Spokane’s New Ice Age Floods Themed Riverfront Park
Spokane Parks and Rec is building a new Ice Age Floods themed feature in their Riverfront Park. This video gives an exciting overview of what they’re building. Kudos to Spokane for recognizing and integrating the Ice Age Floods that sculpted much of what the city is build upon.
‘Nick From Home’ Returns this Fall
CWU’s Nick Zentner announces the return of his ‘Nick From Home’ livestreams from Ellensburg, Washington, USA. He will be livestreaming every Wednesday evening at 6:00 PM (PDT) and Sunday morning at 9:00 AM (PDT) from his backyard beginning Wednesday, Sept. 9. The focus will be more centered on exotic terranes of the PacNW in contrast to his Spring series which were all over the place. Watch the announcement on YouTube. Get plugged in to Nick again, and get a tour of his garden.
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.
‘Great American Outdoors Act’ Signed into Law
Today, the Great American Outdoors Act was signed into law. This landmark legislation protects our cherished public lands for the long haul by securing full permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and investing billions of dollars to fund long-overdue maintenance projects on public lands across the country. The Great American Outdoors Act secures full LWCF funding. This $900 million per year is not from taxpayers, but rather from offshore oil and gas royalties. Corporate entities that have benefited from the wealth of our lands will now bear the cost of preserving them. The Great American Outdoors Act is a boon for the economy as well as the environment. Outdoor recreation in the U.S. is an $887 billion industry that supports millions of jobs throughout the country, including 200,000 in Washington state. By funding billions of dollars in backlogged maintenance projects, this legislation will bring an estimated $250 million to Washington State in the next five years alone. Thanks to the Great American Outdoors Act, we will have the resources to maintain and conserve places like Mount Rainier National Park and Olympic National Park for years to come — all while supporting a vital sector of the economy and providing local jobs that can’t be outsourced. Excerpted from a Senator Maria Cantwell email
Kennewick Man – Today in History
Kennewick Man is the name generally given to the skeletal remains of a prehistoric Paleoamerican man found on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, on July 28, 1996. Two young men discovered the skull of Kennewick Man when they stepped on something that looks like a large rock. They had stumbled upon a human skull while wading in the shallows along the Columbia River. They gave the skull to police, They called the police. The police brought in the Benton County coroner, Floyd Johnson, who was puzzled by the skull, and he in turn contacted James Chatters, a local archaeologist. Chatters and the coroner returned to the site and, in the dying light of evening a skeleton was found scattered nearby, complete with a stone spear point driven into the hip. They plucked almost an entire skeleton from the mud and sand. It is one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found and anthropologists determined it was at least 9,200 years old. It was the oldest nearly complete skeleton found in North America, but the discovery was more than a thrilling moment for archaeologists. The find kicked off a long-running scientific and cultural controversy.— and it sparked a legal battle that lasted more than two decades. Get more of the story at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/kennewick-man-finally-freed-share-his-secrets-180952462/
”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.
Check with the Experts at Our New “Geology Corner”
Do you have a geology question? We might have an answer! Do you have a geologic fact to share? We have a way to do that! Members who want to do a short article, or describe a field trip location of interest, or describe some geologic problem or site, can use our online form to submit a question or write-up to our technical committee for an answer or review before we post it on our Geology Corner page.
IAFI Covid-Focus: On-line Meetings and Presentations
On June 20th the IAFI Board of Directors had an on-line meeting to plan our activities for the remainder of this year. With the Covid-19 infection rate increasing in many areas because of the easing of restrictions, it seems prudent to focus most of our activities on on-line meetings and presentations. This way we continue to provide educational programs while protecting the health of our members. Several chapters are taking different approaches to maintain some degree of member activities during this period, including: Conducting Zoom meetings for chapter members Conducting Zoom presentations by invited speakers for chapter members and the general public Leading “car caravan” field trips Recording and sharing “virtual” field trips Emailing ‘Photo of the Week’ to chapter members Partnering with other institutions and groups for educational programs Installing signs and markers and sharing news announcements with members Highway clean-up as a chapter activity while maintaining social distancing Watch for notices from chapters and on this website as events are scheduled. We look forward to the time we can resume more in-person activities.