Notes on the Geology of the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands

• Main Author: Capps, Stephen R.
• Other Authors: Geological Survey (U.S.)
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: United States. Government Printing Office. 1934
• Subjects: Geology > Alaska > Alaska Peninsula; Geology > Alaska > Aleutian Islands; Geology; Alaska; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc304241/

Abstract: During the spring of 1932 an opportunity was offered by the United States Navy for a geologist to accompany an expedition organized to make a reconnaissance of the western part of Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. This expedition visited several localities the geology of which was little known. It was found, as had already been expected, that the islands west of Unimak Pass are composed mainly of basic volcanic lavas and fragmental materials, into which have later been injected dikes, sills, and considerable masses of intrusive rocks, some of which are of acidic types and of granitic texture. These westward islands are bordered both to the north and south by depressions 2,000 fathoms or more in depth, and the islands have apparently been built up from that depth by the ejection and extrusion of volcanic materials since early Tertiary time. No rocks of proved pre-Tertiary age were seen, and the only sedimentary materials present may well have been derived from the erosion of the volcanic islands after they were built up above sea level. On the Alaska Peninsula pre-Tertiary sediments through which the volcanic materials broke to the surface are abundantly present. There is evidence that all the larger islands and the higher portions of the peninsula were severely glaciated during Pleistocene time. Each of the larger islands was the center of ice accumulation and dispersal, and the present topography, except upon recently active volcanic cones, shows strongly the effects of glacial sculpture.