Tracy Vallier retired in 1997 from the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, where he worked as a marine geologist for 22 years. Before that he worked as a marine geologist for the Deep Sea Drilling Project at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and as a professor at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana. Since retiring, Tracy taught geology at Lewis-Clark State College, Whitman College, and the University of Oregon, and worked as a marine geologist at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in Moss Landing, California.

He's authored five books: “Islands and Rapids: A Geologic Story of Hells Canyon” (1998, Confluence Press, Lewiston, Idaho), “Conversations with an Idaho Bartender” (2008, Seven Devils Books, South Lake Tahoe, California), “Shadows in the Loess Hills” (2009, Seven Devils Books, South Lake Tahoe), “The White Wolf and Seven Spirits: A Boy’s Vision Quest” (2009, Seven Devils Books, South Lake Tahoe), and “A Crow In The Seven Devils Mountains” (2011, Seven Devils Books, South Lake Tahoe). These books are available on the Seven Devils Books website. He co-compiled and co-edited nine other books on geology and oceanography. His scientific bibliography as author and co-author includes more than 250 entries.

Tracy grew up on farms in western Iowa near Council Bluffs and, immediately after graduating from high school, joined the U.S. Navy where he served four years as an air traffic controller. After discharge from the Navy in 1958, he studied at Iowa State University (B.S. in geology, 1962) and Oregon State University (Ph.D. in geology and oceanography, 1967).

Tracy's work continues in Hells Canyon where he has worked off and on for over fifty years. Currently, he is finishing geologic maps of several 7.5-Minute quadrangles, each of which covers about fifty square miles. He also is mapping the Permian-Triassic unconformity in more detail and interacts with science colleagues, students, and members of the general public who are interested in the area. His book, “Islands and Rapids: A Geologic Story of Hells Canyon” is a synthesis of regional geology and also a geologic guide for nearly 100 miles of Hells Canyon. Reconnaissance-level geologic maps in the book are printed in black and white at a scale of 1:62,000, or one inch equals one mile.

Feel free to contact Tracy if you either want to order the books discussed above or have questions about Hells Canyon and the Blue Mountains region of Oregon and Idaho. E-mail Tracy here.