Lake Washington Ship Canal Lake Washington Ship Canal The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the city of Seattle, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks accommodate the approximately difference in water level between Lake Washington and the sound. The canal runs east–west and connects Union Bay, the Montlake Cut, Portage Bay, Lake Union, the Fremont Cut, Salmon Bay, and Shilshole Bay, which is part of the sound. The ship canal project began in 1911 and was officially completed in 1934. Prior to construction of the Lake Washington
Puget Sound faults geologic province is the approximately 50 million year (Ma) old marine basalts of the Crescent Formation, part of the Siletzia terrane that underlies western Washington and Oregon. East of Puget Sound the basement of the Cascades province is various pre-Tertiary (older than 65 Ma) metamorphic rock. Somewhere between Puget Sound and Cascades foothills these two geological provinces come into contact. As the juxtaposition of various disparate tectonic structures in northwest Washington requires significant strike-slip movement, it is further expected that this contact will be a major fault. The northern end of the Crescent Formation (aka Metchosin Formation) has been identified