Sharing the Fascinating Ice Age Floods Story Since 1995
This presentation by Lloyd Stoess will delve into ten of the causes of ice ages and climate change including the answer to how many ice ages have occurred. It will also look at big earth hazards here in the Pacific Northwest that have occurred in the past and if they should be of concern today.
Joseph T. Pardee Bill Burgel will be speaking on the career and contributions of Joseph Pardee to our understanding of the Ice Age Floods. Joseph T. Pardee was a USGS Field Geologist who, for 32 years (1910-1941), focused on a variety of geologic issues throughout the country. His geologic acumen was vigorously sought after by nearly every department within the USGS. Pardee is most widely known for quipping that “he knew where Bretz’ water was.” As retirement approached, Pardee used his intense observational skills and his incredible patience to finally devote himself to his secret love of Glacial Lake Missoula (GLM)when he published his “Unusual Currents.” It made clear that GLM drained catastrophically fast and flowed at incredible speeds. He thus provided a possible source for the catastrophic flood that Bretz had been postulating. Doors will open at 3:30 pm with the presentations beginning at 4:00pm. This event will offer an opportunity to browse and purchase such Ice Age Floods items as books, maps, posters and baseball caps. All purchases must be with cash or check only please. Bill Burgel, Professional Geologist Registered in Oregon and Idaho, retired in 2015 after a successful 45-year career in the railroad industry. He worked for several railroads nationwide in both the engineering and operating departments. While working for the railroad, his interest and training in geology was often called upon to resolve landslide issues and rerouting studies, implement early earthquake warning strategies, and conduct numerous long railroad tunnel analyses. Bill has given numerous presentations on rail issues as well as earthquake preparedness and topics pertaining to regional geology to local audiences throughout the Pacific Northwest and on cruise ships.
This event is open to the public, but only IAFI Cheney-Spokane members can vote during the member meeting. It will be held at the beautiful new Doris Morrison Learning Center at 1330 S. Henry Road. Exit the freeway south on Barker Road, turn left at the roundabout at Sprague Road, then right at the three-way junction on Henry Road. Saltese Uplands Conservation Area hike: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM (Note: A completed liability form is required for this 3-mile hike. It is of moderate difficulty and consists of a dirt and rock trail with switchbacks, spanning about 700 vertical feet. Bring your own snacks & drinks, good hiking shoes, and dress appropriately for mid October weather conditions. Lunch is not provided. Meet the hike leader at the Saltese Flats Wetland trailhead at 11 AM.) Member meeting: 2:00-3:00 PM Speaker: USGS Geologist Jim O'Connor (beginning after the Member meeting) "A Century of Discovery: 102 Years of Studying the Ice Age Spokane Flood" Synopsis: For more than a century, geologists have investigated the massive Ice Age floods that swept through Spokane, reshaping the region’s terrain and sparking global scientific interest. USGS Geologist Jim O'Connor will review some of the discoveries made in our understanding of these cataclysmic events—from their origins and pathways to the dramatic landforms they left behind. He will also highlight some of the enduring questions that continue to drive new research, revealing how much there is still to learn about one of North America's most extraordinary geological phenomena. Note: At present, we have three openings on our chapter board. Our board meets the third Tuesday of each month from 3-5 PM at the Wren-Pierson Building in Cheney. Interested? Members with expertise in accounting or K-12 education or medical experience or any other expertise that would aid our chapter's mission should send a very brief vita to Dr. Linda McCollum, President, IAFI Cheney-Spokane Chapter, lmccollum@ewu.edu Please use the button below to sign up for the event and optional hike. Your registration helps us plan more smoothly and ensure a great experience for everyone.
Stephen Angster, +one Our speaker, Steven Angster, scheduled for October 11th is going to have to be rescheduled as he is a federal employee with the USGS and is not allowed to do any work related activities during the shutdown. We are tentatively looking at a new date in late June of 2026. We are still working on the details of that. Stephen Angster, a research scientist at the Seattle Field Office of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Science Center, focuses on characterizing and integrating upper-plate fault source parameters for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis in the Pacific Northwest. He employs a multidisciplinary approach—emphasizing paleoseismic trenching as a tool alongside geophysical and geological investigations—to better understand the spatial and temporal patterns of prehistoric large earthquakes. Doors will open at 3:30 pm with the presentations beginning at 4:00pm. This event will offer an opportunity to browse and purchase such Ice Age Floods items as books, maps, posters and baseball caps. All purchases must be with cash or check only please. Steve currently leads active research projects on both sides of the Cascades. On the west side, he has identified new fault scarps along the Seattle fault zone and the Canyon River fault. East of the Cascades, his work focuses on constraining the nature and extent of back-arc deformation. Understanding strain accommodation across the Kittitas Valley is a key component to that research. He will present new data from studying several strands of a fault trace that spans many kilometers of the northern Kittitas Valley. Stephen holds a B.S. from Western Illinois University, an M.S. from the Colorado School of Mines, and a Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Building new roads, and connecting roads, was difficult and expensive. No entity wanted to do that. Not the Federal government, nor the states, not the counties. They got pushed into road-building. What happened?
We have always assumed that the Columbia River and its tributaries have been the same for many millions of years. The Earth is constantly fooling us like that. In reality most river systems are dynamic, and the Columbia River is no exception. We will explore how it has changed over the past 16 million years. We’ll see how in earlier times locations such as like Yakima, Prosser and Benton City would have been on the Columbia River, while the Tri-Cities would have been left high and dry. The Columbia River system is one of the great river systems of North America, draining much of the Pacific Northwest, as well as parts of the western United States and British Columbia. The river system has had a long and complex history, slowly evolving over the past 17MY The Columbia River and its tributaries have been shaped by flood basalt volcanism, Cascade volcanism, regional tectonism, and finally outburst floods from Glacial Lake Missoula. The most complex part of river development has been in the northern part, the Columbia Basin, where the Columbia River and its tributaries were controlled by a subsiding Columbia Basin with subtle anticlinal ridges and synclinal valleys superimposed on a flood basalt landscape. After negotiating this landscape, the course to the Pacific Ocean led through the Cascade Range via the Columbia Trans-Arc Lowland, an ancient crustal weakness zone that separates Washington and Oregon. The peak of flood basalt volcanism obliterated the river paths, but as flood basalt volcanism waned, the rivers were able to establish courses within the growing fold belt. As the folds grew larger, the major pathways of the rivers moved toward the center of the Columbia Basin where subsidence was greatest. The finishing touches to the river system, however, were added during the Pleistocene by the Missoula floods, which caused local repositioning of river channels.
Dr. Jeff Tepper The Cascade volcanic chain, the world’s youngest continental arc, was “born” shortly after accretion of the Siletzia oceanic terrane ~50 My ago. That collision, which led to formation of the Olympics, terminated the earlier subduction system and caused a portion of the subducting Farallon slab to break off. When Cascade magmatism began less than 5 My later, there was a new trench located outboard of Siletzia. In this talk I will present a new model, based on petrology, geochronology, plate motion reconstructions, and mantle tomography, that explains how subduction was initiated so quickly and in a setting where the slab was young and hot and in theory too buoyant to subduct.
The unique landscape of the Channeled Scablands was a mystery that baffled the first geologists who visited them over 100 years ago. Finding clues, they unraveled the mystery that was unbelievable to their colleagues. After more than two decades of discovering more clues, the theory that enormous floods had carved the scabland was finally accepted by most of the scientific community. Lloyd Stoess, President of the Palouse Falls Chapter, will take you on a journey following these two early detectives and the clues they found as well as what today's detectives and the modern tools they are using to better understand our incredible landscape.
The Bonneville Flood was one of the largest floods on Earth. First discovered by G.K. Gilbert in the 1870s during his inspection of the outlet at Red Rock Pass, Idaho, it was rediscovered in the 1950s by Harold Malde and coworkers, leading to mapping and assessment of spectacular flood features along Marsh Creek, Portneuf River, and Snake River for over 1100 kilometers between the outlet and Lewiston, Idaho. The cataclysmic flood - from the rapid 115-meter drop of pluvial Lake Bonneville from the Bonneville level to the Provo level - was nearly 200 meters deep in places and flowed at a maximum rate of about 1 million cubic meters per second — about 100 times greater than any historical Snake River flood. Along its route the Bonneville Flood carved canyons and cataract complexes and built massive boulder bars. These flood features have been a rich source for understanding megaflood processes. Yet it still offers much more with new and developing techniques for hydrodynamic modeling and landscape analysis.
Dr. Gary Ford, president of the Ice Age Floods Institute, will provide an introductory presentation of the Missoula Floods and reveal ho repeated, cataclysmic floods during the last Ice Age carved a dramatic landscape through much of the Pacific Northwest. Event: IAFI Lake Lewis January Member Meeting and Guest Lecture “An Introduction to the Missoula Floods” By Gary Ford Date: January 6, 2026 Time: Members Meeting: 6:30PM-7:00PM, Lecture: 7:00PM - 8:00PM (PST) Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87852702318?pwd=Ye0a71u5MbQUtry9qp6u2qSw79dqIa.1 Meeting ID: 878 5270 2318 Passcode: 634508