LaCrosse Heritage Museum and Ice Age Visitor Center Moving Forward!
With strong community support, in-kind pledges from local volunteers and businesses, recently awarded grants from the Port of Whitman and Whitman County, and a major state grant request in the hopper, the historic rock houses of LaCrosse are soon to get a major face-lift. Three years ago, LaCrosse Community Pride leaders and local businesses renovated one of the crumbling old rock bunkhouses, built during the Great Depression of boulders left behind by glacial floodwaters. That project showed the historic rock buildings could be saved and provided temporary quarters for displays of the Ice Age Floods Institute and the Whitman County Library, partners in the project. Next up? The old rock service station will be transformed into a Heritage Museum and Ice Age Visitor Center. The bunkhouses, two more of which will be renovated, will provide more room for exhibits, a business incubator and overnight lodging. Lloyd Stoess and the Palouse Falls chapter will share our remarkable geologic history. The National Park Service and its National Natural Landscape program leaders have been interested in helping, too. We’re planning to break ground on the project this fall. The LaCrosse Community Pride team thanks Lloyd Stoess and all of you, for steadfast support of this ambitious endeavor. This is a two-year project that will require many hands to complete. If you are interested in learning more or seeing how you can help, please contact Peggy Bryan (pegandpetebryan@yahoo.com) or Alex McGregor (alex@mcgregor.com). Submitted by Leslie Druffel UPDATE: On the state Heritage Capital projects, Alex McGregor reports that we ranked 12th out of 40 applicants and received all positive comments from the judges and that no other project prompted this kind of excitement and curiosity.
4th Badger Mtn Interpretive Sign Installed
Friends of Badger have completed installing the 4th interpretive sign about Lake Lewis Isles on Candy Mountain – one more to go, plus three more for Badger Mountain. Lake Lewis was a temporary lake that repeatedly formed during the Pleistocene Epoch as Ice Age flood waters (mostly from Glacial Lake Missoula) backed up behind a constriction at Wallula Gap. The Lake Lewis Isles name is given to several basalt hills south and west of Richland, Washington, whose crests stuck up above the maximum flood level (1,200 -1250 feet) of temporary Lake Lewis, making them islands. These temporary islands include Badger Mountain, Candy Mountain, Goose Hill, and Red Mountain. Only the top 380 feet of Badger Mountain poked out above Lake Lewis. Icebergs and other floating debris (such as mammoth carcasses) drifted into quieter waters and ran aground along the shorelines of these islands, leaving behind giant boulders of exotic rock types (erratics) from up to several hundred miles away. The scene of Lake Lewis, with its temporary Isles protruding out of the lake and occasional icebergs carrying erratics, can probably be best be imagined from one of the Badger Mountain or Candy Mountain trails, or along Interstate Highway I-182 as it passes through Goose Gap approximately 3 miles southwest of Richland. We encourage you to explore the trails and imagine the vistas of recurring temporary Lake Lewis. Our interpretive signs will help you peek into the distant past and the incredible Ice Age Floods story.
”Global Megaflood Science” Dr. Vic Baker
“Global Megaflood Science” – Dr. Victor R. Baker – Lower Columbia Chapter -Virtual Meeting Starting in the late 1960s, an accelerating pace of discovery has revealed that the last major de-glaciation of planet Earth involved a global pattern of huge outbursts of water from the margins of wasting continental ice sheets. Much of this water was delivered as relatively short-duration floods with peak flows comparable to those of ocean currents. The global inventory of these phenomena now includes about 4 dozen examples from Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Iceland. Though there have been many advances in understanding the physical processes and geochronology of megaflooding, important controversies remain, including: the role of flooding on areas that are now under the oceans; the nature of subglacial megaflooding; and the details of the vast network of megaflood landscape features in Asia. Immense outburst floods likely induced very rapid, short-term effects on the global Earth environment. Recorded Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 7:00 PM
Glacial Lake Missoula – Inspired Classroom Videos
The Glacial Lake Missoula chapter has worked with Inspired Classroom LLC to produce a series of 9 short (3-7 minute) videos exploring different aspects of the Ice Age Floods in the Glacial Lake Missoula area. The entire set is posted to the Inspired Classroom LLC YouTube channel, including a full 31 minute version (below) that compiles the entire set.
Nick Zentner – More Geology Videos
Are you looking for new geology videos? Nick Zentner has done a long series live geology lectures from his home in Ellensburg and posted them online to his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/GeologyNick/videos He is now recording a series of “Nick on the Fly” virtual field trips and posting them on the same YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/GeologyNick/videos Join Nick as he explores the geology of the Pacific NW and many other topics.
DECIPHERING THE CHANNELED SCABLANDS FIELD WORK CONTINUES
In August, Scott David, a postdoctoral researcher and Karin Lehnigk, a 2nd year PhD candidate from the University of Massachusetts visited the scablands for a week to do field studies. Karin was in search of granite erratics. Samples of these were taken to be processed for Beryllium-10 exposure dating, a robust geochemical technique which enables researchers to determine how long the object sampled has been sitting on the surface of the Earth. This information combined with computer simulations of a range of flood sizes is to test the hypothesis that the earliest floods through the Cheney-Palouse Scabland Tract were also the largest. Scott was in search of potholes. Measuring the geometry of potholes and the rocks that comprise them in a variety of locations, he is using these measurements in numerical and physical modeling experiments to explore what erosion mechanisms could generate these massive features. Were they produced by retreating waterfalls, rocks circulating at the base of the flow, large scale turbulence, or some combination of these mechanisms? The results of the study should provide insight into how the remarkable canyons that comprise the Channeled Scablands formed. On a Friday afternoon, I met up with them in Ritzville and proceeded to some granite erratics near Cow Creek southeast of town to take samples. They spent the night at our house in Washtucna and were thrilled to have hot showers, a home-cooked meal and soft beds. The days before they slept in tents on a gravel parking lot. The next morning, Chad Pritchard from EWU joined us as we took measurements from four pot-holes along the south side of Washtucna Coulee between Washtucna and Hooper. They also took granite samples from the Midcanyon Bar near Lyons Ferry before returning to the Grand Coulee area. The results of their studies were not available at time of printing. Article by Lloyd Stoess in The Scablander
Use Social Distancing Time to Explore the Floods with Our Interactive Online Map
If you’ve ever tried to explore the Ice-Age Floods with a guidebook you’ll know how difficult and frustrating it can be to find and learn about the features in the area you’re visiting. Well, there’s now a solution to that problem; an interactive map that’s available wherever you have internet access. The map features over 300 points of interest throughout our 4-state area, with a description and images that slide out when you click on one of the markers. More features are being added all the time, and we’re planning to expand the map with features related to the Lake Bonneville Flood event that rampaged through the area during the time of the Ice-Age Floods. Since this is an internet-based map, it’s also easy to get driving directions to the site from wherever you are starting from. You can also easily build an informative field trip, exploring and learning about a number of other nearby features with just a few clicks of your mouse. We feel this may be the most useful field guide ever developed to explore ice-age Floods and glacial features throughout our 4-state region. AND it’s absolutely FREE! The only shortcomings we see are 1) the map requires internet access, which isn’t always available in far-flung areas of our region, and 2) we may not have every point-of-interest on the map (YET!). If we’re missing something you think is important we encourage you to submit your suggestion. We also appreciate any comments and/or corrections by email to Webmaster@IAFI.org. We sincerely hope you enjoy using this guide to poke around these fascinating ice-age features.
New Release – Glacial Geology Maps of North Idaho
IAFI Store is proud to offer a new, two-sided Glacial Geology of North Idaho map that includes a GLACIAL GEOLOGIC MAP OF NORTH IDAHO on one side and a SHADED RELIEF MAP OF NORTHERN IDAHO AND PARTS OF WESTERN MONTANA AND EASTERN WASHINGTON on the other side.The maps are 33.75” x 21.5” in size and are available as both flat and folded versions at a price of $9.95 + tax and shipping. The GLACIAL GEOLOGIC MAP OF NORTH IDAHO is a color map produced at the scale of approximately 1/175,000 that represents over 30 years of research and field work by Dr. Roy Breckenridge, former Idaho State Geologist and VP of the IAFI Coeur du Deluge Chapter. The second author of this map was Dean Garwood who, following Roy’s passing, organized Roy’s information and used his GIS skills to put together multiple information layers to produce the final map. The map is in commemoration of Roy and his dedication to the fields of geology and education and his commitment to our chapter and the Ice Age Floods Institute. The SHADED RELIEF MAP OF NORTHERN IDAHO AND PARTS OF WESTERN MONTANA AND EASTERN WASHINGTON is a shaded, colorized relief map generated by Dean Garwood, overlain with other important geographic information to make the map more useful. The shaded relief map was printed at a scale of approximately 1/198,000 and covers a larger area of the Inland Northwest. The Coeur du Deluge Chapter, a member of the non-profit Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI), is a committed advocate, educator and marketer of the Ice Age Floods experience as a significant international natural and cultural heritage phenomenon. The production and distribution of this two-sided map is done in accordance with our Mission as an educational non-profit, more concerned with the map’s distribution than profits, which is the reason the map is priced less than $10. We plan to provide a set of maps free of charge to any local school and any local library in North Idaho, and to sell the maps through various outlets, primarily in Sandpoint and in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane, as well as through the Ice Age Floods Institute Store and Keokee Publishing.
Explore the Ice Age Floods with 12 New IAFI Brochures
IAFI has compiled 12 brand-new, full-color brochures into a packaged set to help guide you in visiting spectacular ice-age features across all of our 11 Ice Age Floods chapter areas. With these brochures as your guides you can explore the paths of the Ice Age Floods from Montana through Idaho, central Washington and northern Oregon, and even delve into the many glacial features of northwest Washington. Click on any of the brochure covers below to see a full size printable PDF version (note: you’ll need to scale down to print on 8.5×11 letter size paper). Packets of all 12 full-size brochures are NOW available through the IAFI Store and at participating local outlets. Click a cover to open a PDF of any of the brochures below
Ice Age Floods Playscape in Spokane Riverfront Park
By late summer or early fall of 2020, Riverfront Park will have an interactive playground that will be almost an acre in size. The great ice age floods that shaped the Inland Northwest also are shaping the new playground on the North Bank of Riverfront Park. The playground’s theme is Ice Age Floods, which will allow kids to both play and learn about Spokane’s history at the same time. Designers thought to add this theme since the Ice Age Floods had a significant impact on Spokane’s geology. “That parcel has always felt like an outlier,” says Dell Hatch, a landscape architect and principal in charge of the North Bank project for Bernardo|Wills Architects (BWA), “so it’s really cool to integrate that north side as another element of the park. Kids are going to be able to discover as they play, in the sand areas and as water moves through the playground, They’re going to be learning without even knowing they’re learning.” Soon the space will be home to a wheels park for skateboards, inline skates and scooters, new Hoopfest courts, parking served by improved access off Washington Street, and a new operations building to serve the park’s back-of-house needs. The North Bank will also connect with the soon-to-be-built Sportsplex, located on the basalt bluff above. But the centerpiece will be a 1-acre-plus destination playground themed around the Ice Age Floods that carved out the Spokane River Gorge some 15,000 years ago. “You are going to see some water play features, you’ll see some geology features too, some rocks in different elements the kids can climb around as they learn what the geology of eastern Washington is and why it is so special to our region,” said Fianna Dickson with Spokane Parks and Recreation. Some playground features will help children learn about nature and geology, like a stream that teaches about currents and damming. A climbing wall, rope suspension bridge, large rocks that children can climb, a splash pad, and a 30-foot tall climbing tower with tube slides, would be play elements in the park. “We’re working with Nigel Davies [a geologist from EWU], and we’ve held a workshop with the Ice Age Floods Institute,” says Bill LaRue, a landscape architect with BWA and project manager for the North Bank. “We’re working in like five or six different types of basalt, fossils of local flora and fauna — even a petrified forest.”