New Interpretations of Old Strandlines

Montana Natural History Center 120 Hickory Street, Missoula, MT

It’s that time of the year! Time to contemplate ice ages and glacial lakes. Time for the Glacial Lake Missoula Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute’s Cabin Fever Lecture!  Warm up your curiosity about those iconic strandlines we can see from town with a lecture from renowned geologist James W. Sears. New “LiDAR ” mapping techniques may imply that the famous Lake Missoula strandlines on Mount Sentinel and Mount Jumbo record only one draining of the ice-age lake. The draining coincided with massive erosion at the bottom of the lake, but passive lowering of lake level at the top, marked by short-term strandlines cut a few inches into thin colluvial soil on the mountainsides. About the Instructor: Dr. James W. Sears received his PhD from Queen’s University, Canada, in 1979, and has taught at the University of Montana since 1982. This is a live event that will not be recorded or streamed.

Google Earth & the Field Notes of Bretz & Pardee

North Spokane Library 44 E Hawthorne Rd, Spokane, WA

Join Glenn Cruickshank as he shares a look at 16 years of J Harlen Bretz’s field notes about the historic ice age floods and 30 years of Joseph Pardee’s USGS field notes, now publicly available for the first time in 100 years and visible through Google Earth. This presentation will introduce you to a large and growing collection of historic notes by early ice age floods investigators, but if you can't make the presentation you can explore much of the material on Nick Zentner's CWU webpage. Presentation will be by Glenn Cruickshank, Vice President, Cheney-Spokane Chapter, IAFI, Liberty Lake Presented in partnership with Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI) (Registration required on SCLD website. Registration opens at 6:00 PM Wednesday, January 15, 2025.)

Terroir and the floods

(12Dec24) Scott Burns is back in March to talk about the impact the Ice Age Floods had on vinticulture in the Pacific Northwset.  Join us as Scott explains how the Floods influenced the regional properties of Northwest soils and ultimately made the Pacific Northwest one of the prime wine producing regions in the United States. The "virtual wine tasting" will happen at our chapter meeting 04Mar2025 at 7:00pm at Bellevue College, Building B ,ROOM 104.  This lecture will be in-person and livecast on Zoom. Click on Zoom link:   https://us02web.Zoom.us/j/82985244730 Bellevue College, Bldg B Rm 104

Mapping the Pacific Northwest’s Glacial Legacy

Cheney Community Library 610 1st St, Cheney, WA

Enhanced LIDAR images (WA-DNR) Glaciers have shaped much of the Pacific Northwest’s landscape over the past 15,000 years. The Cordilleran ice sheet, repeated ice age floods, and expansive alpine glaciation have left their distinctive fingerprints on the topography of our region. Geologists and cartographers have been mapping and interpreting glacial landforms since the late 19th century. In the past decade, the Washington Geological Survey has created new maps that build upon this rich cartographic history by fusing older datasets and techniques with modern insights and technology, such as lidar. Using both historical and modern maps, this presentation by Daniel Coe, Washington Geologic Survey, Seattle, will be a visual journey through the Pacific Northwest’s glacial past and present. Presented in partnership with Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI) Registration required on SCLD website. Registration opens at 6:30 PM Tuesday, March 18, 2025.)

How the Ice Age Floods Changed the Course of the Palouse River

Moran Prairie Library 6004 S Regal St, Spokane, WA

Palouse Falls - Photo Glenn Traver Before the Ice Age Floods, the Palouse River would have flowed through present day Washtucna, Kahlotus, Connell, Mesa, and Eltopia before entering the Columbia River near the Pasco Airport. Today, it takes a fifty-mile shortcut to the Snake River at Lyons Ferry via the Palouse Canyon and Palouse Falls. In this presentation by Lloyd Stoess, President, Palouse Falls Chapter, IAFI, we look at the two factors that caused this dramatic shift—either one by itself would not have been enough. To examine when this happened, we look at some possibilities and clues recently discovered by scientists. Presented in partnership with Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI) (Registration required on SCLD website. Registration opens at 6:30 PM Monday, March 31, 2025.)

1.5 Million Years of Climate Data from the Antarctic Drilling Project

(05Dec2024) The Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), where the Pleistocene glacial cycles changed from 41 to ∼100 kyr periodicity, is one of the most intriguing unsolved issues in the field of paleoclimatology. Jerry McManus is an AGU Fellow who is Chair of Columbia University's Environmental School. He spent time in Antarctica as part in a European-led consortium project to drill down an existing drill hole to punch back another half-million years of climate data from ice in the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The goal of the project was to get a continuous ice record reaching back past the Mid Pleistocene Transition (MPT) to get a better perspective on the short cycle into the long cycle transition. At our May meeting, Jerry will present an early glimpse on what the team discovered.  The May 05 meeting will be held in Bellevue College, Room B104.  The program begins at 7:00 PM.

How Do They Know? Major Findings About the Ice Age Floods

Spokane Valley Library 22 N Herald Rd, A, Spokane Valley, W, WA, United States

  Maps Have you ever been watching a science program and wondered “How do they know that?” Dr. Gary L. Ford, President, IAFI, will briefly discuss the how and who “figured it out” regarding aspects of the Ice Age Floods, looking at five questions. These include: how we know there was a huge glacial lake in western Montana thousands of years ago, how we know it drained rapidly perhaps a hundred times, about how many floods there were and when they occurred, where the floodwater came from, and about how long it took the floodwater to get to the ocean. We also go over which answers to these questions are still being debated by researchers. Presented in partnership with Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI)