A Visit to Rich Chambers' Jocko Site - Arlee, MT
Last week I had the pleasure of a day in the field with Rich Chambers and Larry Smith. Rich did early work on Glacial Lake Missoula sediments at the now famous Ninemile Creek Section west of Missoula, MT (Alt and Chambers, 1970; Chambers, 1971, Chambers et al., 1984; Chambers and Curry, 1989; Chambers, 2016). His graduate work under David Alt built on a rather tidy stack of articles published up to that time - Alden, Pardee, Flint, Richmond - who offered big picture stuff, mostly. Rich brought the details - varve counts, x-ray diffraction, radiocarbon dates, and microscope work. I learned a lot about Rich while kicking our way around the familiar old outcrops. He spent a career doing geostatistics for oil patch clients, is today a talented photographer, and was a Yosemite bigwall climber back in the day. His lifelong friend and field assistant in the 1970s was none other than Jack Horner of dinosaur fame. A well rounded person, like a lot of the great geologists of the Rocky Mountain West.
One of Rich's other study locations is the Jocko Site, along Hwy 93 near Arlee. The outcrop has degraded a bit over the years, but with a little time spent cleaning things up I found it had plenty to share.
Thanks for the stories, the photos, and most importantly, the fieldwork, Rich.
See some of his geology and photography here:
Photos by S.W. Cooley c. 2018.
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