Nick, I lived in Bridgeport for eight years, very familiar with this area. I am delighted to see someone of your stature talking about the plateau. Bridgeport, of course, is down in the valley. Obvious to me that there is a lot more to the story than just the Missoula floods. I lived above Tonasket on Mt. Hull for five years. Hunted and fished most of Okanogan county. Never had a good idea of how the Okanogan Valley was formed. Thank you for helping me understand there are huge gaps in my knowledge base. I have been following your presentations for about seven years now. I may be addicted to the quest for knowledge. Thank you for what you do.. Kennewick Man From Moody, Texas.
I live about 400' above Tonasket and have wondered how the valley formed also. I have exposed banks of river deposits at my elevation. I don't know if the area somehow has risen up or the river ran up this high and eroded down. The deposits are sand and rounded rock, no irregular rock, making me think of river deposits rather than glacial till.
@@frankmoreau8847 On my place on Mt. Hull, at 3200 ft elevation, there are a couple erratics, one of them the size of a small house, which do not match the surrounding ground cover. I knew they had to come from somewhere else, but hadn't figured out how or where from. Still don't know where from, but how is easy. Don't know whether it was Wisconsin Ice sheet or Spokane ice sheet, but I think it was probably Wisconsin, as you would assume the last one would have moved all the previous debris out, and left only it's own graffiti in place. In your case, are the river deposits layer upon layer upon layer, or just one thick, jumbled mess? The DNR fire webpage has a good map with fire incidents overlaid on an impressive lidar background. Quite an eyeopener to me to see just how the terrain lays. Nick had a couple of "shows" on the Okanogan valley indicating several massive floods in the last couple hundred thousand years. If you can find them, they might shed some light on your sediments.
Nick, as you no doubt know Ice carried erratics are found nearly as far south as Eugene(Oregon) in the Willamette valley; Some are not far off !-5. At a school near Eugene that I did some engineering on, there was a very nice specimen at the entrance to the school building. A lot more Erratics in the area were destroyed by farmers. I grew up in the Okanogan Valley and had the opportunity to travel all over the area and was fascinated and puzzled by the geology I viewed in the Okanogan/Okanagan, Methow, and as far as Spokane. Later I lived in the south Puget Sound area, and still later in the Columbia River Gorge, and later still, near John Day. All areas that incite your geological curiosity. Thanks for these informative posts
There are a number of gouged-out “potholes” on that plateau that collect and hold water throughout the year…refuge and waypoint resting zones for migratory waterfowl and of course deer, coyotes, badger, now antelope plus other feathered fowl and raptors. Sage brush and bunch grass are dominant where tilled soil does not exist. Raptors love those Milk Duds….🦉
That’s awesome. I was also in the area on Sunday. We drove up and over the Withrow moraine and talked about the topography before heading to Chelan for ice cream.
The old farmer told his wife...I sure hope some Geologist appreciates me collecting these rocks in one place so he doesn't have to search the whole 50 acres.
Your video jogged an old memory for me. One snowyfrozen winter day, I drove from Chelan to Spokane via McNeil Canyon with a friend. Totally socked in when we left Chelan, then the magic! Cresting out of McNeil onto the plateau was a scene straight out of the Ice Age. Shocking blue sky, and a flat, white expanse forever, wind blowing drifting snow around. It was as if we had gone through a portal and popped onto the surface of the Okanogan Lobe itself!
Awesome. Thanks for showing the glacial till. We have similar stuff around Wynyard Tasmania called Wynyard Tillite, facinating. The erratics around here aren't BIG but they are cool. We have gneise from Antarctica and LOTS of alluvial glacial gold. Have you ever done a trip to Tasmania? Rocky Cape area was once connected to the Grand Canyon.... ❤
Please take someone with you when you do this sort of thing. One twisted ankle, for example, and it’s a bad day. I say this as someone who once had to drive a car with a broken leg. Safety issues aside, you’re the best!
Drove up route 97 after visiting Steamboat Rock a few weeks ago. Beautiful ride up thru the Colville reservation to Omak. The Colville Tribal Museum is a great place to stop, a lot of history there. Don’t miss the videos there. The Omak rodeo is a must see. Btw, that Starlink looks lighter than those old satellite dishes! Thanks for shepherding us thru this great flood history.
Yeah, I’ve stopped at that rock a lot driving my motorcycle out of Mansfield . Mom and dad live in Manson so it’s not that far to go and I like eating at the old Tavern in Mansfield. 👍🍻great video once again.
A cliff hanger! Tune in same time, same channel! Geology degree here. I'm an east coaster who happened to be in Seattle, and ended up driving by these back in '99 and "erratics" was what came to mind. Looking forward to your next video on this. Thanks for you time to share and explain these wonders.
The Waterville Plateau is my playground. I am in love with the geology, the sagebrush steppe, the birds & animals that live here. I'm still heart broken that the 2020 fire took out so much of the remaining sage habitat. It will take decades to recover.
Good day, Another fabulous outing! Looking at this Wisconsin tillscape (it's English, mangle the wording as needed), I can only think that the previous tillscape would have been similar, maybe with a more or less variegated set of large boulders, with a similar sand/gravel/cobble/small boulder composition. There would be the possibility that whatever was left after 100,000+ years of erosion is below that tillscape you were walking around upon. But, I would think that would mean that the Wisconsin ice moved 'over' the previous tillscape. I think it is more likely that the Wisconsin ice bulldozed/plowed the remaining previous tillscape and mixed it in with its own Wisconsin till in the various moraines left by the Wisconsin retreat. You may need to sample a pre-Wisconsin terminal moraine and make a comparison with a known Wisconsin Terminal moraine and samples of the surface till that you were just walking on. You may also need to make a comparison between the leading and tailing sections of a Wisconsin terminal moraine for differences in composition. More student activities,,, Tony
Thanks for taking us along, as an easterner I’m not only amazed by the geology but also by the quality of rural WA roads and the lack of traffic! and Nick be careful out there you’re no spring chicken ole boy, lol
Field tripping with Nick ❤ Your facts mixed with the localities and explanations are very impressive.All of theses are mind blowing! I thought that I had a good grasp on Washington State geology. These are top notch videos and knowledge I’ve never fully understood. I’m very rarely impressed with a video collection like this one. Super Grateful for this information ❤❤
Dancing with glacial till.Yow. Those are big erratics. Got one up in S Colton NY called Sunday Rock (there were no Sundays past there in indian times) where the old family farm is near. The town made a very nice little road stop park out of it, with an information plaque.
Another fun field trip - always fun to see the landscape through your eyes and listen to your musings Nick! If you are driving through Wenatchee Valley this late summer or fall, try driving down the old Rock Island road as it branches off from Grant Road in East Wenatchee. You can get a good sampling of the diversity of erratic boulders that are imbedded in the Pangborn Bar just by seeing what is lined up on the edge of each home site. Also, there is a gravel operation into the side of the Pangborn Bar just above Rock Island Road, and you can drive right up to it as see the layers of till there on the walls of the excavated site.
Excellent video storytelling in the opening of this video, using the expansive sky and fields of the Waterville to conjure up the ghost of the glacial lobe that once occupied it. A lobe that was modest compared to the Spokane lobe before it, but was still able to pluck up and transport a rock the size of Yeager. Really brings perspective to the enormity of the Bretz observations.
Well, since you're on the topic of ice age boulders, I can't help but mention the enormous deposit of granitic boulders just south of the Canadian border, east of Curlew, on Boulder Creek Road...ON TOP of the ridge/pass! Millions of them! Inquiring minds want to know when they were dropped...and why? All of a sudden, as a result of some sudden melting? Why there? Anyone who wants to go on a field trip, I'd be happy to give you a tour! :)
We're very lucky that the glacier decided to drop that giant rock so close to the highway. If it was only 20 feet another way they would've had to go around it!
Anne and I became fascinated by the Bretz floods several decades ago. Except for a couple of trips to Idaho and eastern Oregon we were unable to visit these areas. She dies a couple of years ago and I no longer have the energy to drive that far or the desire to take an airplane. Your videos make up for not being able to see these fascinating places myself. As I am recovering my health I plan on visiting Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. Hopefully I will be able to watch sunrise from Cape Spear, Newfoundland, Canada. Completely different geology but still fascinating. Thank you for your presentation.
The rock is just sitting there. Experiencing millions of years of change and just sitting here. Its almost saying witness me!". And then we come along... Complicated rock creatures made up of random bits of the same stuff. And what do we do? We witness. We see. Amazing! I love geology.
I always wondered about the way the land changed around where I lived back in Lawrence, Kansas. West and South of me it was just gently rolling land. Around my home and to the North and East, it was river bottoms. Then I did some "digging" and found that one of the Ice age's southern edge covered my home and area and did a number on the land when it melted. Never too old to learn Geology.
Hope you get to spend some time in a place like Alaska where you can observe retreating glaciers and their trails. So much understanding comes from watching the actual process in a first hand experience. Places like Juneau, and Kennicott (Copper River) give you an excellent education quickly into the workings of moving and stagnant ice, rock, and water. How did they get the cars to the other side of the river/glacier without a bridge? They drive them over the frozen water in winter. Forget the land bridge to Alaska, the people just walked the ice in winter when moving to new locations without dirt under foot.
wow, i was glued to this all the way through. i must admit that ice age floods and ice sheets are unfortunately where i start spacing out thinking about geochemistry or igneous stuff or all kinds of ”more titillating” geology instead lol, but as always, you make everything a learning adventure and im so incredibly appreciative of exactly that!
It is so neat. I can get on google maps and see Yeager Rock then focus in and see the line of erratics in the fields around it. Then you can imagine the edge of the ice dropping these things and since they are so big you can infer the depth and mass of the ice before it let go of its load. And, in relation to previous ice sheets, much of it appears to be a plateau that has seen repeated coverings of ice over like the 2.6? million years of this particular ice age. The Wisconsin may have covered previous evidence, but you have to wonder how many times that area has seen ice covering it... And here we are, clever apes, trying to understand, very full of ourselves, thinking with zero evidence, we are God's gift to the Universe having made God up in the first place, our only real distinction being able to partially comprehend that which is so much larger than ourselves. Definitely a mixed blessing. We go to Alberta and there is a place up there with two massive erratics that are the size of like a 5 story buildings side by side up there, can't remember exactly where but all over there are the small boulders in campgrounds everywhere, slightly too big to pick up, laying in the forest dropped as the ice must of retreated leaving its legacy. Our favorite is Peter Lougheed Provincial park. I'm afraid to let out the secret to Americans, but it rivals Glacier National Park and is south of well known Banff and north of Glacier. It is a mass of carved mountains that once you begin to comprehend the forces that created the grandeur, you should be chastened as to how small we are as creatures.
Looking forward to Jerome and you dissecting the geologic history of the prior ice age from here north into BC. Thank you also for taking the time to slow down and show in focus closeups of the rocks you look at in the field. Who knew that viewers could get motion sick watching the camera swing around too fast! Thanks for thinking of your audience!
Just a hair west of Yeager rock is Road I. It leads south into the very top of Moses Coulee. From 172 all you can see looking south is a gentle dip. There is no clue Moses Coulee is there. Now, about Foster Coulee, when was that carved? What happens when a preexisting coulee or valley going east-west gets run over by a glacier going south? The upper end of Foster Coulee is just a bit below the top of Steam boat Rock. There is a really big scour you can see from the lake end of Barker Canyon Road at the top of the cliff face. It's cooler now, I should take another crack at getting up there.
My family farmed for over 70 years in the Yakima valley including bringing Rosa land under irrigation. Over the years we uncovered several granite boulders requiring equipment to move out of the fields.
I have a granite glacial erratic in my back yard on Tiger Mountain. I should do a video, 'Zentnerology 101, what I know about my back yard's geohistory from watching Zentner videos'.
Deserves as much attention as Avebury & Stonehenge. More interesting if you ask me. At least it’s natural. The Rock being tagged with Grad dates reminds me of Arco Peak Number Hill in Arco, Idaho right by Craters of the Moon. Cheers Nick, love your videos.
I went looking for sources of water today. And due north of to okanogan valley, and next to the Columbia valley is the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field. I would like to know if there is any evidence. I am sure this flows to the fraiser valley but who knows if it was all under ice 15+k ago.
I'm from Indiana. There were many eradics deposited over northern, central, and southern Indiana. But those eradics were not as large as the ones there in Washington. Most eradics in Indiana are now gathered in rock piles or have been placed adjacent to driveway entrances to homes and businesses alike.
that drive is always a treat to go out and see all of these weird geological anomalies that just make the landscape look very alien. I think there are sand dunes out there too just before dropping down the hill into chelan
In western South Dakota almost on the North Dakota line, I find small boulders, roughly formed approximately 2 foot round or squarish. These look like they have been coated in a tan clay and fired. I've seen one or two of them that are broken and they still remind me of fired clay. I also imagine them being blown into the air from a volcano and coming to land approximately where they are. This is an area of dry prairie with many buttes. Not scientific but my guess.
Till may be poorly sorted, but its fabric can be seen in the video. But if it’s till shown by Yeager Rock then the rock was there before the last glacier. Fire up the drill rig. Maybe the old lodgement till deposited before and ablation till deposited with Yeager Rock are still there. $20 says DOT drilled near there and has a soil boring log due to its proximity to the roadway.
Open question. Bretz wrote about how the loess is deposited by a series of floods. The oldest being the bottom layer. But under them are very deep channels cut by the first flood. Another expert you interviewed talked about how every part has an indication of being under flood waters. But where they are, they can't be flooded with standing water now. So the question. Was the entire valley from the Cascades to the Rockies flooded with standing water? Lake Nick! Then, one day, an Earthquake allowed it to break through the Cascades and drained rapidly, carving those deepest channels??? Did it flood from BC to Oregon the first time?
Glacial erratics ! We have in glacial erratics in south Birmingham UK, most from the Anglian of 450,000 years back ! North of here is from the Devensian glaciation, went away 16,000 years. We live on glacial till, once called boulder clay. Thank you for your programs about ice age stories, because the same thing applies here, what glacial till is from 450,000 years ? What is from 16,000 ?
Yikes! Please be careful on those slopes all by yourself! I would love to see those clasts, sure, but you are worth more to your students than a rock....even a nice piece of green serpentinite. 😉 Thanks for another great geohike!
A question if I may. The one road cut you showed had a stark transition from the yellowish glacial till to a moderately gray color, was that an ash layer? And why is there a stark color change?
So we talk about when the ice sheets existed, but rarely is it discussed about how long each event lasted. Probably long enough that some experienced Cascadia releases which could conceivably fracture the ice sheets to a degree.
Please be careful, we are not worth getting hurt sliding on loose rocks. Especially when you are in a remote area by yourself. I've walked on lots of glacial till in the Canadian Rockies, much of it is very hard. Not really cemented but dense. It is also very slippery when wet. Not being a geologist I don't know how old it is but I suspect very young (deposited on other smooth vegetated surfaces). Both here and near Spokane, Dr Bretz assigns the limits of the Spokane ice sheet edges to the heads of various channels. But if the sheet is melting a lot of water should be coming from under the ice - so I think these channels would extend further under the ice. Wasn't Dr Gombiner studying channels under the ice in this area ?
