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Explore and Discover How Our Amazing Region was Formed!

Field Trips, Presentations and Other Events are designed to educate, entertain and leave you with a sense of “wow” along with providing fascinating information about the Ice Age Floods. 

Upcoming IAFI Events Calendar

Ice Age Floods Institute Events Inspire, Encourage Exploration, Offer Friendship and Involvement

April 2025
Apr 05
Apr 05, 2025
Central Washington University, 400 E University Way
Ellensburg, WA 98926 United States

Margins of the Eastern Cascades:  Western Kittitas Basin—Lower Teanaway—Lower Swauk Loop Topics will include volcanism, tectonics, alpine glaciation, landslides, and stream channel changes in the area between Ellensburg, Cle Elum,

Apr 05
Apr 05, 2025
Fishtrap Lake North Loop, Sprague, WA 99032 United States

The Cheney-Spokane Chapter of the IAFI is scheduling a hike at the north loop trailhead of Fishtrap Lake on Saturday, April 5th. The hike will start at 10:00 a.m. It

Apr 15
Apr 15, 2025
Cheney Community Library, 610 1st St
Cheney, WA 99004

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

Apr 28
Apr 28, 2025
White Salmon Valley Community Library, 77 NE Wauna Ave
White Salmon, WA 98672 United States

Tom Pierson, retired USGS Hydrologist, will present highlights and interactions in a talk about the Geology of the Columbia River Gorge. Tom will talk about how the Columbia River Basalt

Apr 28
Apr 28, 2025
Moran Prairie Library, 6004 S Regal St
Spokane, WA 99223

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

May 2025
May 02
May 02, 2025
Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, 5000 Discovery Dr.
The Dalles, OR 97058 United States

 Celebrating Ice Age Floods Institute's 30th Anniversary The annual IAFI Membership Meeting is coming to the Columbia Gorge this May 2-3, 2025, and all our members and their guests are

May 05
May 05, 2025

(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

May 14
May 14, 2025
Spokane Valley Library, 22 N Herald Rd, A
Spokane Valley, W, WA 99206 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

May 17
May 17, 2025
Palisades Park, 2-198 S Rimrock Dr
Spokane, WA 99224 United States

The 3-mile hike will be led by IAFICS board member geologist Michael Hamilton. It will take place along Rimrock Drive, which has spectacular views of Spokane and the Spokane Valley.

June 2025
Jun 14
Jun 14, 2025
Leahy Junction, Coulee City, WA United States

2025 Ellensburg Ice Age Flood Institute Field Trip - "Northeastern Waterville Plateau". Topics will center around the Okanogan Lobe of the Cordilleran Icesheet and Ice Age floods in a now

Activities

Field Trips and Hikes are led by amateur and professional Geologists with new and amazing information to share. They are fun, exciting and informative outdoor adventures for the entire Family to enjoy!

Visit our Activities Event Calendar below for IAFI Field Trips, Hikes and other activities in your area, and go have a great time!

Upcoming Activities
April 2025
Apr 05
April 05, 2025
Central Washington University, 400 E University Way
Ellensburg, WA 98926 United States
Apr 05
April 05, 2025
Fishtrap Lake North Loop, Sprague, WA 99032 United States
May 2025

Presentations

We offer indoor Presentations, especially popular when heat or cold make outdoor Field Trips too uncertain or uncomfortable. Many Presentations are available via Zoom.

We also offer programs for schools, senior centers and  similar organizations to educate and stimulate minds about the Ice Age Floods.

Upcoming Presentations
April 2025
Apr 15
April 15, 2025
Cheney Community Library, 610 1st St
Cheney, WA 99004
Apr 28
April 28, 2025
White Salmon Valley Community Library, 77 NE Wauna Ave
White Salmon, WA 98672 United States
Apr 28
April 28, 2025
Moran Prairie Library, 6004 S Regal St
Spokane, WA 99223

Other events

Other Events such as meetings, festivals, conventions and gatherings, with various public and private organizations, help us tell the story of the Ice Age Floods, Geology, Wildlife and History.

We often have our ‘Store in a Box‘ at these types of events where people can view and purchase IAFI merchandise.

Other Upcoming events

There is no Event

Relive Past Articles

Castle Lake Basin

Castle Lake fills a plunge-pool at the base of a 300-ft tall cataract at the opposite (east) end of the Great Cataract Group from Dry Falls, above the east end of Deep Lake. A set of steel ladders put in place during the construction of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project

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First People in the Americas – When? How?

When and how did the first people come to the Americas? The conventional story says that the earliest settlers came via Siberia, crossing the now-defunct Bering land bridge on foot and trekking through Canada when an ice-free corridor opened up between massive ice sheets toward the end of the last

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WA Geology Releases Stunning Lidar Images

The Washington Geological Survey (WGS) has released 50 high-resolution lidar-derived images of the State’s geology and geomorphology through the Washington State DNR’s Flickr page. The images are available in 16:9 format (7,200 x 4,050 pixels) and 4:3 format (7,200 x 5,400 pixels). Ten of the images are new (see below)

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Palagonite Maar Near Hood River

Palagonite Maar Just west of Hood River is a distinctive, short (<500 m) section of stratified orangeish oxidized volcanic tephra and highly fractured lava bombs.  This mixture of oxidized volcanic particles ranging down to sub-micrometer sizes mixed with the larger lava bombs is a palagonite tuff. This deposit is the result of a “phreatic” eruption when lava erupted explosively

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Jökulhlaups in Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

A recent Smithsonian Magazine article gives some interesting insights to present-day Jökulhlaups (glacial outburst floods) that are but minuscule relatives of the cataclysmic Ice Age Floods. Iceberg Lake was on the edge of a western tributary of the Tana Glacier, but in 1999 the lake suddenly vanished. Dammed on its

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Ice Age Map Pacific NW

Ice Age Flood Simulation Video

An interesting, 4 minute captioned video from UC Santa Cruz (ingomar200) of a satellite-view computer simulation illustrating flood paths and transient lakes of an Ice Age Flood. The video shows a physics-based computer simulation of the Great Flood from Glacial Lake Missoula about 15,000 years ago. At the time, an ice dam

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WA-DNR Website Features Phenomenal LIDAR Images

Washington State Geological Survey is collecting, analyzing, and publicly distributing detailed information about our state’s geology using the best available technology – LIDAR – an acronym for Light Detection And Ranging. The main focus of this new push for LIDAR collection is to map landslides, but there are innumerable additional benefits

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Humans in the Beringia Yukon ~24,000 Years Ago

Archaeologists have long debated how and when people entered the Americas. Throughout the 20th century, the mainstream hypothesis was that the Clovis people were the first to pass into Alaska about 13,000 years ago.  Stemming from his excavations between 1977 and 1987 at the Bluefish Caves in northwestern Yukon, Jacques

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