columbia River. (Picture provided.) Some 50,000 years ago it would have been a cinder cone on the banks of the Ice Age Columbia. But by 10,000 years ago, Ice Age Floods had eroded all the cinders, leaving only the scoured basaltic core ..."
"More than eighty Boring volcanoes pepper the Cascade foothills and Portland Basin. Kelly Butte, Rocky Butte, Mount Scott ...
"The Boring volcanoes are the westernmost potentially active volcanic field in the United States."
***
14,893 characters left - 3/19/'18
"Chapter 9 The Great Expansion The Basin and Range Opens"
(Within Crook County, the Maury Mountains on the south side of the Crooked River form the geographical division between Basin-and-Range and the Columbia River drainage.)
"The Pacific Northwest hosts the northern portion of the Basin and Range province--a region of unabashed desert and alpine forests that include most of Nevada and snippets of Utah and California as well as Oregon. In Oregon, abrupt mountains and flat, barren playas occupy Oregon's southeastern quadrant. ..." (when seeing "playas," pluvial comes to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluvial...
"The Basin and Range is expanding much faster horizontally than vertically. ... Over the past 12 million years, the crust of Nevada and southern Oregon has managed approximately 100 miles of expansion westward.
"Hot springs, Energy, and Faulting - This extension thins the crust as it extends the landscape ... much of the crust is a fragile, faulted, and fractured ... It is no wonder that hot springs accompany most Basin and Range fault systems ...
"Basin and Range extension has radically rearranged West Coast geography ...
"The Basin and Range's expansion has displaced much of the geography of Oregon and Washington (and California) westward ... to rotate westward like the hour hand of a giant clock moving ...
"This rotation is very active today. The Cascades and Coast Range, and even the Sierra Nevada, are swinging west around a pivot point ... near Maupin, Oregon, where small, barely noticed quakes centered in the same mile-square area rattle the crust weekly. The Basin and Range pushes at the underbelly of the Northwest, shoving up the folds of Central Washington, shaking the faults of southcentral Oregon, and driving stresses on faults in Portland and Seattle."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
"As a graduate students in the 1980s, I learned Smith Rock, a cathedral of tawny cliffs that enshrine the Crooked River 30 miles north of Bend, Oregon, was the product of a fizzy, but demure, volcanic eruption. A separate diminutive volcano crafted Powell Buttes, 25 miles to the south. Ditto for Grizzly Butte, 15 miles northwest. All these, my knowledgeable professors explained, were separate volcanoes, and nothing extraordinary." (Along side this paragraph an awesome picture of Smith Rock from an angle I hadn't previously seen. Hike needed.)
"But in 2006, things changed. Called in to explain a mysterious paucity of groundwater for local developments, two geologists ... discovered that all these disparate small vents were actually part of a single, huge volcano--a supervolcano, in fact--that erupted with unimaginable fury 29.5 million years ago.
"Smith Rock still looks pretty much like it did in the 1980s. But the meaning of the place has changed completely. Now when I examine the tawny cliffs along the river-banks, I envision very different things than I did--or anyone did--a decade ago. The newly discovered supervolcano, 25 miles in diameter, Yellowstone in size, and incomprehensible in power, is a newly discovered landscape. Until McClaughry and Ferns unveiled it in 2006, no one knew that the Crooked River caldera, Oregon's biggest volcano, existed." ...
Some quotes from Chapter 7 ... Calderas and Cooling
"The Oligocene, 33.9 to 23.03 million years ago, began with an abrupt cooling event ... This shift triggered the temperate world in which we live today.
"In central Oregon, vegetation changed from viney subtropical forests to deciduous woodlands similar to the native vegetation of today's Willamette Valley ..."
p50 - "The Oligocene was perhaps the most bombastic time in the geologic history of the American West. Huge explosive volcanoes, known as calderas, erupted torrid ash flows in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. And Oregon. This geologic temper tantrum is known as the Oligocene ignimbrite flare-up. Its cause is uncertain.
"Calderas are deceptive volcanoes. Their topography is subtle. Instead of building mountains of lava, ash, and mudflows, they blast most of their erupted material into the stratosphere where it usually drifts far from the volcano before landing. They dispatch clouds of hot ash away from the vent at almost supersonic speeds to coagulate and cool elsewhere. Some of their ejecta goes straight up, and then comes straight back down to refill the great cavity left by the explosion. They leave little obvious evidence at the crime scene. But they are monsters when they erupt. Think supervolcano. Think 40-mile-high columns of ash. Think Yellowstone.
"The largest volcano in the Northwest, 25 miles wide and 20 miles long, is an Oligocene caldera that erupted 29.5 million years ago. Known as the Crooked River caldera, its crater extends north to south from Oregon's Smith Road State Park to Powell Buttes, and east to west from Prineville's Ochoco Reservoir almost to Redmond. Smith Rock is part of the towering north wall of the volcano. It is a place that dwarfs the human scale. ... Just north of Prineville, Barnes Butte--a resurgent dome that filled the vacated caldera ..." (Barnes Butte has lightly used hiking trail ... it's just across the ridge from where I live. Years ago, I could cross the ridge, the little valley between, and climb up. No people in between then. Now it's a subdivision.)
"The Crooked River caldera produced huge amounts of ash, now ensconced in the Painted Hills, including the well-documented Picture Gorge Ignimbrite, perched atop Carroll Rim, which is the same age and same composition as Smith Rock." (The Painted Hills and Smith Rock are places my camera craves. Hope my GR-Friends who have visited those sites share my pleasure at seeing Bishop's geologic link.)
**
Having lived 18 years in the Portland area, mostly near Troutdale, at the windy western end of the Gorge, I found Bishop's "Beacon Rock and the Boring Volcanics" informative :
"Beacon Rock, dated at 57,000 years, is the youngest volcanic feature in the Columbia River Gorge, ... the youngest of the ... Boring Volcanic Field, which occupy the Portland Basin and extend eastward into the Cascades. Beacon Rock rises abruptly 848 feet above the Columbia River. (Picture provided.) Some 50,000 years ago it would have been a cinder cone on the banks of the Ice Age Columbia. But by 10,000 years ago, Ice Age Floods had eroded all the cinders, leaving only the scoured basaltic core ..."
"More than eighty Boring volcanoes pepper the Cascade foothills and Portland Basin. Kelly Butte, Rocky Butte, Mount Scott ...
"The Boring volcanoes are the westernmost potentially active volcanic field in the United States."
***
14,893 characters left - 3/19/'18
"Chapter 9 The Great Expansion The Basin and Range Opens"
(Within Crook County, the Maury Mountains on the south side of the Crooked River form the geographical division between Basin-and-Range and the Columbia River drainage.)
"The Pacific Northwest hosts the northern portion of the Basin and Range province--a region of unabashed desert and alpine forests that include most of Nevada and snippets of Utah and California as well as Oregon. In Oregon, abrupt mountains and flat, barren playas occupy Oregon's southeastern quadrant. ..." (when seeing "playas," pluvial comes to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluvial...
"The Basin and Range is expanding much faster horizontally than vertically. ... Over the past 12 million years, the crust of Nevada and southern Oregon has managed approximately 100 miles of expansion westward.
"Hot springs, Energy, and Faulting - This extension thins the crust as it extends the landscape ... much of the crust is a fragile, faulted, and fractured ... It is no wonder that hot springs accompany most Basin and Range fault systems ...
"Basin and Range extension has radically rearranged West Coast geography ...
"The Basin and Range's expansion has displaced much of the geography of Oregon and Washington (and California) westward ... to rotate westward like the hour hand of a giant clock moving ...
"This rotation is very active today. The Cascades and Coast Range, and even the Sierra Nevada, are swinging west around a pivot point ... near Maupin, Oregon, where small, barely noticed quakes centered in the same mile-square area rattle the crust weekly. The Basin and Range pushes at the underbelly of the Northwest, shoving up the folds of Central Washington, shaking the faults of southcentral Oregon, and driving stresses on faults in Portland and Seattle."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
December 19, 2016
Great color pictures and in the format of a coffee table book, but too much text for that medium. Said text is fairly dense and requires many trips to the (included) glossary for non-geologists. Maps were small and not terribly useful. Covers the plate tectonics and vulcanism of the early Northwest very well, the most recent glaciation less so. The most recent non-volcanic geologic events (the Lake Missoula floods) are glossed over with a recommendation to read other books. It is not the lack of flood coverage that makes this a pretty dry read, however. 2½ stars.
January 11, 2018
I needed a book to learn about the magnificent geology of my new home base in the Pacific Northwest, and this fit the bill! As an avid non-fiction reader, however, I found this book a bit lacking in several ways. The size and shape of the book made it very awkward to read; I’d prefer standard non-fiction hand-held to coffee-table-style layout. The photos were okay, but the book needed more maps, charts, and diagrams to best explain details. I was fairly irritated at having to constantly stop what I was reading and flip to the scant glossary at the back of the book, the amateur map in the appendix lacking key information, and my phone internet connection, where I found better maps and explanations of various unexplained geological processes. The author often went into great detail with lists of locations and dates, but didn’t explain some of the basics for non-geologists. As a book marketed for non-academics and casual geologists, it was awfully heavy and made a lot of assumptions of the reader.
That being said, I did enjoy the information I absorbed through reading this book and my supplementary web browsing. I was fascinated by the natural history of the area and relations to what was going on geologically in the rest of the world. I sought out a book on PNW geology, and I got what I needed! My coworkers patiently listened at the water cooler as I explained to them what I was learning in this book!
That being said, I did enjoy the information I absorbed through reading this book and my supplementary web browsing. I was fascinated by the natural history of the area and relations to what was going on geologically in the rest of the world. I sought out a book on PNW geology, and I got what I needed! My coworkers patiently listened at the water cooler as I explained to them what I was learning in this book!
March 10, 2017
This is the best book I have ever seen for regional geology (of ANY region). It does a tremendous job of compiling the entire geologic history of Oregon and Washington so it can be understood by the lay person and still provides information on recent advances in data and interpretations of the events that have led to what we see at present in the NW. She has obviously done a tremendous amount of research to include all the latest developments. I have been working in NW geology for most of 40 years, and I learned new things from the book, especially concerning the early development of the area. New information on early Tertiary volcanic activity was truly exciting. One quibble - the book would have benefited with more simple maps to locate the features being discussed.
March 3, 2015
The photography was great, but the book does not read like an introduction to NW geology. The language is too academic, many terms are only defined after multiples uses or left to the glossary. On the whole the book felt too much like a chronological list of what happened when rather than a thoughtful narrative or summary of the field aimed at a general reader. I would hesitate to recommend this to anyone without a real passion for northwest geology or landscapes. There is good information in the book, it's just not really worth wading through everything else to find. 2.5 stars.
April 30, 2020
Beautiful photos and well-written text. This is a quick tour of the geology of the Pacific Northwest, beginning in the Paleozoic up to the present day. It was a good summary of such a long period of time. The glossary was helpful, but was missing a few terms, and a few maps would have prevented me from frequently looking up where places were located. But I highly recommend this book if you are interested in the geology of the PNW.
May 29, 2018
Good overview-- doesn't go too deep into things, so good for those who want the basics. I was hoping for more detail in places-- maybe the "expanded edition" version will come out some time...
Would really benefit from a larger map of the NW as well-- the author's pictures are great, but the graphics in terms of maps/timelines are lacking.
Would really benefit from a larger map of the NW as well-- the author's pictures are great, but the graphics in terms of maps/timelines are lacking.
February 7, 2015
In Search of Ancient Oregon is one of my favorite books - this is denser, but extraordinary. I spent several months absorbing each chapter, intrigued by her descriptions of the Great Lava Flows Miocene and the ecology of the Basin and Range. Her photography is exquisite.
August 6, 2015
Clear lucid writing and gorgeous photographs,together with updated geologic information about the Pacific Northwest, make this a delightful book.
November 16, 2023
Top 5 geology book of all time.
December 31, 2024
I bought this book a year and a half ago, after returning from a backpack trip in the Eagle Cap Wilderness with its stunning geologic history on display. It took my looming 2024 reading challenge deadline to put my nose firmly into this book and concentrate for a couple days rather than skimming through it occasionally.
July 5, 2025
Well written with lots of good information but definitely not a beginner book. It’s hard to understand without background knowledge in the subject. Also, the coffee table design with a soft cover makes it difficult to hold.
January 17, 2024
I have read numerous books on the geology of the Pacific Northwest, and this book is one of my favorites. The author, Ellen Morris Bishop, holds a PhD in geology from Oregon State University. There are two points that make this book a favorite for me: 1) her in depth knowledge of the tremendous forces that have shaped our geological evolution, and 2) the quality of the photographs and graphic illustrations. Her ability to clearly explain complex geological processes is admirable.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding the forces and created the amazing landscape of the Pacific Northwest.
Another equally well-written book on the geology of the Pacific Northwest is Geology Underfoot in Western Washington by Dave Tucker, which I have reviewed on Goodreads.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding the forces and created the amazing landscape of the Pacific Northwest.
Another equally well-written book on the geology of the Pacific Northwest is Geology Underfoot in Western Washington by Dave Tucker, which I have reviewed on Goodreads.
March 5, 2017
Decided on 9 December that we'll switch this one to individual reading. Haven't made any progress in a while and doesn't make for the best reading together so it keeps waiting.
Put on-pause 26 April 2016 as have not touched it in a very good while.
28 November 2016 Restarted this on my own.
Yay! Finished!
Was a pretty decent map in the back as Appendix 1 but I needed to know this going in. There should have been more drawings/diagrams/maps and less photos and they should be where the text that references them starts. This was a big problem with the few there well after the text started that relied on them. This would make it a much better book in that it would make it far easier to use, visualize, and understand.
Put on-pause 26 April 2016 as have not touched it in a very good while.
28 November 2016 Restarted this on my own.
Yay! Finished!
Was a pretty decent map in the back as Appendix 1 but I needed to know this going in. There should have been more drawings/diagrams/maps and less photos and they should be where the text that references them starts. This was a big problem with the few there well after the text started that relied on them. This would make it a much better book in that it would make it far easier to use, visualize, and understand.
December 29, 2014
This is a fascinating history of Northwest geology. I'm not a geologist so I had to make frequent use of the glossary and Google, but it was worth the effort. The photographs are stunning.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews