Explore Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area
The Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area serves as a striking landmark that narrates a dramatic geological history shaped by colossal natural forces. Greatly influenced by the Missoula Floods, this area, part of the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail, reveals not only stunning landscapes but also insights into the Earth’s geological story. Understanding this region offers a glimpse into the powerful events that occurred between 13,500 and 18,500 years ago, as well as the enduring environmental significance of these features. Lake Roosevelt and Grand Coulee Dam Lake Roosevelt, created by the Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930s, serves multiple purposes: from water storage and hydroelectric power generation to recreation and wildlife preservation. The lake provides a crucial habitat for various species and supports a vibrant ecosystem and is home to a range of fish species, including walleye, rainbow trout, and Kokanee salmon. The surrounding lands offer habitats for birds and other wildlife, contributing to ecological balance. With over 400 miles of scenic shoreline, the 150 mile long goes from Grand Coulee nearly to the Canadian board and is a haven for outdoor enthusiasts. The lake offers expansive waters perfect for various forms of boating. Anglers can enjoy abundant fishing opportunities year-round. 32 different campgrounds such as Spring Canyon close to Grand Coulee, WA offer numerous places to extend your overnight stays with these stunning landscapes. Historical Heritage The Lake Roosevelt area holds historical significance for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Spokane Tribe of Indians, highlighting the intertwined relationship between Native heritage and the natural landscape. The National Park Service (NPS) supports Bureau of Reclamation management of Bakes Lake, Coulee Dam, and Lake Roosevelt. NPS works with Washington State Parks throughout the Grand Coulee Corridor and along with the Tribes and Washington Department of Natural Resources, oversees recreation on the water and lands of Lake Roosevelt NRA. Our collective efforts work to ensure that these natural treasures are preserved for future generations. Visitors to the area can engage with a variety of programs and informational resources that enhance their understanding and respect for the environment. Power in Nature The Grand Coulee and Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area stand as remarkable examples of nature’s power and the intricate tapestry of geological history. From the cataclysmic Missoula Floods that sculpted the landscape to the thriving ecosystems supported by Lake Roosevelt, this region offers an unparalleled opportunity for exploration and discovery. Whether you are an avid hiker, a passionate angler, or a curious geology enthusiast, this area provides not only recreational activities but also a deeper connection to the Earth’s history. As we delve into the breathtaking scenery and rich cultural heritage of this national recreation area, we are reminded of the dynamic forces that shape our world. The Grand Coulee and Lake Roosevelt invite each visitor to engage with the past while understanding the importance of stewardship for future generations. This stunning landscape not only captivates the eye; it expands our knowledge of nature and our place within Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail.
Coyote Canyon Mammoth Dig
The Coyote Canyon Mammoth Dig is an active paleontological excavation site in the Horse Heaven Hills near Kennewick, Washington. It’s a significant project that sheds light on the history of the Ice Age floods in the Tri-Cities area. The dig focuses on the unearthed remains of a Columbian mammoth that lived approximately 17,500 years ago. The mammoth’s carcass was buried in Touchet beds, a geological formation laid down by ancient floods. The site sits at an elevation of 1040 feet above sea level, which is considerably higher than the current elevation of the Columbia River, which is only 350 feet above sea level about 7 miles north. Scientists estimate that Lake Lewis, a massive glacial lake that existed during the Ice Age, reached a maximum surface elevation of over 1200 feet above sea level at the time the mammoth perished. This substantial difference in elevation hints at the immense power of the Ice Age floods that swept across the region. Another fascinating aspect of the Coyote Canyon Mammoth Dig is the discovery of a vast pile of erratic rocks. Initially thought to be a small cluster, the collection of these displaced rocks has grown to extend into several adjacent dig units. A dig unit, for those unfamiliar with archaeological and paleontological fieldwork, is a standardized square measuring 2 meters by 2 meters that archaeologists and paleontologists use to meticulously excavate and collect data. The MCBones Research Center, a non-profit organization, spearheads the Coyote Canyon Mammoth Dig. They offer educational tours for schools and other groups, providing a firsthand look at this significant paleontological excavation. These tours are a great opportunity to learn more about the Ice Age floods, mammoths, and the meticulous work of paleontologists. For more information about the Coyote Canyon Mammoth Dig, including details about tours, visit the MCBones Research Center website at www.mcbones.org.
Exploring Another Montana Flood
One of Montana’s other floods has been tickling the curiosity of some of our members.. This grew into a desire to plan a trip over to the upper Missouri River to see the channels from the diversion damming and outburst of Glacial Lake Great Falls. Thus, a reconnaissance was planned for 4 people. As the word got out everyone wanted to go and we wound with 14 souls on a loosely planned ‘let’s go over and see what we can find’ trip. The map below portrays Lake Great Falls when the Keewatin lobe of the Laurentide Continental Ice pushed the Missouri River out of its banks, pushing it south to the ice margin until the ice sealed off on the Bears Paw Mountains, then rapidly snaked off a sub lobe that sealed off on the Highwood Mountains. The lake began to fill to about 600 feet deep over Great Falls. It burst catastrophically at least once, creating the mile wide 500-foot deep Shonkin Sag (AKA Big Sag). This history appears to be a little more complicated than that as we turned up places where the last flood cut previous flood gravels. MBMG Special Publication 122: Geology of Montana, vol. 1: Geologic History by IAFI member DR Larry Smith is an excellent read for the details. This is a flood channel in soft rock (Cretaceous shale and sands). The lakes along the flood channels are endorheic (allows no outflow to other, external bodies of water or groundwater) so equilibrate by evaporation and are salty like the sea. The presence of these is a major clue the swale or drainage they are in is a flood channel. This is a flood channel in Shonkinite, a peculiar, dark igneous rock that would be basalt if it were not greatly enriched in potassium. Importantly it forms the columnar jointing common in basalt making it subject to plucking and the formation of retreat cataracts and geometry like the Washinton scablands. Note the column size. These are 5 to 10 feet in diameter and weigh many tens of tons but still the high surface area makes them subject to plucking if you have enough water moving quickly. We extracted a piece of Shonkinite gravel with blebs of white felspathoid syenite (like feldspar but having a different structure and much lower silica content) exsolving from Shonkinite magma like oil from water in salad dressing We stayed at Fort Benton, the historic steamship terminus on the Missouri river. Much of this is on private land and the landowner graciously allowed access to our group after being forced to close it due to trash and bad behavior. Lynne Dickman was the persistent silver tongued devil that made this happen. In all this was a very interesting reconnaissance of one of the other Montana floods. Article by Jim Shelden, President, Glacial Lake Missoula Chapter of Ice Age Floods Institute
Hike to Large Erratics in Gingko Petrified Forest State Park
In the approximate center of the state of Washington is the Gingko Petrified Forest State Park. And within the park is a trail, unnamed, which offers opportunities to view evidence of the terrific capabilities of the Ice Age Floods to transport huge boulders and leave huge deposits of rock material. The trail is off I-90 at exit 136 to the town of Vantage. After exiting the freeway travel north through Vantage for almost a quarter mile and turn right onto Recreation Dr. There is a sign to “Rocky Coulee Recreation Area.” It’s the old Highway 10 leading down to Lake Wanapum. This 0.3 mile section of road from the turn is bisecting the western margin of an eddy flood bar. The bar is about 0.75 mi in length and 0.25 mi in width. It extends down to the recreation area. At the end of this 0.3 mile section of road is the trailhead on your left. Parking is available here. A Discover Pass is required. The road continues another quarter mile to the Rocky Coulee Recreation Area at which restroom facilities are available. You could also park there. The trail starts along a slope above the Rocky Coulee. The bedrock here is all dark colored basalt. But deposited intermittently on the ground are light colored granitic rocks. Because they are not from this bedrock and are of a different composition than the basalt they are termed erratic. Where did they come from and how did they get here? That is the story of this hike. The last outburst floods from Glacial Lake Missoula are thought to have happened about 15,000 years ago. Huge chunks of ice, icebergs, broke away and carried whatever rocky material they had impounded during years of emplacement. The icebergs likely came from the Cordilleran Icesheet as it failed. This material was often granitic boulders and cobbles. Erratics here might have come from Rocky Mountain “Belt” bedrock or from glacial ice transporting Columbia-Okanogan valley bedrock and alluvium. When the flood waters made their way to this location, some 200 miles from their origin near Pend Oreille, they encountered some constrictions in the terrain which slowed their progress. The most significant constriction affecting this area was Wallula Gap, 70 miles south. It was less than 2 miles in width. That sounds like a wide gap but it was enough to prevent free flowing of these huge floods. Another, but less significant one, was Sentinel Gap, 10 miles to the south. Upon the waters slowing, eddies formed and the icebergs got caught up in those. The temporarily impounded water backed up onto these slopes. This resultant body of water has been named Glacial Lake Lewis. Inevitably some of the bergs became grounded on the slopes in the area. The highest erratic here is at 1,263 ft. The maximum water depth was about 800 ft. That’s about 700 ft above the existing water surface of Lake Wanapum reservoir. In the adjacent Schnebly Coulee erratics go up 3.5 miles. It’s estimated Lake Lewis existed and then drained within a few days, probably no more than a week. Upon the water finally receding through the gaps, with much less energy than upon arriving, the icebergs were left behind. Over time the bergs melted leaving behind their loads. These slopes are littered with hundreds of erratics. As you walk you can spot them along the trail. Most of them are small to moderate in size: less than 3ft². About a quarter of a mile into the hike the road starts taking a 90° right turn. As you round that turn you can see that Rocky Coulee below you takes a sharp turn to the south before again traversing to the east. It is quite possible the slope on which we are standing, a landslide, blocked the coulee and constricted that tributary’s water flow. As the water rose high enough to overcome the barrier it found a newer path to the south of its original course. We’ll see more evidence of the landslide up the trail. In another quarter mile, about half way to our destination there is a group of erratics on the right of the trail. There is more than one within a 3 foot radius so that makes it a cluster. But with fewer than 10 rocks in a 30 foot transect and the ground surface not greater than 3 feet higher than the surrounding terrain this is defined as a Low Density Erratic Cluster. This is a definition derived by a Central Washington University Masters student, Ryan Karlson in 2006. It incorporates a definition given by Bruce Bjornstad. At this same location you can look to the north and see a head scarp from a translational landslide. This whole hike is on a landslide. Looking to the east you can see hummocky terrain. So, there are 3 signs of landslide on this hike: head scarp, hummocky terrain, and the irregular tributary channel seen earlier. The soil here is very thin and nutrient poor: lithosol. It forms from weathered basalt, windblown loess, and volcanic ash. (You can still find ash from the 1980 Mt St. Helens eruption). It mainly supports a few species of sagebrush and bunchgrass along with seasonal wild flowers. Among the fauna found here are deer mice and ground squirrels. There are abundant Elk droppings you will see when leaving the trail to reach the destination erratic. I have seen a video of an Elk herd I would estimate was well over a hundred, perhaps two or three hundred running across nearby terrain. It was incredible! Traveling up the trail another quarter of a mile you can see the destination erratic off to the left on the trail. It will take about a quarter of a mile walk off the trail to get to it. This erratic is the single largest one in the park area at 85 ft². It’s 10 feet long and 8.5 feet high. It lies in a High Density Erratic Cluster, so
Moses Coulee: Unveiling the Mystery of a Colossal Ice Age Scar
Moses Coulee, a Washington state wonder, has puzzled geologists for over a century. This massive canyon, carved into solid basalt, stands as a testament to some powerful force. The culprit? The Ice Age Floods, a series of catastrophic deluges that reshaped the landscape. If you’ve ever visited, or even just passed through Moses Coulee, you may not have been aware that this awe-inspiring coulee has been an Ice Age Floods conundrum since the time geologist J Harlen Bretz first noted it in 1922. The problem? Moses Coulee doesn’t quite fit the picture. As Bretz described it, “The head of Moses Coulee is just north of Grimes Lake. It is an abrupt termination, walled by 100 foot cliffs, identical with the features of channeled scabland which are called abandoned cataracts.” The head of the coulee ends abruptly, lacking any clear connection to the known flood paths. Theorists proposed a missing link, a path obliterated by the Okanagan Ice Lobe, but no evidence of such a grand passage has ever been found. The mystery has persisted and become more enigmatic as Ice Age Floods research has flourished over the years: what colossal force carved this immense coulee? A new study by Gombiner and Lesemann (Geology, 2024) offers a radical new hypothesis. They propose a surprising source for flood waters: meltwater trapped beneath the massive Okanagan Ice Lobe glacier. Imagine the giant Okanagan ice sheet pressing down on the Waterville Plateau. Meltwater pooled in valleys beneath the ice, trapped and pressurized. This water, according to the theory, found a surprising escape route. Flowing through a network of hidden channels, it carved its way across intervening ridges and valleys, eventually funneling into Moses Coulee. This “tunnel channel network,” as the researchers describe it, explains the unusual path of the water. The channels themselves, carved in basalt, climb slopes and defy normal drainage patterns. These features, along with glacial landforms like eskers, suggest a watery escape route beneath the ice sheet. The study doesn’t rule out the role of traditional Ice Age Floods. Water from massive glacial lakes might have also contributed to Moses Coulee’s formation by flowing along the eastern edge of the glacier. This new hypothesis could be a game-changer. It suggests a hidden world of pressurized meltwater sculpting the landscape beneath the ice. While the debate continues, one thing is certain: Moses Coulee remains a captivating enigma, a place where the power of water and ice continues to unfold its secrets.
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
Let Your Feet, and Your Imagination Roam at Rowena Crest and Tom McCall Preserve
Scenic Rowena Crest and the Tom McCall Preserve area provide an incredibly scenic place to let your feet, and your imagination wander as you look out on a major chokepoint along the Ice Age Floods path. The wildflower displays are amazing during the Spring, but several compelling flood-related features are visible from the vantage of the Rowena Crest Viewpoint any time of year. Rowena Crest lies nearly 700 feet above the Columbia River at the upstream end of the Rowena Plateau, a miles-long plateau that the river flows along. Just upriver from the plateau is the narrow section of the Gorge known as the Rowena Gap The drive to the viewpoint on old Hwy 30 from either east or west is a spectacular ride through a wonderous section of the Columbia River Gorge. A roundabout parking area at the viewpoint, with a safety wall above a sheer cliff, provides a great observation point eastward toward Rowena Gap. At Rowena Crest it’s easy to imagine what it might have been like to witness the approach of those massive floods. There is not yet scientific evidence that humans were in the area to bear witness to the Ice Age Floods, but there is solid evidence of humans in the Americas by that time. And there is growing concensus that if they came in during a glacial maximum, they would have come in by a coastal route that offered plentiful food and shelter for their journey. The mouth of the Columbia River would have been the first major waterway path inland that might have led them to settle in the area of the Floods. Your village might have been situated across the Columbia at the mouth of the Klickitat River where the town of Lyle now sits. If you were foraging, or just relaxing, atop Rowena Crest on a late summer day, you might have felt the ground begin to temble as if there were a small earthquake, but the trembling would have slowly increased for a few hours. Eventually you would have heard a low roaring sound that also grew over an hour or more before you could see turbulent brown muddy water begin flooding across the broad basin to the east. Then the roaring flood of water, only a few feet deep at first, would have entered the narrows, now called Rowena Gap, and sped on, crashing against the promontory you’re standing on and being diverted toward your village which was quickly washed away by the muddy torrent. But the muddy flood waters would have kept rising, unlike the Spring floods you’re used to on the Columbia, becoming a hundred feet deep, then two hundred as the levels just kept rising. Soon a huge whirlpool formed in the flood waters near the base of the promontory and a giant eddy formed where your village had been as flood waters flowed backward up the Klickitat River even as the bulk of the water continued downstream on the main stem of the Columbia. As the flood waters reached 400 and 500 feet deep and kept coming, suddenly to your right a huge block of the promontory broke off and slumped down into the rampaging flood waters. Now you would have begun running south toward higher ground, climbing higher and higher as the still rising flood waters poured across the plateau and plunged into the small creek valley to the west, tearing away at the valley walls and massively widening that little valley. Eventually the flood waters stopped chasing you upward as you climbed higher, 200 then 300 feet above the now submerged promontory. Now as you turned and looked out across that expanse of muddy water you could see massive white blocks of ice being carried along on the flood waters, similar but inconceiveably larger than the ice blocks carried on the river during the Spring floods. But the flood waters didn’t begin to recede that day, nor the next, as they might in the Spring floods. In fact it was almost half a lunar cycle before they began to slowly recede, exposing a mud coated Columbia River valley that was now noticably wider, with layers of shear vertical rock walls extending over 1000 feet above the normal river level below. As you began the recovery from the floods devastation, your family returned from from their hunting and gathering in the high mountain meadows, and you have an incredible story to pass along to them and your ancestors. This story is easy to imagine as you look out to the east from Rowena Crest. The onrushing Ice Age Floods waters easily flowed over the low relief of the broad Dalles Basin to the east, but the major Rowena Gap created a chokepoint in the path of the floods as they made their way through the Columbia River Gorge. This “hydraulic dam” forced the flood waters to build to over 1000 feet deep in this area, flowing hundreds of feet deep over Rowena Crest while forming a temporary lake in The Dalles basin. It is estimated that many of the 40-100 Ice Age Floods may have taken up to a month to completely flush through the system to the Pacific Ocean, but the duration of the flood waters at any point along the path probably lasted less than a couple of weeks. But this was more than enough to create several major floods features visible from this vantage point. At Columbia River level below and east of the promontory is a round Kolk pond that was created by giant whirlpools in the flood waters as they were deflected around the Rowena Crest promontory. Other similar Kolk features can also be seen on the Dallesport area to the east, and along the hiking path atop Rowena Crest where they are marked by surrounding groves of oak trees. grew Across the Columbia, the floods deposited a huge eddy gravel bar that the entire town of Lyle, Washington is built upon. The Klickitat River was backed up for miles
Lake Lenore Caves – Lower Grand Coulee
Tucked into the Lenore Canyon are the Lake Lenore Caves. Along with much of the eastern half of the state, Lenore Canyon was formed during the Missoula floods at the end of the last Ice Age, over 13,000 years ago. The glacial flood waters crashed down the canyon, carving through the basalt that makes up the sheer rock walls, creating coulees, ridges, cliffs, plateaus, rock slides, caves and a series of lakes. The caves themselves are shallow, created during the Great Missoula flood as water pulled chunks of basalt from the walls of the coulee. Post-flood weathering created talus slopes that furnished easy access and temporary overnight camps and storage for at least 5,000 years for hunters and gatherers from villages located elsewhere in the Grand Coulee and along the Columbia River and its tributaries. It is still used today for certain Native American religious ceremonies. It is easy to see why the caves were chosen as a cozy place to stay, as the depth provided plenty of shelter from the elements, while not going so deep that light couldn’t reach the back corners. It is often quite warm and breezy outside, but in the caves it is cool and calm. A well-marked 1.2-mile out-and-back trail leads from the parking area to some of the caves. It is generally considered an easy route that takes an average of 31 min to complete. This is a popular trail for hiking and walking, but you can still enjoy some solitude during quieter times of day. The best times to visit this trail are March through November. Dogs are welcome, but must be on a leash. The coulee walls in this area are made up of Grande Ronde Basalt flows overlain by the Frenchman Springs and Roza members of the Wanapum Basalt. The lower (colonnade) and upper (entablature) cooling units of individual flows are visible in the coulee walls. Flow unit contacts are sometimes complex to interpret. Some flows pinch out against older flows, some are perhaps due to flows covering an irregular topographic surface on the underlying flow, some may be filling of shallow valleys, and some multiple layers may be pulses of lava from the fluid interior pushing out over the partially formed entablature of a previous lava pulse.
Grand Coulee – Geology of the Entire 50 miles
The 50-mile-long Grand Coulee should be on everyone’s bucket list for a “must see” feature. The immense power of the forces that created the Coulee are apparent to those who read the evidence recorded in its rocks and landforms. How did the Coulee form? Why did it form here? What do features like Steamboat Rock, Northrup Canyon, Dry Falls, and the Ephrata Fan tell us about the geological forces that created the Grand Coulee? This presentation will be made May 1, 2023 beginning at 7:00 pm, via Zoom _ https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82985244730 Dr Gene Kiver is professor Emeritus of Geology, Eastern Washington University. He studied alpine glaciation in the Rocky Mountains before moving to Washington State and discovering that J Harlen Bretz had correctly interpreted the bizarre landforms of the Channeled Scabland. Gene taught geology at Eastern Washington University for 34 years. He co-authored “On the Trail of Ice Age Floods” with Bruce Bjornstad that describes the flood history of the northern flood routes of the Missoula Floods. In addition, he authored/co-authored the book “Washington Rocks” and several other books. One item in particular is “Tour Guide Interstate 90 East Tour: Seattle to Spokane” (2007). A CD narration of the people and places as defined by the title. Of the 51 tracks, Dr. Kiver narrates 4 on the Geology of I-90. The Chapter webmaster has ordered it and will update this post after listening to the recording. I bring this up as many of our lectures are about or by people who explored or are exploring the geography of the Ice Age Floods. Look on Amazon under “Eugene Kiver” for this and other books.