Meet the Maker

Hello there,

My name is Shannon Othus-Gault and I am the brain behind this project. I currently teach geology and Earth science at Chemeketa Community College and also have taught at Linn Benton Community College. I have been an instructor for 7 years, becoming a teacher after mapping landslides for about a year in Olympia, Washington. I have a BA in Geology and Environmental Studies from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington and a MS from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. In both places my main focus was large landslides; what initiates them and the havoc they can cause. In my years of teaching so far I have noticed when I talk about geology in Oregon it's rare for my students to have ventured to far from the Willamette Valley. So, I thought, why not bring the geology to them.

One reason for making this website was for my students to have the ability to see some of the sites I discuss in class but also to perhaps spark an interest in them to visit much more of the great state of Oregon. Another reason was to have a much more interactive virtual field trip site where information wasn't too thick for comprehension and pictures were plentiful. I tried to spread my geologic sites out in both space and geologic interest. But the best laid plans and all that. Unfortunately, during the making of these pages several things occurred that hampered my ability to access some sites. 2015 was one of the worst fire season in Oregon history with dozens of fires popping up, spreading, and coming together to make field work all but impossible in some places. Two of those amazing places are the John Day Fossil Beds and the Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa Mountains. I would have loved to include them here as they have some of the greatest geology our state has to offer, but that will have to wait till the following years. So, the long and short of it is, I am sorry there is a huge blank space in the northeastern part of the state, it wasn't intentional.

Lastly, I want to thank a few people. Thanks first to the Chemeketa Tech Hub for accepting my Innovations Grant, without it I would not have been able to ramble. Thank to my field assistants Nicole Russell, Sam Summers, Leslie Hickey, and Danielle Phillips-Dorsett for their help and for being very excellent geologic scales for size comparison. Michelle Harris for her editing help. And lastly to Oregon, my favorite state, that showed me rain, sun, and snow all in one day, a frightening interaction with a Mountain Lion in the Steens, some excellent sunsets due to smoke, and by far the friendliest people around. Get outside, you'll be glad you did.

Shannon