Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Lopez Island and Juniperus maritima

I had a job on Decatur Island today. Someone had to do it.
I walked on the Anacortes to Lopez Ferry and had some time at the Lopez landing waiting my pickup for the next leg of my journey.
So I poked around at the well exposed conglomerates near the ferry landing. The conglomerates at the location are considered by Brown (2014) to be part of a very old part of the Nanaimo Formation.

Pebble conglomerate of that has been interpreted to be Nanaimo Formation (Brown, 2014).

But my big discovery was this tree growing out of the ancient sea-floor rocks.

A close examine of its foliage revealed it was a Juniperus maritima along with fruits.


Juniperus maritima are very uncommon in western Washington. There is a stand of them on the west shore of Orcas Island and along West Sound on Orcas. There is reportedly an isolated populations on the Olympic Peninsula but I have yet to come across any in my ventures on the Olympic Peninsula.

The Lopez Ferry landing area had some other nice surprises that will have to wait another day.

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