Welcome to Seattle, the City of Seven Hills!
While "The City of Seven Hills" is usually associated with Rome, many cities around the world—on every continent except Antarctica—lay claim to this title. Seattle is one such city, with a landscape shaped primarily by glacial activity and tectonic movement. These natural forces have given rise to the city’s distinctive hilly topography.
Key Geologic Features:
Glacial activity
During the last ice age, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet advanced over this region, carving out landforms such as Lake Washington and Puget Sound. As it retreated, it left behind a landscape dotted with lakes, drumlins, and other glacial features.
Tectonic plate movement
Tectonic plates are large sheets of Earth’s crust that are constantly shifting. Their movement can trigger earthquakes and volcanic activity, and over long periods of time, they can form mountain ranges. In Seattle, this activity has also contributed to the city’s elevation changes.
From your current location, you can see two of Seattle’s original seven hills:
Capitol Hill (southeast)
Early settlers cleared a road through the forest to reach its summit in 1872, and the area was logged shortly after. Geologically, Capitol Hill consists of glacial drift and till layered over sedimentary rock, shaped by glacial movement and erosion.
Queen Anne Hill (southwest)
Characterized by its steep slopes, Queen Anne was one of the last Seattle neighborhoods to be fully developed. Formed by the Vashon Glacier, it is nearly surrounded by water.
Both Capitol Hill and Queen Anne Hill are drumlins—elongated hills created by glacier movement. The longer axis of drumlins indicate the directionality of the moving glacier. A naturally occuring hill in Seattle will be asymetical, with a blunt end and an elongated end. They often look like a half-buried hard boiled egg, and typically occur in groups. The soil on drumlins are typically glacial till, though in citiies that can be hard to see due to
You are presently standing on Kite Hill, located in Gas Works Park. Observe the area around you, and answer the following questions:
Logging requirements:
1. You're standing on Kite Hill. Describe the shape, height, and other features.
2. Based on your observations, do you think Kite Hill is one of the original seven hills of Seattle, and why?
3. What are the similarities you notice between Capitol Hill and Queen Anne Hill from this location?
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_hills_of_Seattle
https://streetsmartnaturalist.substack.com/p/seven-hills-of-seattle
https://mammothmemory.net/geography/geography-vocabulary/glacial-landscapes/drumlin.html
https://www.historylink.org/file/3414