WSU Field Trips with Last & Reidel
Explore several interesting geologic and floods features in 6 self-guided field trips prepared by Steven Reidel and George Last for classes at Washington State University. Explore several other self-guided field trip guides in our collection.
IAF-National Geologic Trail Program Manager Selected
The National Park Service has selected Justin Radford as the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail’s new Program Manager, the Trail’s first permanent full-time staff member. Mr. Radford follows in the footsteps of many who have worked tirelessly to bring Ice Age Flood National Geologic Trail into existence. He will be duty stationed in Coulee Dam, Washington and will also join the Management Team of Lake Roosevelt NRA. “Traveling the region is an experience of geologic power and grace. It is an honor to be selected to help ensure all our visitors have a chance to connect with the special places along Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail,” said Mr. Radford. ” I am looking forward to working with our partners to help every visitor be as excited about the Trail as I am.” “Justin brings a wealth of experience in planning and developing visitor services to Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail,” said Superintendent Dan Foster. “His depth of experience, along with a dedication to providing quality visitor opportunities, make him a great fit for this position.” Justin has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Colorado, Boulder and over 23 years of previous public service most recently as the Executive Officer for Overseas Operations at the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). Prior to his work with ABMC he spent 17 years with the National Park Service’s Harpers Ferry Center for Media Development as a project manager, supervisor and program coordinator for the development of visitor centers and interpretive media across the United States. While with the NPS Mr. Radford helped to create several new national park sites including Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail and Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. His expertise in visitor experience development, project management and stakeholder coordination make him uniquely suited to the future needs of Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail. Ice Age Floods Institute is thrilled to have such a talented and dynamic leader of the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail as a partner in sharing the story of the incredible Ice Age Floods.
Best Time And Place to Live in The Milky Way Is Not Here
An interesting article about the cosmic dangers to life that many may not be aware of: More and more, it seems that the existence and persistence of life on Earth is the result of sheer luck. According to a new analysis of the history of the Milky Way, the best time and place for the emergence of life isn’t here, or now, but over 6 billion years ago on the galaxy’s outskirts. That specific location in space and time would have afforded a habitable world the best protection against the gamma-ray bursts and supernovae that blasted space with deadly radiation. As of about 4 billion years ago, the central regions of the galaxy (which include the Solar System) became safer than the outskirts – safe enough for life to emerge, if not quite as safe as the outskirts had been. Read more at https://www.sciencealert.com/when-was-the-best-time-and-place-to-live-in-the-milky-way-not-where-we-are-apparently
NASA Perplexed by Strange Geological Stripes Appearing in Russia
Near the Markha River in Arctic Siberia, the earth ripples in ways that scientists don’t fully understand. Earlier this week, NASA researchers posted a series of satellite images of the peculiar wrinkled landscape to the agency’s Earth Observatory website. Taken with the Landsat 8 satellite over several years, the photos show the land on both sides of the Markha River rippling with alternating dark and light stripes. The puzzling effect is visible in all four seasons, but it is most pronounced in winter, when white snow makes the contrasting pattern even more stark. Read more at Science Alert: https://www.sciencealert.com/unusual-topographical-stripes-revealed-by-satellites-images-of-russia-have-perplexed-nasa
Looking for Ice Age Floods Video Viewing?
We’ve got you covered. Ice Age Floods Institute’s YouTube Channel includes a growing Playlist of Floods-related videos, including many presentations made at chapter meetings by renowned Floods experts and researchers. Whether you’re looking for short explanations of specific Ice Age Floods features, or for longer overviews and in-depth scientific treatments of Floods and other features, you’ll probably find something of interest in these videos. And the list continues to grow, especially as so many presentations are being made and recorded in virtual space. Be sure to Subscribe and check back regularly as the list of videos has lately been growing rapidly.
Dust From Asteroid That Ended Dinosaur Reign Closes Case on Impact Extinction Theory
Having dominated the planet’s surface for hundreds of millions of years, dinosaur diversity came to a dramatic conclusion some 66 million years ago at the hot end of an asteroid impact with what is today Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. It’s a theory so swollen with data that it’s hard to imagine any room for doubt remains that this is indeed what happened. Were it a cold case, it’d be rubber-stamped and filed under ‘Solved’ by now. But scientists are a nitpicky bunch, and a tiny gap in the chain of evidence linking signs of a global apocalypse with the scene of the crime has been begging to be closed. An international team of researchers collaborating on a study of material from the Yucatán Peninsula’s famous Chicxulub impact crater has finally matched the chemical signature of meteoritic dust within its rock with that of the geological boundary representing the dinosaur extinction event. It appears to be a clear sign that the thin blanket of dust deposited on Earth’s crust 66 million years ago originated from an impact event at this very spot. Read more at https://www.sciencealert.com/remains-of-the-asteroid-that-ended-dinosaur-reign-closes-case-on-impact-theory
Million-Year-Old DNA Rewrites the Mammoth Family Tree
Genomic data — the oldest ever recovered from a fossil — reveals the origin and evolution of the Columbian mammoth. Imagine an elephant, but significantly taller and heavier and with longer tusks. That’s the Columbian mammoth, an imposing animal that roamed much of North America during the most recent ice age. When it comes to the mammoth family tree, it has long been believed that the Columbian mammoth evolved earlier than the smaller, shaggier woolly mammoth. But now, using DNA that is more than a million years old — the oldest ever recovered from a fossil — researchers have turned that assumption on its head: They found that the Columbian mammoth is in fact a hybrid of the woolly mammoth and a previously unrecognized mammoth lineage. These results were published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. Mammoths are depicted in many cave paintings, a reflection of their importance as a source of food, skin and bone during the Pleistocene. During the last ice age, humans living in what is today the United States would have primarily encountered the Columbian mammoth, said Love Dalen, a paleogeneticist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm. “It’s an iconic species of the last ice age,” he said. Fossilized remains of mammoths, particularly those preserved in exquisite detail, can shed light on how these animals lived and died. But analyzing an ancient creature’s genetic code — by recovering its DNA and reassembling it into a genome — opens up vast new research possibilities, said David Díez-del-Molino, another paleogeneticist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics. “You can track the origin of species.” A team of researchers, including Dr. Dalen and Dr. Díez-del-Molino, recently set out to do just that using three mammoth molars unearthed in northeastern Siberia. These teeth are old — about 700,000 years, 1.1 million years and 1.2 million years — and they’re also impressive to look at, Dr. Dalen said. “They’re the size of a carton of milk.” The researchers started by extracting a bit of material from the interior of each tooth with a small dentist’s drill. They then used chemicals and enzymes, followed by a washing protocol, to isolate the DNA in the resulting tooth powder. Most of the DNA they extracted consisted of sequences just a few tens of base pairs long. That is to be expected because the passage of time is tough on DNA molecules. Bacteria and enzymes chop up DNA after an organism dies, and water and cosmic rays continue the degradation process even after a sample is buried in permafrost. What started out as strands millions of base pairs long soon degrade, said Patricia Pecnerova, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen and a researcher on the team. “The DNA is very fragmented,” she said. But before everything can be put back together digitally, it’s necessary to decontaminate each sample, said Tom van der Valk, another team member and a bioinformatician at the Science for Life Laboratory in Stockholm. That’s because DNA from plants, bacteria and humans is wildly adept at sneaking into fossils, he said. “A large fraction of our data doesn’t come from the mammoth.” To weed out interloping DNA, the team compared the sequences with genetic code from an African elephant, a close relative of mammoths. They discarded anything that didn’t match. Furthermore, they threw out sequences that matched the human genome. After removing the non-mammoth DNA, the team was left with between 49 million and 3.7 billion base pairs in each of their three samples. (The mammoth genome is roughly 3.2 billion base pairs, which is slightly larger than the human genome.) The researchers compared their data with African elephant DNA a second time, which allowed them to put all their DNA fragments in the correct order. This mammoth DNA smashes the record for the oldest DNA ever sequenced, which was previously held by a roughly 700,000-year-old horse specimen, said Morten E. Allentoft, an evolutionary biologist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, who was not involved in the research. “It’s the oldest DNA that’s ever been authentically identified,” he said. When the researchers looked at the three genomes they reconstructed, the oldest stood out. “The genome looked weird,” Dr. Dalen said. “I think it’s likely this is a different species.” That was a shock: Researchers have long believed that there was only a single lineage of mammoths in Siberia that gave rise to woolly and Columbian mammoths. This discovery suggests that a previously undiscovered mammoth lineage existed as well. “It’s a huge surprise,” Dr. Dalen said. “It’s completely unexpected from the paleontology that there would be a second lineage.” The team next compared the three genomes with the genetics of the Columbian mammoth, which ambled across much of North America as recently as 12,000 years ago. The goal was to determine how, if at all, these two species were related. They found persuasive evidence that the woolly mammoth and this new unknown lineage crossbred to form the Columbian mammoth, a hybrid species. No one knows where and for how long this new mammoth lineage thrived, Dr. van der Valk said. “It’d be absolutely amazing if we could get a few more samples of this lineage.” There’s also the possibility of reconstructing older and older DNA, Dr. Dalen said. We won’t recreate Jurassic Park, he said, but theoretical models suggest that DNA might survive for up to a few million years. “I don’t think we’re at the limit yet.” Republished from a New York Times article by Katherine Kornei, Feb. 17, 2021
IAFI 2020 YEAR-IN-REVIEW
January 9, 2021 – A report from our president, Gary Ford, to our members and others IAFI AND COVID-19 Like most organizations, this was a year of adjusting our activities to deal, as best we can, with Covid-19. We had a few in-person activities in the early part of the year and then when the pandemic hit, shifted to on-line activities as we learned how to present programs in a very different way. Some of our chapters have made the transition more rapidly than others have. As 2021 progresses, we expect more of our chapters to offer programs on-line. Compared to a normal year, we had very few activities in community social settings, such as county fairs, school programs, working with other organizations, etc. With vaccinations for Covid-19 underway since December, we hope to be able to return to more in-person activities (lectures, field trips, hikes) when it is safe to do so. The safety of our presenters and members is our number one priority! INSTITUTE MEMBERSHIP Our members provide most of our support and much of the reason for the various materials, activities and events we provide. In 1996, we had 11 members. At the end of 2020, we had 667 members (471 memberships) from 19 states and 1 Canadian province. This was a reduction of 56 members and 30 memberships compared to the end of 2019 because of the Covid-19. Some of our members have supported us for many years and continued to do so during the pandemic. We appreciate your loyalty. We hope others will rejoin us soon. We thank all of you for your continued support. INSTITUTE FINANCES The IAFI is a non-profit organization. Our main sources of income are membership dues, donations, profit from field trips and Institute Store sales. For 2020, our total income was $15,352. Our main expenses have usually been twice a year board meetings, contract labor (our membership manager), field trip expenses and liability insurance. For 2020, our total expenses were $11,383. During 2020, we started having our board meetings on-line rather than meeting in-person. Once the pandemic is over, we plan to have one in-person board meeting a year. This will be in the fall and will feature the very popular field trip. At the end of 2020 we have reserves of $29,247 which are used to cover unplanned expenses, printing informational brochures and to pursue new opportunities related to telling the floods story. PROGRAMS FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN THE FLOODS Outreach to inform and educate the public about the Ice Age Floods and their long-lasting impact on our area is a key part of the IAFI mission. Our local chapter programs are possibly the most effective way we meet this challenge. Two of the more important ways we help people learn about the ice age floods are with lectures and field trips. In early 2020, before the pandemic hit, we sponsored 11 lectures attended by 429 people. We also sponsored 1 field trip with 20 attendees and had 1 hike for 23 attendees. After March, our activities were limited to on-line presentations. We had 16 on-line lectures viewed by 1514 people as of mid-December (this includes those viewing after presentation was posted on YouTube). Number of viewers will continue to increase as more people watch them on our YouTube channel. We have also significantly increased our online outreach, typically garnering thousands of views each week through interesting articles and features on our Facebook, website and newsletters. NEW EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS To help people learn about the floods we are continually developing new ways of communicating information to people. Here are some examples from 2020. All of our chapters now have new high quality brochures that highlight some of the floods features in their area. We also have an updated IAFI brochure. In 2020, we began selling packets of these through the Store. Some brochures are available through the chapters. Each chapter continues the work of distributing the brochures. The Institute has begun working with the National Park Service on a series of field guides for floods features. Bruce Bjornstad has submitted his new book to his publisher (Springer-Nature). It is a coffee-table sized book entitled: Ice Age Floodscapes of the Pacific Northwest: A Visual Portrait. It consists of about 180 pages of world-class photographs of ice age floods features from throughout the floods area. It will be an instant classic and we are anxiously waiting its release. We will let you know about this with a post on our website as soon as it is available. Nick Zentner from Central Washington University continues to delight and inform us about the geology of Washington with his internet series Nick on the Rocks and Nick from Home. Lake Lewis – Photo of the Week – Starting April 13, 2020, a photo of the week was sent to all Lake Lewis Chapter members. As of Nov. 29, 2020, 32 photos have been sent. We have received photos from 10-12 different members, and it seems to be something that members enjoy. We plan to continue these efforts for 2021. – Virtual Field Trip of the Month – Thanks to the hard work and generosity of George Last, and Steve Riedel, we have been able to offer a new Virtual Field Trip of the Month feature. George Last and Steve Riedel had put together 8 different virtual field trip guides for their students at WSU-Tri-cities. They were kind enough to share these resources, and we will now be swapping out one photo of the week for a virtual field trip of the month. – Friends of Badger Interpretive Signs – The interpretive signs for Candy Mountain trail are now installed (see accompanying article). We will be working to create interpretive signs for Little Badger, as well as a pamphlet on the ice age floods. Palouse Falls Chapter – Presentations were given in Ralston, Palouse, and St John. Participated in STEAM night at Lacrosse School with an information booth. Led a hike on the upper
Lake Lewis Supports Interpretive Signs on Candy Mountain
The Lake Lewis Chapter has been supporting the Friends of Badger Mountain and the Benton County Parks Department with interpretation kiosks, panels, markers, and signage for the Badger Mountain Centennial Preserve and Candy Mountain Preserve (both Benton County Parks), since their inception in 2005. The latest efforts were to help fund, design and locate three Ice Age floods related interpretive signs along a 1.2-mile interpretive loop trail on Candy Mountain. These signs describe the process and history of Ice Age flooding in this area (Figure 1), and the main line of evidence (erratics) that can be seen along the trail (Figure 2). This was the culmination of a nearly two year effort, that was completed in May 2020. Many thanks to Bruce Bjornstad, George Last and Chris Barnes for their efforts. New interpretive signage is being prepared for installation along Badger Mountain’s Canyon Trail. Efforts are also under way to complete the Little Badger Mountain Preserve, the next stage for a vision of trails connecting four of the Lake Lewis Isles (Little Badger, Badger, Candy, and Red Mountains).
Explore PacNW Geology with Nick Zentner
Nick Zentner, an awesome geology instructor at Central Washington Univ., has kept quite busy since Covid curtailed his in-person lectures and professional video productions with a series of home-made videos exploring a broad range of geologic topics. Each of his engaging “Nick from Home” series last Spring went in-depth for an hour or more into a plethora of topics he briefly covered in his earlier “Nick On The Rocks” and other short videos. This Fall he decided to explore and learn more about the exotic terranes of the Pacific NW in another series of engaging at-home videos. These “Nick at Home” videos are not exactly elaborate productions. They are generally about an hour long and livestreamed with a cell phone to his YouTube channel where the y are recorded as videos and available for others to discover. His ‘aw shucks’ demeanor has garnered fans from around the world, many of whom get online at all hours of their day or night just to watch Nick talk and digress about geology. Do you want to know about Baja BC, how whole blocks of the earth’s crust that originally formed in Mexico found their way to underlie a large part of the Pacific NW? Nick has videos about that. How about how giant mudflows roared down a flank of Mt. Rainier and now underlie much of Tacoma, Washington. Yep, Nick has videos about that too. Or maybe something about gold in the Pacific NW. Well, you get the idea. Nick has just completed 26 videos exploring the ‘Exotic Terranes of the Pacific NW”, one for each letter of our alphabet. These livestream presentations are not rehearsed, Nick just takes his experience from 30+ years of teaching geology to not only teach about the subject, but also to get you wanting to understand and interested in what he is presenting. If you haven’t discovered Nick you’ve got a treat in store. And if you have discovered him, he is always offering something more to whet your geologic appetite. Here’s Nick’s YouTube channel gateway link so you can explore the geologic wonder-world of Nick Zentner. We hope you enjoy it.