Dug fence posts in my yard a few weeks ago through glacial till. I saved as many rocks as I could, soaked them, washed them, made a little rock river in my garden. Rainier Valley in Seattle.
I only grow rocks, since I live on a bench of glacial till above the Columbia River aka Lake Roosevelt. I pile the garden rocks, I throw the garden rocks, I cuss the garden rocks.
I never thought that I was going to get so much from your videos Nick. I couldn't become a geologist, because according to my mother I was to weak to be far from home. But your dedication and knowledge and selfless time sharing is making me feel like all that I missed I found it in your classes, lectures and road trips. I cannot tell you how much your connections mean to me, you can never imagine the feeling of being in the place I wanted to be for so many years. There are no words to express my gratitude for what you do. Thank you Nick. And I love you too 😻
*ONE LESS THING* to worry about: I can still outrun a glacier; the 10,000 year head start is also comforting. Thanks for another informative session, Nick.
All of Nick's presentations are wonderful, but the field trips are special in that you can see the actual material. It really brings home the point of the lesson.
Thanks to Nick I now have a part of my brain filled with terms like: glacial outwash and till. I'm going to be right at home when the geology convention comes to town. Thanks to these lectures, I can see my surroundings in a clearer light. Much appreciated, Nick.
I grew up on the west side of QueenAnne hill in Seattle, about 250 feet above sea level. Can't imagine 1000 feet of ice. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around 16 to 19 thousand years ago, too.
I grew up just off the bluffs and beach near Federal Way. Used to make potter's clay out of the stuff. Spent hours and hours on the beach looking at the bluffs and the gravel that made up the beach. I think it seeded my budding interest in geology.
We used to have property in Yelm, which you mentioned as the southern boundary of the ice sheet. The ground in Yelm is all rocks and very little soil. Very hard to garden with all of the rocks.
Continental lobe came out of Canada to the northern Olympics and created a dam. Creating a large lake in Puget Sound. This happened many times. There are many interbedded deposits of lakebed clays. As far as the pebbles and gravels go, when clean you should suspect outwash. When dirty you suspect glacial till. No clean rounded rock fragments in glacial till. The pebbles in the lakebed clays are the drop deposits you mentioned. Special situation.
Yes Nick, I'm still with you, just like everyone else. And just like the others I'm loving all you do. Gratitude is a small word and hardly describes my appreciation. Thanks again. LOL. Pete on the Isle of Wight. PS We need a few more like you.
I just had the thought that you are the “Mr. Rogers” of Geology. Probably not the first time that has been noted by someone who watches you. Blessings to you and yours.
Pretty interesting to me since I live on a hill south of Seattle on Puget Sound that is glacial till, so I can see exactly what you mean in my yard. Pretty cool!
At the wrap up to your observations there was a shot of rocks washed out of the clif there was a rectangular red piece of urbanite. Althou anthropogenic it is a part of the story as it was likely made of that same grey clay.
I live across the canal from where you’re filming. I watched you film this! Now I’m a huge fan. Thank you for this, I’ve always wondered about the geology of my home!
At 14:50 I paused the video. I grew up in Seattle. At one point, in my early 20s, I lived in a cabin between the railroad tracks and the beach north of Seattle (about 50 years ago). I now live in the east Columbia River Gorge. But from time to time I have to revisit Puget Sound for waves breaking on a gravel beach, and the smell of creosote and kelp. The place we grew up in leaves an imprint that lasts a lifetime. But only 18,000 years ago it was totally different place. What will it become in the next blink of geologic time?
Fascinating! I live on a Seattle hill and I’ve wondered why those ice sheets as tall as 3 Space Needles didn’t just scrape all the glacial till right down to bedrock as the moved? Or did they not move? The soil in my backyard can be almost as hard as rock. Thanks for coming to Puget Sound... I’m getting addicted to watching your show. It’s a good therapy for covid lockdown... getting to watch you tromp around the hills of the Cascades. Thanks!
OMG Nick now your just teasing us with that beautiful view of the Space needle, and Seattle. I lived in San Francisco for 17 years and i miss it beauty and charm. Now an Arizonian, Phoenician specifically. Believe it on not there is a special piece of exotic terrain, green serpentine, under the Federal Mint on Market St. LOL
Yeah, when taking my glacial geomorph classes in college, I found them to be tedious (I wanted to study 'live' glaciers' after all). 30 years later, my career has been almost exclusively in glacial terrain... Because of the poorly sorted nature, there's often a lot of textural variability even within till and ice-marginal deposits, which can make it tough to define boundaries locally. Troost, et al confirms that to be Lawton, with advance and/or till above depending on where you were standing. Thanks for sharing!
Since the thinking is that there were multiple glaciations of Puget Sound, couldn't one glaciation's outwash get recycled as a later glaciation's till? So maybe the rocks in this video could have been rounded (e.g. in a glacial outwash) at one point in time and then incorporated into the clay matrix in a later glaciation.
I’m on the hillside south of Seattle on the west side of the Duamish valley (south of West Seattle on the Highline plaetau). The area is fine to coarse hard packed sand with poorly sorted rounded pebbles to cobbles and some boulders. That the sand is hard packed indicates some silt and clay content. It is somewhat dirty. I suspect the sand was deposited in outwash since the hill is across from Beacon hill closer to Puget Sound, which is a much deeper valley (channel). The river system probably intersected with the lobe and likely built up the plateau or at least where I am as a sand bar over the millennium, washing out most of the clay and silt.
Thank you greatly, Nick. My wife and I own two crystal claims in Colorado, we're geology geeks. No school, but we're out in the field and many, many books. Along with other research outlets. We have a glacial deposit down the road from our house, we now know that it is glacial till. My wife is looking up the roadside geology again as I type this. Keep the videos coming - wish you could do a week long special in Colorado or something - but Washington's geologic history is fascinating, and some can be applied here.
''Sorry Patrick''.....makes me crack up every time. Anyhow, if this were a lake bed deposit, with drop stones..wouldn't there be fossils within the clay supporting that idea?
Awesome we were at Dry Island Buffalo Jump our favorite fall fishing spot.Road is blocked due to wash outside.Still the upper parking lot had over 30 vehicles. The vertical gain to the the top is 350 meters in 1.8 kms..This looks the same on the bench about half way done the road.Please keep it coming, awesome. 😃
Thank you I live on Long Island NY where cliffs run along North Shore protecting Sunken Meadow that's below sea level Noth Shore beaches are composed of similar mix of rounded rocks. Mid Islad artesian wells show layers of soil clay sand and stone. South Shore has sandy beaches with rounded stones and a Sunken Forest on sand bar Fire Island where sandy cliffs block the ocean from inundating the forest. Glacial action for sure!
I've always wondered about the glacial deposits around Seattle. There seems to be very little bedrock around here in the central sound. Hundreds of feet of silt and clay. Check out photos of the "Denny hill regrade"
The Pleistocene ice sheet wasn’t the only physical presence with profound effects on the environment. Altitude in the NW was just as relevant to regional water flow, deposits and erosion affecting vast areas up to 700 miles South of the ice sheet; even altitudes >5,000’ in northern CA. @34% of the land area, >4500’ @37% of the land area in OR., and >4000’ @21% of the land area in WA. were locked up in ice for nearly 8 months until Summer. Other than the permanent ice sheet edge, there wasn’t a simple nor clear demarcation between the ice sheet and surrounding region for 8 months out of the year; indeed, much more transitional water was locked up in these vast areas than the periphery of the ice sheet. In this alien environment, seasonal river levels were in reverse of Holocene streams, low flow in Winter and extremely high flow in Summer. Whatever wasn’t buried under snow and ice for 8-1/2 months was flooded, eroded or buried under deposits for 3-1/2 months.The Northwest rivers, especially the Columbia must have had extreme seasonal flow differentials; they were locked up in glacial ice in late Fall, Winter and late Spring, thus having a much larger frozen reservoir of transitional water (compared to Holocene,) and then melting in extreme torrents from Summer to late Fall.
The Grand Coulee originally began down close to Moses Lake and the Columbia flowed through that area. Over the many centuries, the Upper Coulee portion advanced north, not just because of the Big Missoula Foods but also because of the torrents that you describe. The Grand Coulee was then the route of the whole Columbia of the time.
Across the water in S Kitsap. When walking through some of the trails out here I've thought of what you could learn from a cubic yard of the till I was walking on. There is some minor vulcanism in the county. Basaltic from small rifts? I did a minor in Geology from Oregon and always enjoy learning more on the subject. Thanx
We also have a tall light rust-colored clay bank at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma which has no embedded stones in it which is on the shore of Puget sound south of where you are today.
Missed this one when it premiered because I wasn't feeling well so I had to catch it on repeat, but it was great, as always. Never thought a little round chunk of granite could be so beautiful! I wish I could watch the PBS episode but I doubt it will air here in South Carolina so hopefully you can upload it to your page, Nick, for those of us who aren't fortunate enough to live in the "Disneyland of Geology". Hoping that you and your family stay safe with all those wildfires in Kittitas County, too.
So much to watch, to catch up on, to learn. Enjoying the ride. Where am going, what is my route this late summer as I drive from SoCal to visit family in Spokane? Last year it was collecting minerals, this year tracking the sources, the geology that created those minerals. Marvelous journeys lay ahead...thanks Nick. So..., I think I was directed to this channel by watching Norily's journey through the Americas, and your mentioning her channel. Are you tracking her West Africa journey this year? That girl has gumption! You, my friend, have an unquentionable (sp?) desire to share the history of a planet in motion. Much kudos, much thanks.
Your map shows the continental glacial ice sheet. There were many alpine glaciers coming out of the Olympics radiating like the spokes of a wheel. Some merging in with the continental ice sheet. How do you tell the difference where they come close to one another? Continental ice deposits have granite, alpine deposits coming out of the Olympic Mountains has no granite.
Don't forget about the interbedded glacial lacustrian clays with glacial basal till above and below the lakebed deposits. And of course, there are ablation glacial tills on top of the basal tills.
Hi Nick! Cool video as usual! I've got two questions. 1) Would the much lower sea level of of the ice age have been a factor in the creation of the bluffs? and @)What gear are you using to create your on the fly episodes? Thanks!
Is there evidence suggesting the existence of Manastash Ridge type structures in Puget Sound lowlands that were eroded away by the glacial sheets coming south?
I'm so happy to have found you! Now, if I could just find a Washington Roadside Attraction..... seems to be sold out wherever I search. Suggestions anyone?
Well yes, likely it was shaped by the ice sheet. Look at how Bainbridge island is long running north to south. All the hills in Seattle do the same thing, and they were shaped by the ice sheets.
How about those rounded rocks? Stones deposited by the many rivers you spoke of? Then picked up by the glacier as it advanced which re-deposited them during the retreat? Why was the clay not scraped away to become part of the morain? Was there enough time during retreats for the lakes to recreate such thick layers of clay on the lake bottom?
The rocks you're walking on do not appear to be washed out of the bluff as they are larger and not rounded. What are they and where are they from? Interestingly they are all of similar size. Except for some much larger ones.
If the advancing glacier traps marine water as it cuts off the Strait, how long would it take then to convert salt to fresh? And is it solely through dilution with the always flowing freshwater rivers? Or some other way?
Why couldn't the ice have rounded off the stones? It's just frozen water. Ice sheet craves off rocks but eventually if they are transported to the bottom of the glacier they become rounded.
Living in Bellevue, what I want to know is what will happen in a large earthquake? I can't begin to tell you how many smooth stones are in the hard clay in my yard!
It says Map No. 12 at the top right, I hope that helps. I couldn‘t find it on the National Geologic Map Database, but there is a similar map (same scale, same publisher, same era) covering all of Washington state. You can download it at ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_30777.htm.
