
Oct. 2022 Update from the National Geologic Trail
I’d like to start by thanking the Ice Age Floods





I’d like to start by thanking the Ice Age Floods

I have always loved the ocean. I spent my growing-up years

It’s been several years since our IAFI.org website first appeared

A near failure of berries and upland food sources has

Since late last year the Ice Age Floods Institute has

Our long time IAFI Membership Manager, Sylvia Thompson and her

The Chinook Scenic Byway is recognized as a premier driving

We’re sad to report that James “Jim” William Pritchard of Ephrata,

“To see a world in a grain of sand”, the

Our brains are pretty good at physics. For instance, you

A newly discovered crater suggests a second impact that would

Some 240 million years ago, an enormous supercontinent known as

To date, Earth is the only planet we know of

A 37,000-year-old mammoth butchering site, uncovered in New Mexico, might

IAFI Events
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.







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



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.



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.

Discover how colossal floods transformed the ancient landscape. All over the world, scientists are discovering traces of ancient floods on a scale that dwarfs even the most severe flood disasters of recent times. What triggered these cataclysmic floods, and could they strike again? In the Channeled Scablands of Washington State,

Balbas et. al. use cosmogenic beryllium-10 dating methods to further constrain the timing of ice sheet retreat, as well as the potential pathways for megafloods from both Lake Missoula and Lake Columbia. Read this fascinating Geology article summarizing their findings. Balbas2017 – Missoula Flood Chronology In summary, our new chronological

ICYMI (in case you missed it) — Floodwaters rise more than 1,000 feet as they slam into the Columbia River Gorge from the east. The torrent blasts through the narrows at 60 mph, carrying truck-size boulders and house-size icebergs. Reaching Portland, water loaded with gravel and dirt roils to a

Robert Frost finished his poem “The Road Not Taken” with this verse: I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. As our President Gary Ford has

Richard Waitt kindly shared his recent paper published June 2016 in Quaternary Research, titled “Megafloods and Clovis cache at Wenatchee, WA.” “It covers the reach mainly from Chelan Falls to below West Bar, tries to tell the story of sequential megafloods coming to Wenatchee area by different routes at different

“…there were a few double falls each member of which receded at approximately the same rate, so that the island in mid-channel became very much elongated, like a great blade, as the falls receded and the canyons lengthened.” J Harlen Bretz (1928) A tall, narrow basalt ridge, coined “The Great

As a city kid in the ‘60s my family occasionally visited my grandparents in the farm country of Washington State’s Waterville plateau. My grandfather and two uncles were wheat farmers near the small town of Withrow, the future site of which had been partly hedged in by the Okanagan lobe

The Columbia River Gorge is an incredibly popular area to visit, and that’s for good reason, the setting is uniquely spectacular. The Gorge encompasses: Easily accessible ecozones that range through boreal conifer forests, oak woodlands, high desert grasslands and alpine environments in only 40 miles, Dazzling viewpoints and scenery, including