Collection of extensive regional lidar coverage, an effort spearheaded by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, has opened massive tracts of Oregon for new active tectonics studies due to the ability to now see through the typically dense forest cover.

We recently began neotectonic studies near the southern extent of the High Cascades graben - the long lived structural manifestation of arc-normal extension that extends from central Oregon to southern Washington. The La Pine graben was recognized in the late 1970's based on gravity data, but the full extent of recent crustal deformation across this region was not apparent until the recent lidar data became available. PhD student Michael Vadman has mapped the fault surface traces across the La Pine graben and conducted paleoseismic trenching investigations on a number of these faults. Fault traces and location of initial paleoseismic results from Vadman and Bemis (2018) shown on map. (map arriving soon)