Lower Columbia

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.”

Dust in the Cockpit: Volcanic Ash Aviation Hazards - The 50-Year Effort to Mitigate Them
The 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption was a watershed moment in our understanding of volcanic eruptions and their hazards. Among the lesser-known events during that summer was the first documented case of in-flight engine damage from volcanic ash on May 25,1980. Two years later, a 747 nearly crashed in Indonesia when it flew into an ash cloud from Galunggung Volcano and lost power to all four engines. A similar event in December, 1989 at Redoubt Volcano, Alaska finally convinced meteorologists, air traffic regulators, and volcanologists that we need a global infrastructure to detect volcanic ash clouds and communicate their trajectory to aviators.

Thes relatively recent understanding of Ancient Mars was partly achieved because of geological studies of the ice age floods that created the Channeled Scablands landscape of eastern Washington. This talk will focus on some of Dr. Baker's personal experiences with the relevant geological investigations and discoveries of the past 55 years.

"Paleontology Panel" - The Willamette Valley Pleistocene Project - The river & landlocked search for Ice Age Fossils with Mike Full & Dave Ellingson, Moderator: Yvonne Saarinen Addington Thursday, September 26, 2024, Presentation 6:30-7:30PM Simultaneous/ZOOM presentation from the Tualatin Public Library, 18878 SW Martinazzi Avenue, Tualatin, OR 97062 Note: We must Depart Tualatin Public Library by 8PM Sharp!!! If you cannot attend in person, join us online. Click here to join zoom meeting Meeting ID: 869 4651 3479 Passcode: 322382 The Willamette Valley, at the time of the Ice Age Floods 18K-15K years ago, was backwater many times for massive floodwaters raging through the Columbia River Gorge to the Pacific Ocean. It became known as Temporary Lake Allison for the Geologist who first studied the Willamette Valley as a lake. The Willamette Valley Pleistocene Project explores the late Pleistocene and early Holocene of the Willamette Valley in Northwest Oregon. Comprised of local volunteers and resources, avocational paleontologists, land owners, and local government working alongside trained professionals and museum staff, the goal is to discover, study and preserve our prehistoric past. Mike, Dave and Yvonne are all members of this project. Every fossil is collected according to scientific standards, documented, stabilized and curated into a database open to the public. The entire collection is destined to stay within the public domain and will ultimately be donated to an appropriate educational institution. Mike Full David Ellingson Mike Full is a retired Police Officer and native Oregonian with a life long fascination of fossils and prehistoric life. Each summer finds him searching rivers in the Willamette Valley for fossils. He is accompanied by friends, students. volunteers and researchers. His fossil collection includes mammoth, mastodon, giant ground sloth, bison, horse, elk, camel, deer, giant beaver & wolf. David Ellingson, a biologist and paleontologist, teaches Paleontology at Woodburn High School. Here he has a dig going many years (25) for megafauna and fauna fossil bones which involves his students in summer months. Yvonne Addington Yvonne Addington is a native Oregonian. She has lived in Tualatin most of her life. In her public service career, she has worked for five Oregon Governors. She is Tualatin's first City Manager and had a role in the formation of the City. She also served for years as Municipal Judge. Her main interest has been preserving the history of the area, particularly fossil bones and erratic rocks of the Ice Age Floods. She's a member of the Tualatin/Willamette Ice Age Foundation. Yvonne is a Board Member of Willamette Falls Heritage Area Coalition representing LCC/ IAFI where she's on the Lower Columbia Chapter Board of Directors. Tualatin Mastodon She rediscovered the bones of the Tualatin Mastodon at Portland State University, which she then gave to the City of Tualatin where they are now on display on the Library's glass wall (see photo). The Mastodon bones were found and originally dug by PSU student John George near the creek South of Tualatin's Fred Meyer store.  

Bill Burgel In a field of geological investigation first identified and then pioneered by J Harlen Bretz, JT Pardee and Vic Baker, Mega-Floods have been recognized throughout the world and on the planet Mars. These catastrophic floods are quite capable of sculpting the landscape wherever they occur with disastrous consequences. Can they happen today? What are some notable historic examples? Is Noah's Flood one of these events? How are they different from Mega-Tsunamis that are also found around the globe? Bill will answer these questions and more at the October 24th meeting of the Lower Columbia Chapter of the Ice Age Institute. Thursday, October 24, 2024, In Person 6:45PM PDT at the Tualatin Heritage Center, 8700 SW Sweek Drive, Tualatin, OR 97062 ALSO Simultaneous Live ZOOM from THC if you cannot attend the THC meeting in-person. Click for Zoom meeting, Meeting ID: 869 4651 3479 Passcode: 322382. For more information contact: LowerColumbia@iafi.org