Episode 7. Central Rocks - Roadside Geology. CWU's Nick Zentner visits majestic Dry Falls near Coulee City, Washington. 14 minutes. Filmed on April 13, 2012.
I watched all your published videos while going thru chemo last year and have (at 76 and retired) begun a new career as an arm chair geology student and prospector. I now own four mineral claims and love the 200 mile drive to them every week. Thanks for helping me get thru it and helping me with my career change.
Just found your youtube videos today and couldn't stop watching them. Excellent presentation in layman's language of an amazing geologic area of the USA. As an Australian I drove along the Pacific Coast to Alaska in 1988. Only after coming back to Australia and reading the excellent DK book called "Earth" did I become aware of the wonders of geology and in this case the scablands and associated ice floods. I wish I had known about this before my journey. But at least your videos are truly enlightening for this area. What a wonderful planet we have. Many times I have said that I wish I could live for 400 years with energy to discover and understand the workings of the planet as well as the history. Alas!
Thanks to you, I'm about to visit here, from Texas. Thanks for the great video to provide answers to what I'm about to look at. Fantastic video. Thank you!
I only recently discovered your channel, still have a lot of catching up to do. Thus far, this is my favorite video. Gorgeous photography and great explanations!
I ran across your channel today and have watched several of your classes and then found this video. I took a basic geology class in 1980 at LSU and eventually graduated with a criminal justice degree. Man, I should have paid better attention in our large class. I might have become a junior geologist! Great presentation and excellent teaching sir!
I live in Soap Lake and travel through the Ephrata Fan on Highway 17 on a regular basis. I've been looking at those boulders and figured you would know how they got there! (Long time fan) I had to search a bit but this was exactly what I was looking for so thank you for the perfect level of detail- I was particularly curious how deep the boulder field went. Gotta wonder if there's any gold under that 135 feet of rock.
Eastern WA and southern ID are just so beautiful. Trees are nice, but DAMN when one becomes aware of miles of lava rock underneath your feet and the erosion that creates astounding features (like Devil's Tower in WY)....
Wow!!! Thank you so much for piecing together all the questions I've been thinking about for years about the Missoula Flood. Absolutely incredible, great work!
Park Ranger Jody recommended your videos to me last weekend while we were visiting MT Rainier. I can assure you that I will be watching more of your informative videos. What an amazing state we live in.
Watching this for first time. Lived in the area for many years. Great cliff jumping at deep lake. You had to walk past a ton of rattle snakes on your hike. Great videos
at eastern we’re taking a field trip here april 15th so im trying to really bone up before that and your podcast and this video have been awesome for that! Thanks Nick!
I really like your videos. I especially like your enthusiasm for your subject. Reminds me of the guy I learned geology from in 1960-71. And we know a lot more since then.
There are some past events that we humans have a very hard time even imaging, much less wrapping our heads around; the forces that were at play such as this particular event. I would like to see a rendering of what it might have been like, when the water was flowing over the falls. The roar of the noise; must have been been Deafening, heard for possibly 10 miles away. Places such as this "Dry Falls" are perfect places, for Humans to gather much needed perspective. To realize that we are but a tiny fragment of our earths history. Where do we yet fit into this history ? We are a very destructive force; pushing our pride to the forefront, but this example of the Ice Dam breaking; truly shows that even we humans, even at our most destructive; can not even begin to compare to the forces that our Mother Earth can bring to bear.
The circles, I have seen similar in Grand Falls New Brunswick at the base of the dam there are deep circular holes eroded by rocks spinning around from the spring runoff which is very powerful every year.
It's a great landscape, formed by basalt lava floods and glacial water, absolutely great. Thank you for the fantastic video and your explanation. Greetings from the Lake Laach volcano / Germany.
Hello Nick. Excellent video! My name is Rhon and I studied geomorph under Dr. Wayne Engstrom at Cal-State Fullerton (I graduated in 1979). I now live in the Sacramento area, and I am planning to visit the Channeled Scablands within the next few years to check out the area in person. I really enjoy your videos. You present the facts in layperson terms which helps the general public understand the subject matter. Good job, good sir! ...Rhon.
In Germanys Ice age, there have been ice dams, barring lakes with drifting icebergs, but they din't drain in dramatic floods. We have their mighty sandlayers, and sell the sand for buildings.
Im enjoying learning about your part of the world and imagine what happened in the areas I've seen In northern British Columbia i seen big river valleys with a tiny river running in them but i bet long ago they were almost full you could tell it could hold way more water by the shape Lots of rock and sandy banks but cliffs in other areas too
I see this video is quite old Nick but I am new to them so... I stumbled across your videos and have been consuming all of your content. I find them very interesting and love that they relate to areas in my backyard. I love the practical examples you have provided. They make everything make sense. I wish someone would do the same for Vancouver Island. I took a few Geology classes from Tark Hamiliton at Camosun College in my undergraduate degree. Im not sure if you know him or not but he also does a terrific job of getting people excited about Geology. Thanks again Nick I really appreciate the work you are doing.
It would be really cool to be there especially if Nick is there to explain it. I know more about your area geologically, than I do my own! Very interesting subject.
Thank you! You've given a masterful presentation. When I flew over this area many years ago (mid 1980s) I always wondered what made those pot holes. While I studied bifurcation and understand the power of chaos, I never realized the power of the flow. Thank you again!
We were there yesterday 7/03/16 not my first time there but the first time with the knowlage of how it was formed fhats to you Nick. I Bought a 24 oz rock hammer and broke some very cool basalt samples with gas bubbles in them and some rare Granite loaded with Quarts in it. I cant wait to share them with my Grandkids tomorrow. BTW you are a rockstar there at Dry Falls the Ranger told me lol
I have a PHD in rocks. yeah, this guy knows what he's talking about, but I was there when the ice age floods happened and I could tell you, it was only 1 drop of water that did all that damage.
Nick, I totally dig your shows! (See what I did there?) a question on this one, if the floods created this canyon, why doesn’t your graphic show it as a level plane in the beginning. It is a little confusing. Thanks.
I prefer the shadow of the ultra light above the lack there of from the drone. But i can see where it comes in handy for you!(Watched your latest video).
Nick - I am new to this topic but have enjoyed your videos. I have lots of questions. How long would the plugged river take to fill the lake to its high point? How deep would you guess the river was before being plugged up? Not that I would know the difference, but I wonder what the speed and volume of the river was as the glacier prior to being plugged by the river? What glacier advancement rate would you estimate the glacier to be moving when the river was plugged? As the glacier advances I can see the river undercutting the glacier for a while but eventually overwhelmed by the mass of the glacier advancement. Because the glacier is so massive and taking earth along the way, I would guess it forms an almost perfect seal. Remember this up to 2000ft high ice sheet is crossing the shallow river. I wonder what the cross section area of the dam was when the dam was plugged. The ice sheet could be miles or fractions of miles down river when the river is finally plugged. Could the dam failure be related glacier recession? Thanks - Brian
Are the waterfall drill holes that are on the Columbia river embankment on the Washington/Oregon border from the same thing? If so where was the waterfalls? .
Have driven through this area, several times. Would any humans have been in the vicinity to witness this? Are there flood stories told by local first nations people? 600 foot column of water moving 65 Mph, would have been a sight to see. The mind boggles. Thankyou, this is very interesting.
Wish I could stand there the day after that event, I wonder if people were on this continent at that time, when did they arrive and could they have witnessed such a thing and survive,...from a distance I would guess.
Humans got to the New World at least 20,000 YBP...and possibly closer to 30,000. People were on the continent, so there was certainly a chance somebody actually saw/heard these floods happen.
Hello Professor Zentner, I recently subscribed to your RU-vid channel after watching the two of your lectures I stumbled upon randomly. Subjects were Mt. Rainier and PNW great earthquakes. I have since come to respect your evidentiary backed views on interpreting geological matters. Which leads me to ask the following: Have you ever been to Shoshone Falls near Twin Falls, Idaho? If so would it be possible for you to do a video featuring this area explaining the ins and outs of its formation? If not no worries and Ill look forward to more of your videos/lectures. Thank you.
Nick, I have watched and enjoyed many of your lectures on the geology of Washington State. I've learned so much! However, I live in Oregon and have looked for someone who can explain our geology as you can and have came up short. Any recommendations?
Thanks much. Marli Miller at the U in Eugene is great, but not on RU-vid. She has written new editions of the Roadside Geology books for WA and OR. Highly recommended.
It would be massive flooding for several days to a couple of weeks, creating large lakes where there were less then clear paths for the water to take...then the water would drain down the Columbia. In other lectures, Nick talks about the sediment layers left by the temporary lakes formed when the water backed up and couldn't drain fast enough.
absolutely fabulous. what do you think about an electro magnetic impulse vaporizing rock(basalt etc.) and then water flow exploiting the weak cracks? then creating the dramatic, steep valley walls.
@@tomreichardt6044 Like totally on stuff like driftwood? Did they have logs back then and stuff they could grab onto? What if they had to go back into their huts to get stuff? I wonder if they were sitting up there really high and saw the big wave of water with all that stuff floating in it?
It would have been nice to hear something about Harlan Bretz and his life-long struggle with, and eventual triumph over, the uniformitarian luddites who still include most academic geologists. s/
Talk about global warming! I wonder how hot it must have gotten to have melted all that ice at once to have created a localized flood of that magnitude.
Since the energy paradox has not been explained by scholars and we still should have an ice cap because no thermal energy has been sufficient enough to melt all that ice the most important element of the ice age flood has been left out. What caused all the ice to melt in such an unexplainable fashion? Same reason the mega fauna disappeared. And the Clovis people.
@niecers Oh my bad and stuff. I thought a huge rush of water came down with big boulders in it and carved out the rock in an instant. I thought a meteor strike way up northeast hit and melted a huge swath of ice rather quickly. I thought the natives had "inner vision" and could see the flood coming in their minds long before (or even the night before) so they could get the hell out of Dodge. I bet they had shoes made of jack rabbit fur and stuff so they wouldn't get stickers in their toes when they ran away to the mountains. I hope they all made it out and stuff.
@niecers Oh, I thought it was hot like in July. I can picture an elder wise man standing right on the ridge or lip of the canyon gazing at the massive wall of water as it rushed by knowing full well he was going to be ok because his dream foretold of exactly where to stand to remain safe. He would have directed his clan to safety in advance of the flood and they would have followed his advice without question because of his mystic powers. I bet he even was smoking a pipe as it all happened before his very eyes. They surely collected the animals caught by the flood and made fine skins to keep the dry desert winds off of their backs. What a time to be alive! But we have to deal with liberals and stuff so I guess we have it way worse.
@ 7:33 - Wave action will take a stone, or in this case a large boulder and swirl it around in one spot much like the smaller "potholes" we see on beach rock today, . Once a divot is formed, rocks/boulders will come and go, but what does remain and continue to grow is that pothole. With the volumes of water considered in these massive events, that erosion would not take long at all. Please don't expect us to believe that water vortexes would stand stationary in a constantly changing physical environment so long as to cut a perfect hole. This explanation is absurd and literally unbelievable. One need only walk the shores of the ocean to see this exact phenomenon performed today in smaller scale due to smaller forces of nature. Once the divot has matured to a bowl shape, the water passing by will then be coerced into contributing to the funneling/pothole carving on account of the per-existing rock formation. There is no physical feature that would contribute to a vortex of water staying stationary long enough to carve a pothole.
You didn't let me down. I watch too much misinformation on RU-vid, and was merely commenting on an example of this. I've been to Dry Falls, and can relate to your amazement. The scale of the event is almost unimaginable.
We've been to the Dry Falls area, and found it interesting and could see why people believe the stories of how it was supposedly formed. However, GOD only created the planet around 8000 years ago so this couldn't have happened as it is told. Who do you believe God or man?
Why can't they divert the water over the lip to create something spectacular? With the amount of revenue from the visitors they could help fund Trumps wall.
there is no way that water flowing out of lake missoula or any of those other lakes did this it was done by a comet hitting the ice cap and it happened very quickly like a couple of days
