Visit Wenatchee, Washington – Explore Ice Age Flood Features
Wenatchee, Washington is often called the “Apple Capital of the World” or the “Buckle of the Power Belt of the Pacific Northwest”. Today the Wenatchee vicinity is known for the fruit industry, wineries, power generation, tourism and outdoor recreation. When you visit and look around the Wenatchee Valley, even today, much of the landscape was formed by Ice Age Flooding. Visit the Wenatchee Valley area to explore some of the interesting Ice Age Flood features found there. Toward the end of the Pleistocene Ice Ages (17,000-12,000 years ago) much of the landscape in the Wenatchee area was changed substantially by catastrophic ice-age flooding. These flood(s), almost 1,000 feet deep, initiated out of glacial Lake Missoula in Montana, and some of the largest came through the Wenatchee area along the Columbia River drainage. Prior to the Okanogan Ice Lobe blocking the Columbia River valley north of Wenatchee, the early Missoula flood(s) could follow the present day path of the Columbia River around the “Big Bend” area of north-central Washington into the Wenatchee area and further south. Take a drive north of Wenatchee on highways US 97 or US 97A to see evidence of this flooding. As the Okanogan Ice Lobe advanced south it eventually blocked the Columbia River drainage north of Wenatchee. The water backed up by that Okanogan Lobe ice dam formed glacial Lake Columbia and forced subsequent ice-age floods to be funneled southward along the east edge of the ice lobe into Moses and Grand Coulees, and farther east through the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington. When the Okanagan ice eventually retreated, one last flood from glacial Lake Columbia again followed the Columbia drainage through Wenatchee. Massive boulders (some 40 feet in diameter) and erratics (rocks foreign to the area) were transported at the base of the flood waters and embedded in huge icebergs floating on the floodwaters. They were deposited along the hillsides throughout the Wenatchee area as the floods waned and the icebergs became stuck and melted. Those erratics prompted our Ice Age Floods Institute chapter name “The Wenatchee Valley Erratics”. The two main erratic rock types in this area, granite and gneiss, are much different from the Eocene Chumstick Sandstone bedrock. The gneiss erratics transported a relatively short distance from outcrops just north of Wenatchee are often 10 feet in diameter. The nearest granite outcrops occur some 15 miles upstream in the Entiat area, so the granite erratics tend to be smaller, less than 3 feet in diameter. Some of the best locations to see these erratics are just south of the Old Wenatchee Bridge (first bridge over the Columbia River finished in 1908) along the Apple Capital Loop Trail near Patriot Plumbing & Heating, the Department of Social & Health Services and near the old train at Mission Street Park in south Wenatchee. An enormous crescent-pendant Pangborn Bar topped with huge current ripples was deposited in east Wenatchee where the Columbia River drainage takes a right (easterly) turn. The bar elevation is 500 feet above the Columbia River today. On the surface of Pangborn Bar are giant current ripples with crests up to twenty feet tall and ripples spaced some 300 feet apart. Travel up Grant Road, 4th Street in East Wenatchee and then out onto Batterman Road northwest of Rock Island to travel across the entire Pangborn Bar from west to east. The giant current ripples are best observed on 2nd or 4th Streets, where these roads go up and over the current ripples east of Nile Avenue in East Wenatchee, Washington. Just about a mile northeast of Pangborn Memorial Airport is a very significant archaeological site, the East Wenatchee Clovis Site (Richey Clovis Cache), discovered in 1987 and excavated until the site was closed and covered in 2004. This site lies on top of one of these current ripples. Pristine Clovis spear points as well as other archaeological specimens (about 11,000 years old) were discovered and some are now on display at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center in Wenatchee. Article from Brent Cunderla, April 2024
Field Trip to Dam Site
A field trip to Sandpoint ID to visit geologic sites related to the ice dam(s) that blocked the Clark Fork River and caused the formation of Glacial Lake Missoula multiple times is planned by the Glacial Lake Missoula Chapter in cooperation with Tony Lewis of the Coeur de Deluge Chapter. An all day bus trip is planned for April 18th followed by a car caravan to Farragut State Park and other downstream sites the next day. Registration for the event is limited and is being handled by the Montana Natural History Center at https://events.humanitix.com/ice-dam-field-trip Discounted lodging reservations are available at the Schweitzer Resort until March 18th. For more information contact Sherry McLauchlan 406-207-7760.
Puget Lobe Chapter Newsreels – A Continental Ice Sheet Background Perspective
(27Jan2024) This post contains the newsreels shown at the bginning of our Chapter meetings. Newsreels oroginally contain: the current presenter, future presenter, Chapter/IAFI current information, and the “newsreel” of selected technical information germane to Continental Ice Sheets. The newsreel after the meeting is then parsed to show just the selected technical information about Continental Ice Sheets. Each chapter describes a certain facet of the history of the ice sheets. These chapters are an exact copy of what was shown at the meeting and are designed to fill the 10-15 minutes prior to the meeting start. Subsequently, the chapters will be revised to add additional subject matter about that chapter subject. And a revision date will be included so you, the viewer, will be able to see the expanded information. You need to click on the links below, then click the little window that shows up to see the synopsis/newsreel: Since it’s a .pdf file, you may have to adjust the size of the page as you scroll through the newsreel on your computer. The current Synopsis is for meeting on: In work intro: Chapter 1 Introduction – Milankovitch Hypothesis 01 Newsreel CH 1 pdf dtd: 29Sep2020 Chapter 2 Earth’s orbital perimeters 02 Newsreel CH 2 pdf dtd: 25Oct2020 Chapter 3 Defining the Pleistocene 03 Newsreel CH 3 pdf updtd: 05Oct2021. Chapter 4 Marine Sediment Cores 04 Newsreel CH 4 pdf updtd: 06Feb2021 Chapter 5 Fraser Glaciation Puget Lobe 05 Newsreel CH 5 pdf updtd: 06Feb2021 Chapter 6 Double Bluff/Possession LGM 06 Newsreel CH 6 pdf updtd: 07Feb2021 Chapter 7 Hood Canal Geology 07 Newsreel CH 7 pdf updtd: 07Feb2021 Chapter 8 Alpine, Cordilleran, Surging Glaciers 08 Newsreel CH 8 pdf 02Mar2021 Chapter 9 Dungeness River, Pillow Basalt 09 Newsreel CH 9 pdf dtd: 01Sep2021 Chapter 10 FS23 Olympic NF, Kame Terrace 10 Newsreel CH 10 dtd: 24Oct2021 Chapter 11 FS2340 and Dennie Ahl Esker field 11 Newsreel CH 11 dtd: 07Dec2021 Chapter 12 FS2340 Outwash Channel/Crag& Tail 12 Newsreel CH 12 dtd: 15Jan2022 Chapter 13 FS23, Rock Creek Canyon, Spider Lake 13 Newsreel Ch 13 dtd: 02May2022 Chapter 14 Port Ludlow Geological History 14 Newsreel Ch 14 See current Synopsis. DRAFT in work – URLs work.
Postmortem on the southern Cordilleran Ice Sheet
(21Feb2024) On 18 March 2924 at 7:00pm the Puget Lobe Chapter io the IAFI will have Dr Ralph A Haugerud give his presentation “the Postmortem on the Southern Cordilleran Ice sheet. Death of an ice sheet can have many causes, as shown by retreat of the southern Cordilleran ice sheet about 15,000 years ago. East of the Cascades, the margin of active south-flowing ice retreated north as less snow fell and more melted. West of the Cascades, the Juan de Fuca lobe of the ice sheet appears to have floated away in response to rising sea level, perhaps without a proximal climatic cause. Collapse of the Juan de Fuca lobe diverted ice from the Puget lobe, which consequently stagnated at its margin and rapidly melted back. Later Sumas ice readvance in the Fraser Lowland may reflect stabilization of the remnant ice sheet by grounding as local sea level fell, followed by climate-driven retreat. Ralph Haugerud received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Geology from Western Washington University and a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from the University of Washington. Since joining the USGS in 1986, he has worked in the North Cascades Range, the Salish Lowland, and the Columbia Plateau. From 1990 to 2014 he was technical lead for the Puget Sound Lidar Consortium, and he has been instrumental in developing the GeMS standard for representing geologic maps in a Geographic Information System (GIS). His current efforts focus on the structure of Eocene strata in central Washington, features formed by glacial Lake Missoula outburst floods, and regional map compilation. The in-person portion will be at Bellevue College Bldg R, Rm R103. See separate post for location details. For this meeting only there will be NO “Zoom” available.
Puget Lobe Chapter New Meeting Location
(24 Sep 2024) The Puget Lobe Chapter has changed its physical meeting location. We will meet at Bellevue College, Bldg “R”, Room 110, just off I-90. There is a cost of $3.00 per vehicle to park. We will continue with “Zoom” (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82985244730) meetings for those that live across the pond or live substantial distances away. Please note the meeting notice on the Chapter website homepage will be incorrect as of 06 Dec2023 and is awaiting correction.
Ice Age Floods Around the World
(03 December 2023) The last ice age of Earth involved immense floods with peak flows comparable to those of ocean currents. About 40 examples are now known from Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Iceland. These mega-floods generated major landscape changes and huge fluxes of freshwater to the world oceans, resulting in global climatic change. The profound consequences of this flooding for Earth’s inhabitants may have even inspired many oral traditions of world-wide inundation. Vic Baker’s interest in the ice-age flood landscapes began in the 1950s when he was living in Bothell, Washington. His Ph.D. research on the scablands, completed in 1971, partly advised by J Harlen Bretz. A former President of The Geological Society of America, his publications include 20 books and more than 450 geology articles. He has appeared internationally in more than a dozen television documentaries dealing with ancient mega flooding on Earth and Mars.
Recording of Erratics’ October 10 program, “Reading the Okanogan Lobe Glacial Landscape”
Because of problems with the Zoom broadcast of the Erratics’ October 10th program, Ralph Dawes graciously recorded for us his talk, “Glaciated landscapes that formed beneath the Okanogan Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet,” so that we could all enjoy it. Or re-enjoy it. He talks through the slide show, with all the illustrations showing up clear and supportive. The video software lets you view the slides full size, or the slides plus a table of contents at the side, if you click in the right places.You can watch at 1.5x speed by clicking on the gear icon lower right, if you want to hurry along to topics of interest (that appear in the side bar). You can also pause the video to study individual figures. The recording is hosted on a server Wenatchee Valley College provides for faculty to store teaching videos that are retained for the foreseeable future. The video is set to be open to anybody, no password needed. https://wvc.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=5105f23e-e869-4909-b7b8-b0b10002f143 Here is also a link to the YouTube version: https://youtu.be/1A2hkmxTDdo
Lyle Cherry Orchard Interpretive Panels Installed
Last week, Friends of the Columbia Gorge completed installation on their first-ever interpretive trail signs at the Lyle Cherry Orchard Preserve! They’ll be sharing MUCH more on this story in spring 2024 (including guided outings!), but if you’re intrepid enough to hike this trail during the winter, check out the brand new signage with QR-code links to learn more about the preserve and the Gorge. Stay tuned for more in the coming months. And check out the Ice Age Floods geology recording.
Wenatchee Valley Erratics Leadership Changes Are Coming
Major changes are looming for the Wenatchee Valley Erratics Chapter. The chapter president (Brent Cunderla), treasurer (Dan Smith) and publicity person (Susan Freiberg) are all planning to step down in June, 2024. These critical positions don’t involve a lot of time or work, but they are essential.to the health of the chapter. All three are willing to help guide replacements, so if you are interested to learn more about the positions please email the chapter at Wenatchee@iafi.org.
An Old Timer (Jeff Silkwood) IAFI Story
In the early days, the IAFI and National Geologic Trail were mainly good intentions and lacking in ways to communicate how enormous and special this landscape was. Jim Shelden, then Regional Geologist for Region One of the US Forest Service in Montana and now president of the Missoula chapter of IAFI, realized a good map was necessary to galvanize action on the project and legitimize the new group Jim Shelden had just hired Jeff Silkwood in an open-ended position as a Stay in School Cartographer and Database person in 1995. Jeff had just returned from military service and was enrolled in classes at U Montana. Jeff was assigned to digitizing maps of the Beartooth Mountains and other mapping projects in the states of the Northern Rockies. But he was particularly interested in Glacial Lake Missoula and the Ice Age Floods. And he knew he had the computer skills to use existing data to put a map together. As the maps grew larger, more complex and included features like hill shaded relief and multi 1-degree by 1-degree tiles fitted together that no one else could do, it slowly dawned on Jim that this guy was really something. The only limitations were equipment – no Dept of Ag computer could handle it nor could any plotter manage the print task. In those early days this involved overcoming computer limitations on the size of files. Combining digital elevation models for multiple tiles and maps resulted in gigantic files for the times and processor’s abilities. Jeff wrote 2500 lines of code linking multiple computers, writing new code to handle the plotter problems to complete this project over about a two year time span, working on this while completing other jobs which had more firm deadlines. The basic data came from the USGS digital version of topographic maps supplemented with data from NASA satellite images. Google was working with some of the same data for use in its own maps, and there was some back and forth communication with them on how to solve similar mapping problems. Mapping issues that came up for this project included drawing a boundary for the west coast at a time when the ocean level was much lower – which had to be done by hand. And decisions about the extent of the lake and the extent of the continental ice sheet and glaciers – maximum levels and multiple contributors as to extent were used. Initial drafts were printed on a pen plotter, then the imagery was upgraded to an ink jet printer, which was subject to fading. The final map with photo images was turned into print plates by the Forest Service special Publications group in Washington. Approval for even printing the map was complicated. – it was (and still is) the only map ever printed by USFS which was more than a travel map and identified by author. An initial printing of 2000 copies was authorized – and sold out in 3 days. Another printing of 2500 was done. The USGS ordered a third printing they sold from their Denver and Spokane Libraries. It is no longer available, supplanted by on-line maps, and subsequent versions with different detail (such as highways) done by Eastern Washington University and others. A few copies of the original map still exist, and Jeff is still working on cartography for a private firm in Missoula. The importance of the original map to give IAFI credibility and as a tool to tell the story and sell the need for a special designation has never been officially recognized…until now. Thank you Jeff for your personal commitment to this project, and thank you Jim for your support in making it happen.