Sharing the Fascinating Ice Age Floods Story Since 1995
The Okanogan Lobe landscape was studied early in the last century by well-known geologists J Harlan Bretz, Richard Foster Flint, and Aaron C. Waters. How the ice sheet shaped the landscape underneath it was a source of controversy back then, and remains a subject of scientific debate today.
This lecture has been cancelled for now. Terroir of Oregon Wines - the relationship of geology and climate to wine tastes - presentation by Dr. Scott Burns - Lower Columbia Chapter: In-Person Meeting The Willamette Valley is famous for having different flavors of Pinot Noir wines based on their soils. Dr. Burns will discuss what terroir of wine is and how geology and climate affects the flavors of the wines. He will also compare the terroirs of Oregon and Washington wine growing areas. We will sip some different wines at the end to show how the flavors differ. Join us for this joint Lower Columbia Chapter/Baker Cabin Historical Society Meeting at Pioneer Church, Oregon City, on Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 7:00 PM PST. The meeting will begin with Dr. Burn's presentation at 7:00PM. At the end, Dr. Burns will present some different wines to sip showing how the flavors differ. Limited seating. Must be 21+ to sip. Directions: I-205 Exit 10 Hwy 213S, Rt on Washington St, to round-about: take 2nd exit onto Clackamas River Rd, 5.7 mi to rt on S Hattan Rd. Go up hill 1 long block to top. See Pioneer Ch from corner. Rt. on S Gronlund Rd to 1st driveway: Church parking lot. ADA accessible. For add'l parking, take main entrance road at str. corner to the Baker Cabin parking lot. Dr. Scott Burns is Professor Emeritus of Engineering Geology at Portland State University, Past President of IAEG (International Association of Engineering Geologist and the Environment), and Co-author of revised second edition: “Cataclysms on the Columbia.”
Bill Burgel will lead you on a 45 minute long travelogue - starting in the Columbia River Gorge and ending south of Tualatin - of all the amazing geology produced by the Missoula Floods. Did you know one of the largest scour pits formed by the floods is right here in Portland? And, why Rockwood got its name? This Travelogue will be available should you want to visit each of these sights. Bill Burgel - "Where to See Evidence of the Missoula Floods in the Greater Portland Area" Thursday, November 16, 2023. In Person 6:45PM PST at Tualatin Heritage Center, 8700 SW Sweek Drive, Tualatin, OR 97062 ALSO Simultaneous Live ZOOM from THC if you cannot attend the in-person THC meeting yourself. Click here to join zoom meeting Meeting ID: 824 3786 3054 Passcode: 487685. Bill Burgel Bill Burgel Bio Bill Burgel retired from the railroad industry after a successful forty year career. He worked for several railroads in the engineering and operating departments. His work for Union Pacific encompassed the design of the first computer-aided dispatching office in the nation. This office was located in Portland and Bill was the Regional Chief Dispatcher for several years before the office was moved to Omaha. After retiring from the railroad in 1989, he assisted the Surface Transportation Board as their rail operations manager for two major mergers, once in Washington DC and the second time in Chicago. Bill has managed many rail studies for both Oregon and Washington DOTs as well as for TriMet and Sound Transit in Seattle. 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 including Geologic Society of the Oregon Country, University of Oregon, Portland State University, Central Oregon Geologic Society, Ice Age Floods Institute - several chapters, plus many other groups. Bill is a graduate of The University Michigan: BS in Engineering. At Idaho State University, he earned MS Degree in Structural Geology. Bill is a member of the IAFI Lower Columbia Chapter and its Board of Directors. This is our last regular meeting in 2023. We will not meet in December since our regular meetings on the third Thursday of each month is so close to the Christmas Holiday. Thank you all for your support and attendance at Lower Columbia Chapter/IAFI programs and events as we enter our 20th consecutive year in 2024. Best wishes for a very happy holiday season.
The Wenatchee Valley Erratics Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute’s next program will be Tuesday, December 12 at 7:00 PM. This is a hybrid program, with the speakers presenting remotely via Zoom from Seattle. For those who are not computer- or Zoom-savvy, you can attend in-person for a screening at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center, 127 S. Mission, Wenatchee. Or at home via Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84520197937 Webinar ID: 845 2019 7937 In Washington, you are never far from the past, including evidence of plants and animals that came before. Fossil flowers in Republic. Trilobites near the Idaho border. Primitive horses on the Columbia Plateau. Tracks of giant birds near Bellingham. Curious bear-like creatures on the Olympic Peninsula. With abundant and well-exposed rock layers, Washington has fossils dating from Ice Age mammals from only 12,000 years ago, to marine invertebrates more than 500 million years old. Join co-authors Dr. Liz Nesbitt and David B. Williams as they discuss this rich array of past life, which is featured in their new book, "Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils in Washington State"— the first book ever on fossils in the state! Why did they choose the fossils they did? What is the new science that has allowed paleontologists to tease out the 500-million-year long story of life in this region? Liz Nesbitt is curator emerita of invertebrate and micropaleontology at the Burke Museum. David B. Williams is an author, naturalist, tour guide, and Curatorial Associate at the Burke Museum. Please sign in, or show up, at 7:00 PM, December 12! The program is free and open to the public.
On 08Jan2024 the Puget Lobe Chapter has Guest Lecturer Dr. Vic Baker presents "Ice Age Floods Around the World". This presentation will be a "Zoom" (URL https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82985244730. And in-person at Bellevue College Bldg R, Rm R103. see map in separate post. There are approximately 24 mega-floods referenced on the maps, of which, #4 is probably the Missoula Floods and outwash from the "Atwater"(#9) and Lake Bonneville (#5) outburst floods. (index unavailable) Known ice-age mega-floods (red arrows and numbers) for the northern hemisphere (polar view). Blue areasindicate the extent of glacial ice and purple areas show mega-lakes at the time of the ice-age flooding.
The Wenatchee Valley Erratics Chapter’s next program will be Tuesday, February 13 at 7:00 PM. Our speaker will present live at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center, 127 S. Mission, Wenatchee. There is also a Zoom link so one can watch remotely: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84520197937 Webinar ID: 845 2019 7937. Joseph T. Pardee Bill Burgel is coming up from Portland to tell us about “Joseph T. Pardee and Glacial Lake Missoula.” Pardee was a USGS Field Geologist whose expertise was in Western Montana, where he was raised and worked for years. He was the first to recognize, around 1910, the features of a vast, ancient Glacial Lake Missoula. In the 1920s, working independently of Pardee, Harlan Bretz had determined from field evidence, that only an extraordinarily huge flood, or floods, could have carved out the Channeled Scablands and the big coulees associated with them in eastern and central Washington. But he didn’t know the source of the water. Pardee quipped that he “knew the source of Bretz’ water.” In 1925, he suggested to Bretz that the draining of a glacial lake could account for the magnitude of water flows needed to create the Scablands and coulees. The program is free, and open to the public. ---- Bill Burgel worked in the railroad industry for 40 years, in engineering and operations. With his background and training in geology, he was often called upon to resolve landslide issues and rerouting studies, earthquake warning strategies, and to conduct long tunnel analyses. Contact information: Brent Cunderla - Erratics Chapter President cunderla@nwi.net (509) 860-6067 Susan D. Freiberg - Erratics Chapter Publicity wenvalerratics@yahoo.com
In this overview, learn about the history of the Channeled Scablands. We look back to around 20,000 years ago at the end of the last glacial maximum and at the formation of two huge, glacially dammed, meltwater glacial lakes—Missoula and Columbia. We explore the subsequent failures of the Lake Missoula ice dam, which resulted in a series of megafloods that occurred between 18,000 and 14,000 years ago. Then, we discuss the geologic and hydrologic factors that control lake formations from the Medical Lake area to Fish Lake. Presented by Dr. Linda McCollum, professor emeritus of geosciences at EWU and of the Ice Age Floods Institute