You wonder if his students know just how lucky they are .. and that there's literally thousands on youtube who'd trade places with them in a heartbeat.
Drove the Yakima River Canyon twice in 2014 on a three day business trip to Yakima from Chicago via Seattle over the Snoqualimie Pass. Beautiful area. But being a fly fisherman was more interested in the river than the geology. Geology was very interesting indeed, thank you for the lecture on site.👌💯🎯
I just want to thank you so much for letting us common people tag along with you and your students! It’s so refreshing to remember what it’s like to learn new stuff without having the pressure of tests! PS “chocolate milk” is the nicest way I’ve ever heard Midwest rivers described as! 😆
From my discussions: My mailman said the rocks were delivered. My therapist said they were imagined. My banker said they were deposited. My partner said they were the result of time wasting. Thanks for clearing it all up.
That is a gorgeous river setting. Thanks so much for the lesson and for taking us to these places. Your heart is clearing in teaching and you do it so well!
I was still living in Yakima at the time when that huge thunderstorm did that. I recall the news reports also. So knew exactly what the Professor was getting at. 😉🍺🍺. I am very fortunate cause I driven through the YRC dozens of times. I now live just west of the Columbia R Gorge. I see the sloped basalt layers all the time. So yes lucky live and see many and much of what NZ talks about.
Very old student here, not in school but still learning. I do enjoy your teaching and envy your proximity to both the rain side and the shadow side. I am a little too far into the wet side here about 80 mi. Northwest of Crater Lake that it's a bit too far to make day trips to the high desert.
Hi Mick, a 70 year old student checking in for a little Earth Science learning from the middle of the BIG SKY. Rock skipping is a skill acquired with practice.
Thanks "Ned". Proof once again why deserts make the best places to teach introductory geology. And I have to laugh at every Itchy Boots reference. This geologist's favorite geologists of the RU-vid world, Nick Zentner and Noraly Schoenmaker, a.k.a., Itchy Boots. And yes, I'm giving you a "beeg thumbbs up!"
The Yakima river is a nice little river. Spent about 3-4 months in the middle of summer 2003 training out at the Yakima Training Center (YTC). Several days a week we would head to the river with the raft from the MWR there at YTC and float the river a few miles. Fun times just relaxing on the river cooling off and jumping from the few rock outcroppings along the way.
Hell Yeah! River Geology! Rivers! Geology! Geologicking Rivers!.....................I grew up amongst the bends of the Yarra River in Melbourne. I love it with a family like intimacy and have been in love with its beauty since i first became aware of it..............................but that sure is a purrty River
Mississippi and various rivers in Illinois are all chocolate brown. Due to Illinois being covered from 20-200 ft of ice age silt or loam. Missouri rivers that are spring fed from the Rocky terrain tend to run clearer and have a lot of sorted round rock's.
Just watched Noraly at Itchy Boots give us a tour of the Mid Atlantic Rift in Iceland. Wadda ya know, there was basalt, clear as day. Thanks Nick, you managed to teach me something!
I realize that my geology classes in Ohio, in the 1970s, may have had a lab component, but in previous episodes you have spoken about how unique CWU is with their field geology, and the last few episodes where you give us a hint of what one of those field geology trips would be like, are something that may have helped me choose geology over communications back then.
This is a excellent model of how to explore a "pile of rocks" like a geologist, to begin with observation, collect data, ask questions and think about the story. Thanks!
Nick, I'm so thrilled you are posting these as I plan my final moves to bike over the Cascades and figure out how to prioritize my explorations around Ellensburg over the weekend.
Here are the notes from a Karl Lillquist CWU field trip in 2018, which includes some drawings and photographs of the 1998 debris flow along Beaver Tail Bend: www.cwu.edu/geography/sites/cts.cwu.edu.geography/files/documents/Yakima%20River%20Mass%20Wasting%20Field%20Trip%20April%2018%202018.pdf. And Tom Winter's master's thesis, which has a closer picture of three of the debris flows across Highway 821 and into the Yakima River: www.cwu.edu/geography/sites/cts.cwu.edu.geography/files/documents/Yakima%20River%20Mass%20Wasting%20Field%20Trip%20April%2018%202018.pdf/.
Hey “Ned Zinger,” (Great way to identify the newbies,) Thanks for sharing the primary origins of rounded river rock- Landslides and eroded transport upstream, and the categories of sorting. How far is the Yakima River there above its confluence with the Columbia? What is the sorting category at that location? Any black sparkly Magnetite and light colored quartz sand bars? Some exceptions with the nature of NW streams are the valleys under the Missoula flood deposits. The Willamette River in Eugene, OR. is clear flowing until it’s confluence with the Long Tom River @20 miles downstream, which empties its chocolate milk Missoula flood silt, and steadily gets more silty as the Willamette gets dumped by @20 other tributaries entering the “Missoula flood” valley. Occasionally, “Erratic Mastodons” are recovered from construction sites and fresh Willamette River cuts.
Drove down this canyon for the first time last week (opted for eastern route down to central Oregon from Kent), and wish I'd seen this first! I oohed and awed my way along trying to see everything--but mainly eyes were on the road 😅. I went to college at New Mexico Tech, and became very familiar with arroyos--and why you avoid them when it rains. Amazing power in water+gravity!
I need to drive over the pass and bring my fly fishing gear.. I love wading through the Yakima River and chasing the fish. Oh, and do some geology while I am there.
beautifully clear water in that river. I'd love to be wading in it. Edit for beavertail bend: Arroyo definition is good, Nick. And the type of storm you mentioned is what I grew up calling a "gullywasher" (aka flash flood). You can actually find some good vids of some here on YT, where you can see them carrying rocks etc.
I frequently travel through the canyon, better than going over the pass on 82. What I notice is that whenever there is no solid basalt there are huge debris deposits- some with huge boulders sticking out. In a few spots I find round river rocks about 100' higher than the river presumably from a earlier course of the Yakima river.
Was wondering if your instruction manuals are available to non-students to learn along with them too as you teach. Really enjoy your videos and they have definitely made any trips we do a lot more interesting along the way. Thanks Nick, alias Ned Zinger, or what ever you call yourself!
Ah yes, canoe and inner tubing the Yakima Canyon on a UW Geol field trip back in the 80s... A great day, and a great location for lots of good stuff. And maybe a beer or two 👍
Those are my first memories of the Yakima River, going to visit my brother when he attending Central Washington back in the 60's. Crap, I feel old... LOL.
There are far worse ways to spend an August morning. I spent half a century in suburban St. Louis, where the Mississippi and the Missouri demonstrate that clarity is not an automatic feature of running water. Good story. Good training for fledglings.
If you want to see a recent debris flow, search YT for Ilgraben and watch debris flows enter the Rhône river in Switzerland. The paper Nick is talking about is at :WASHINGTON GEOLOGY VOL. 29, NO. 3/4 DECEMBER 2001 published by Washington DNR.
Dark pebbles, small potatoes, but darker than the pretty golden ones in the Columbia. Are they basalt pebbles,and rocks in the Yakama ? My gosh, so pretty, thank you ♥️
Great episode, thank you for another one! In ‘98 I was back in Nebraska and never heard of this event. You have inspired me to go look up Dr Katz’ paper
I really like these, thank you. I have the same passion for teaching geology, I just don't have the talent to make as entertaining as you. Lovely geology in that area, I definitely want to visit Washington some day.
I lived in Rufus in the late 60's I remember just behind where Becki's restaurant is /was ,Is still to this day there .There was huge rain storm. There is still the runoff .The water mud rock slurry came down OVER filled it .. flooded parts of Rufus.We lived in this super old house just up from Becki's ,the property you can still see where the house landing was today but, It was so intense that my step uncle had a NEW like 3 days old Mustang convertible. It was hit by other cars and full of slurry! it washed down the hill to the Columbia .The house was built up for this purpose at time as in flow under the house like it had happened before ,It was a Really old old house . I have one Picture of my brother and I standing on the porch of that house and the slurry under it .My Aunt has more pics .
Watching from an upstream location in the Philippines, where my local river rocks are poorly sorted but are all igneous, though I can't identify the kinds. Mostly has large white crystals though. Also looking at the Yakima makes me miss the clear water, since my river's been silty the past several months because of earthquake induced landslides...
One time I stopped to talk to one of our Big City reporters while he was just finishing a report on our small town hundreds of miles away. I have always felt guilty about that, but now I see it is a completely human thing to do. We see you on our screen , so very close,that we think of you as our friend and neighbor and must stop to say hello. Fans are crazy, but you gotta.....well you know.
Here's some numbers. You mentioned 2 inches of rain fell onto an area of 2 square miles. Assuming that's exactly right, the volume of water would have been 9.29 million cubic feet. A medium small dump truck carries 10 cubic yards. The 9.29m cubic feet would equal 344k cubic yards or 34,000 dump truck loads of water. At 25 feet long and with no space between those trucks would form a line 162 miles long. If they where all travelling at 82mph the would pass the point where NZ was standing in the 2 hours the rain fell. That stream of trucks gives a rough sense of how much energy was in the debris flows. (Off the cuff and into a calculator, not double checked😁)
Thanks fo doing this. I think it would have been better if you had, at the first stop, compared the river shoreline rock to the river rock population, then made the same comparison at the second stop.
Like my botany teacher! Thanks, Jed, for presenting an event i was unawares of. I moved to No Calif in 1993, but by 98 my then spouse and i were both working full time, with 2 teens in high school, and no time to play, barely read the news. But now i know. And that heron was simply marvelous...thanks, Zed Springer!
Looking like a good place to do some panning along. Maybe back at the first aria. Any quartz in that basalt? Distance between first and third knuckle is usually a inch approximate
That handful of river rocks looks exactly like a handful or rocks from my yard in Western WA. Are these all originally from the same or similar exotic terranes before being tumbled by rivers and deposited by glaciers? That was a great show Nick. I remember the canyon debris flow from TV but had forgotten. Very interesting presentation.
And erosion has been going on for millions of years as it is presently, mountains, rocks soil sand, you name it water either liquid or solid keeps doing its thing under the force of gravity downhill at the time, even though easter eggs can be found on top of present hills.
Wondering if boulders at Beavertail are from road construction as they are higher up slope near the road. Thx for the lesson Prof...... ahh, I just needed to wait for your info.
I love Nick’s virtual field trip videos. Following up on Nick’s remark about Dr. Martian Kaatz’s paper, I found several references papers on mass wasting in the Yakima Ricer corridor. I especially like the one (www.cwu.edu/geography/sites/cts.cwu.edu.geography/files/documents/Yakima%20River%20Mass%20Wasting%20Field%20Trip%20April%2018%202018.pdf) which describing a field trip in the area and shows more maps and pictures. If you want more details, there is a lot of material to read online.
Stop #1: Nick, would it be a good idea, if students will someday be able to actually attend in person at the sites, to bring a garden trowel or spade and a bucket and scoop up from a half-dozen spots off the bank of this 'beach', dump into discreet piles and gather more data about size distribution, shapes etc - even counting the types (sorting colors; and developing a chart of ranges of sizes; using a ruler printed on the page; types of minerals/rocks) in small groups to each collection? (I'm not a geologist - tho' I had 1 semester course 50 yrs ago, but taught photo and art history in HS in SD CA. I observed colleagues in science classes struggling to have students engaged when they didn't DO things (---and even then ...).
*HERON* at 12:08. Awesome, but not much of a rock hound. *Nick,* you should get an endorsement fee from Crocs. Lebron's got a shoe contract, why not you?
Ned Zinger is the professor of GEOL 101 at CWU. For more info go to Nicks youtube channel Ned drinks a bit and thinks geology looks like food!!! A-HaHaHa
I seem to remember on his at home episode where he reads some detractors comments, someone calls him Ned Zinger, both sad for the criticism and just funny.
I remember that storm in the summer of '98. My GF and I were out on a bike ride and had to take shelter alongside a building. Wind, rain & hail.. It only lasted about 25 minutes.
