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.
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
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!
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!
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 ❤❤
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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….🦉
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.
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.
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!
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?
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!
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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! :)
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 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'.
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.
Another question since you were in the Chelan area. Are you familiar with the Chelan ice caves? I don't know if they still exist, but we used to go there 50 years ago. Would they have been remnants of the Okanogan lobe of the ice sheet?
They dynamited the entrance in the 60`s , I remember going there as a young boy. We use to go from Tacoma to Spokane a few times a year. I found this on a hiking site. There are no signs or structures here indicating that this was once a State Park (but at least the maps list it as Ice Caves State Park). However the ice caves may no longer be entered. The entrance to the caves was dynamited in the sixties because the local government figured the caves was a hazard. But before that, since it was also a natural cold environment, the local fruit growers used to store their fruit over the summer in the caves.
Are we saying these basalt "milk duds" are part of the CRBG? They frankly don't even look like CRBG basalts; I'm going to have to look again at a map of where the CBRG extends up there because that seems a bit far north. If it's _not_ CRBG, then where did the glaciers pick up these milk duds from?
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.
Howdy Nick. Great video. There are many rounded drop stones in the glacial deposits shown . Perhaps better described as diamictite rather than till since it is poorly consolidated and not showing classic overloading features of a typical lodgement till (see Eyles and Eyles 1992 in Facies Models section 5 edited by R.G. Walker and N.P. James, Geological Association of Canada QE651.F25 1992).
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.
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 ?
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?
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 don’t know anything about Geology but from what you are saying, shouldn’t you be able to find more cemented glacial till material right underneath the layers you were talking about and showing in the video? As in earlier times there was supposed to be more glacial advances happening, shouldn’t there be exactly the same thing happening - deposition of the same or slightly different material, depending on what rock or ground formation we would have found in the more northern regions at that time? And that material now, due to time and pressure, is now deeper down and more pressurized? Maybe folded but still there. Maybe there are pits around or something similar man-made diggings into the ground where you would find a nice depiction of layers.
♥️ Thank you so very much, Nick! How come the moraines are void of trees? Is the whole area above tree level? Just scrub land? There is one pile that appears in part to be farmers' deposit...certainly not the largest "duds." I suspect there are maps that identify these?
so glacial till.. so did the ice push the till in front of it? was it deposited by rivers? did the till get deposited at the margins as the ice retreated? did the till rest on top or under the ice? please do a quick till deposition refresher lol you are excellent love love love
At 8:45 so are those terminal moraines you just scanned? Michigan,, we have lots of erratics and terminal moraines. Just drove over two on my way home , one 60,000yo the other 14,000 yo
Three thoughts: 1… where were the huge boulders ripped out of the bedrock? Were they ever linked back to their location of origin? 2… I would think 100,000 years of water percolating through glacial til would either dissolve minerals or deposit minerals on the sand particles. Is there evidence in sandstone or ancient til deposits to be had by analyzing the mineral accretions that hold the sand particles together? Perhaps the water’s acid levels, perhaps dating by accretion rates, perhaps identifying mineral levels in the percolating water that changed when rivers changed. What if a precise cross section of sandstone that also cuts sand grains in half would allow measuring & analyzing micron thick layers of mineral deposits around individual sand grains. Would we find annual ring patterns of mineral deposited around sand particles? Would oxygen isotope ratios change annually as the water precipitated during cold winter vs hot summer seasons? (And could the oxygen isotope ratio layering in calcite deposits allow dating stalagmites and stalactites?). 3… plant pollen and seeds must get embedded in the til. Could til be filtered to find embedded dandelion seeds etc and then the carbon in the seed be carbon dated?
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.
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 ?
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!
Nice to see my old stomping grounds. My family has been in the Methow and Okanogan since the 1890's. IS THERE ANY WAY TO TRACK WHERE THE NON BASALTIC ROCKS ORIGINATED? PS: I love my Hokas. :)
Yes. At a rough level simply where the most likely rocks of that particular type are. To get specific then isotope ratio analysis can pin it down to a particular formation.
@@timroar9188 no. Isotope like this ratios are very much used for dating. However it's a very different sort of dating for the most part. Isotope ratios used to identify specific rock units are usually stable isotopes. In other words those that don't undergo radioactive decay. They are useless for dating since by definition they don't vary over time! Isotopes used for dating are radioisotopes. The differing ratios give the time series. However this gives the age of formation of the rock NOT the age of it being transported and dumped by a glacier or indeed by an outburst flood. The one slight exception to that is surface exposure dating. This relies on _increase_ of radionuclides as well as decrease! Coming in from space are energetic things known as cosmic rays. When those hit an atom they can dislodge particles from the nucleus, kind of like induced nuclear decay. Those particles can either be neutrons which leaves the element the atom is alone but alters which isotope of that element it is or protons which alter the atom's atomic number and thus which element it is. If the result is another stable nucleus then nothing else happens. If the result is a radionuclide then all sorts of things become possible. Radionuclides decay at a known rate. The increase in this case is dependent on the flux of cosmic rays hitting the sample. That flux is determined by altitude (higher in the atmosphere equals more cosmic rays), latitude (the earth's magnetic field directs cosmic rays), density of the rock being sampled, depth in the rock the sample was taken from (deeper in means lower cosmic ray flux) and the geometry of the surface of the rock. Rock exposed in a downward-facing overhang isn't going to get nearly as many cosmic rays as rock exposed right at the top of a boulder. Each nucleus also has what's known as its collisional cross-section which can be thought of as the size of the target at the atomic level for a cosmic ray to hit. Oh and when a cosmic ray hits multiple different things can happen to a given nucleus! Accounting for those gives the proportion of the overall flux that hits the target. On top of that lot there are variations in the overall cosmic rays flux to account for! How much solar activity is there? How is the intensity of the earth's magnetic field varying? How has atmospheric pressure varied? Were there any extrasolar cosmic ray events like supernovae to account for? Not an easy job! Silica is a friend in this case. Silicon and oxygen whose most abundant isotopes are silicon 26 and oxygen 16. Smack silicon 26 with a cosmic ray and it often produces aluminium 26. Smack oxygen 16 with a cosmic ray and it often produces beryllium 10. Those have half-lives of 71,700 years and 139,000 years respectively. Thus useful lengths for the kind of time periods rocks dropped by Pleistocene glaciers and glacial outburst floods. Oxygen 16 is more complicated than silicon 26 because it's also present in the atmosphere as well as the rock. Aluminium 26 and beryllium 10 are also useful because they tend to only be produced through cosmic ray collision. This litany illustrates the main reason why surface exposure dating techniques like this have only recently been developed. The sheer complication mitigated against them for a long time.
Feel so fortunate we get to see all these POI and have a clear concise story to attach it to.
Thank You Nick, Really Love these types of videos!
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.
We have a Bridgeport on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains must be a popular name.
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.
This is fascinating. I’ve been curious about the geology of Washington State since I first came out here in the ‘70s. Thank you!!!
My family is from Waterville…pioneers. The eratocs on the way to McNeil canyon and the cascades in the background are amazing!
My husband and i appreciate hearing your huffing and puffing up the rocks! Makes us feel better.
I've driven by this rock many times and always wondered, how did it get there?!? Thank you!
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
You sir, have a gift... everything I've seen is informative, fun, and educational..thank you!
Milk Duds. German Chocolate Cake. Pizza Boxes. Pigs rising through Jello. Ruffles Potato Chips. Giant Bakery Whales. I wonder why I binge eat watching your videos.
I loved the quiet scenic ending cut without further commentary. That was nice. Feel like the old Charles corralt show on Sunday mornings
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!
Thank you for taking us along again, Nick! Looks like some giant has been sowing rocks to grow a mountain range! 😂
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!
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 ❤❤
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.
Going above and beyond Nick....Brilliant...
Welcome Home! and glad to see you back at it!
Nick you are a national treasure. Thanks for your expertise and thorough presentation of a very interesting subject.
Well said; I add my voice to this note of appreciation for Nick!
Many thanks, Nick!
Wow - great video. Thanks for taking us along! This is so fascinating to actually see the rocks in the landscape they have been deposited in.
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.
so hard to imagine the giant ice there that left those boulders; holy cow. Nice vid, too! Look how techy you are now...I'm damn proud.
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.
Just love field tripping with you Nick , always interesting and I never fail to learn something new!
All the best Jules 👍
These field trips are quite worth the time to watch. The story behind the terrain is fascinating.
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!
Thanks for giving us new things to think about timing of ice sheets and ice age floods. It’s so fun to ponder more than the “normal” ice age sagas!
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
He's so cool. Amazing knowledge he shares with people who are wanting to be informed !!! 🟧🔳🟥🌿🌿🇺🇸
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.
Wow, what a cool place! Thank you for showing it. I can't believe the size of some of those erratics.
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.
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.
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….🦉
There are so many of them up there it’s amazing!
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.
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.
Love these vicarious field trips. Hope to get out there and see for myself some day.
Thanks Nick. Always something interesting ! 👍
Thanks Nick! Looking fit, glad you got the knees done.
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!
I often wonder how those boulders feel being all alone with no direction home, a complete unknown like a rolling Stone.
I love these local geology lessons! I am native to N Central WA and am always curious about the landscape when it looks unusual. TY
I was there about 4 months ago was amazed by the size and amount of the erratic. thank you stay safe all
I so appreciate your interest in sharing your knowledge and discoveries, thank you good sir.!
Fantastical ! You're always hitting the ground with erudite knowledge. We are better informed every single time you speak. 🇺🇸🌿🇺🇸 🟥🟥🟧🔳🌬🕯
Thanks Nick for an interesting field trip. I didn't know about the plateau before.
For sure geology about Seattle I had no idea or understanding.
Thanks Nick.
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?
I stopped there in July on a drive from western Washington back to western Montana. It was a really nice surprise.
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!
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
or maybe they're piles of that glacial till.
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
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.
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.
The Waterville plateau is high in elevation. Top of the cake, where would the basalt have come from?
Fascinating story. Thanks!!
Looking in the glossary of my Geo 101 book for "ass over tea kettle". 😄
It's in the supplemental field techniques book .
Look under P for Patrick...!
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.
Very good!
I've been atop that plateau, its a different world. I love dropping down into the Moses Cooley, that things is just Cool...
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.
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.
I drove to Spokane from my dad's house in Chelan once and had a hard time paying attention to the road because I kept appreciating the Milk Duds!
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! :)
This was cool. Thanks, Nick.
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 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'.
Great episode. Strange how the granite and basalt erratics seem to each have their own part of that field.
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.
Another question since you were in the Chelan area. Are you familiar with the Chelan ice caves? I don't know if they still exist, but we used to go there 50 years ago. Would they have been remnants of the Okanogan lobe of the ice sheet?
They dynamited the entrance in the 60`s , I remember going there as a young boy. We use to go from Tacoma to Spokane a few times a year.
I found this on a hiking site.
There are no signs or structures here indicating that this was once a State Park (but at least the maps list it as Ice Caves State Park). However the ice caves may no longer be entered. The entrance to the caves was dynamited in the sixties because the local government figured the caves was a hazard. But before that, since it was also a natural cold environment, the local fruit growers used to store their fruit over the summer in the caves.
@@Retr0racin Thanks. I was very young when we went in the 60’s. :) My mother went when she was young also.
Are we saying these basalt "milk duds" are part of the CRBG? They frankly don't even look like CRBG basalts; I'm going to have to look again at a map of where the CBRG extends up there because that seems a bit far north. If it's _not_ CRBG, then where did the glaciers pick up these milk duds from?
Very fascinating those big boulders! The question I'd like to put in the hat is "are they Columbia River Basalt?"
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.
Howdy Nick. Great video. There are many rounded drop stones in the glacial deposits shown . Perhaps better described as diamictite rather than till since it is poorly consolidated and not showing classic overloading features of a typical lodgement till (see Eyles and Eyles 1992 in Facies Models section 5 edited by R.G. Walker and N.P. James, Geological Association of Canada QE651.F25 1992).
Beautiful Presentation .. 😎
I found a basalt boulder with a quartz vein on the back side, sitting on a mountain in the Okanogan valley. Would that be a sign of a gold deposit?
Nick would this idea transfer over to the milkduds between Grand Coulee and Nespelem along the highway?
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.
That is one large Erratic
If you can fly low over western Montana and into Washington, you can see larger. I think Nick has shown them in earlier episodes.
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 ?
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?
Different volcanos
I know that area well! I never knew the real name, we called it number rock
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.
Good video! It has been a long time since I was there!
I don’t know anything about Geology but from what you are saying, shouldn’t you be able to find more cemented glacial till material right underneath the layers you were talking about and showing in the video? As in earlier times there was supposed to be more glacial advances happening, shouldn’t there be exactly the same thing happening - deposition of the same or slightly different material, depending on what rock or ground formation we would have found in the more northern regions at that time? And that material now, due to time and pressure, is now deeper down and more pressurized? Maybe folded but still there. Maybe there are pits around or something similar man-made diggings into the ground where you would find a nice depiction of layers.
♥️ Thank you so very much, Nick! How come the moraines are void of trees? Is the whole area above tree level? Just scrub land? There is one pile that appears in part to be farmers' deposit...certainly not the largest "duds." I suspect there are maps that identify these?
I live in this region. The climate is arid. Without irrigation, trees are limited to watercourses, springs or other places with sufficient moisture.
Mansfield gets around 12 inches of precipitation a year, trees need about 20.
@@mikespangler98 Thank you! Just weird to not see anything other than the grasses.
@@leestamm3187 Thank you! Lucky you have the opportunity to see in person this area!!
Another harrowing episode of Nick on the Moraine...!
Whew!
so glacial till.. so did the ice push the till in front of it? was it deposited by rivers? did the till get deposited at the margins as the ice retreated? did the till rest on top or under the ice? please do a quick till deposition refresher lol
you are excellent
love love love
Yes.
No.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
At 8:45 so are those terminal moraines you just scanned? Michigan,, we have lots of erratics and terminal moraines. Just drove over two on my way home , one 60,000yo the other 14,000 yo
where did the milkduds come from?
Three thoughts:
1… where were the huge boulders ripped out of the bedrock? Were they ever linked back to their location of origin?
2… I would think 100,000 years of water percolating through glacial til would either dissolve minerals or deposit minerals on the sand particles. Is there evidence in sandstone or ancient til deposits to be had by analyzing the mineral accretions that hold the sand particles together? Perhaps the water’s acid levels, perhaps dating by accretion rates, perhaps identifying mineral levels in the percolating water that changed when rivers changed. What if a precise cross section of sandstone that also cuts sand grains in half would allow measuring & analyzing micron thick layers of mineral deposits around individual sand grains.
Would we find annual ring patterns of mineral deposited around sand particles? Would oxygen isotope ratios change annually as the water precipitated during cold winter vs hot summer seasons? (And could the oxygen isotope ratio layering in calcite deposits allow dating stalagmites and stalactites?).
3… plant pollen and seeds must get embedded in the til. Could til be filtered to find embedded dandelion seeds etc and then the carbon in the seed be carbon dated?
I would love to hear your thoughts about Hydroplate theory. Love your videos.
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.
Great Stuff Nick! Question wouldnt till left by an earlier glaciación be altered - removed- destroyed even - no trace left?
enjoy your geology of the glaciers. which glacier produced the Mima mounds in south Puget sound around Tumwater?
I like big rocks I can not lie...
Do you think as the ice retreated it took the route along HWY 17 to Bridgeport/Brewster?
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 ?
Question: Where were the basalt milk duds transported from. An analysis of the basalt should identify the source.
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!
Nice to see my old stomping grounds. My family has been in the Methow and Okanogan since the 1890's. IS THERE ANY WAY TO TRACK WHERE THE NON BASALTIC ROCKS ORIGINATED? PS: I love my Hokas. :)
Yes. At a rough level simply where the most likely rocks of that particular type are. To get specific then isotope ratio analysis can pin it down to a particular formation.
@@davidpnewton Thank you. I wonder if it could help differentiate between younger floods and much older ones.
@@timroar9188 no.
Isotope like this ratios are very much used for dating. However it's a very different sort of dating for the most part.
Isotope ratios used to identify specific rock units are usually stable isotopes. In other words those that don't undergo radioactive decay. They are useless for dating since by definition they don't vary over time!
Isotopes used for dating are radioisotopes. The differing ratios give the time series. However this gives the age of formation of the rock NOT the age of it being transported and dumped by a glacier or indeed by an outburst flood.
The one slight exception to that is surface exposure dating. This relies on _increase_ of radionuclides as well as decrease! Coming in from space are energetic things known as cosmic rays. When those hit an atom they can dislodge particles from the nucleus, kind of like induced nuclear decay. Those particles can either be neutrons which leaves the element the atom is alone but alters which isotope of that element it is or protons which alter the atom's atomic number and thus which element it is.
If the result is another stable nucleus then nothing else happens. If the result is a radionuclide then all sorts of things become possible. Radionuclides decay at a known rate. The increase in this case is dependent on the flux of cosmic rays hitting the sample. That flux is determined by altitude (higher in the atmosphere equals more cosmic rays), latitude (the earth's magnetic field directs cosmic rays), density of the rock being sampled, depth in the rock the sample was taken from (deeper in means lower cosmic ray flux) and the geometry of the surface of the rock. Rock exposed in a downward-facing overhang isn't going to get nearly as many cosmic rays as rock exposed right at the top of a boulder. Each nucleus also has what's known as its collisional cross-section which can be thought of as the size of the target at the atomic level for a cosmic ray to hit. Oh and when a cosmic ray hits multiple different things can happen to a given nucleus! Accounting for those gives the proportion of the overall flux that hits the target.
On top of that lot there are variations in the overall cosmic rays flux to account for! How much solar activity is there? How is the intensity of the earth's magnetic field varying? How has atmospheric pressure varied? Were there any extrasolar cosmic ray events like supernovae to account for?
Not an easy job!
Silica is a friend in this case. Silicon and oxygen whose most abundant isotopes are silicon 26 and oxygen 16. Smack silicon 26 with a cosmic ray and it often produces aluminium 26. Smack oxygen 16 with a cosmic ray and it often produces beryllium 10. Those have half-lives of 71,700 years and 139,000 years respectively. Thus useful lengths for the kind of time periods rocks dropped by Pleistocene glaciers and glacial outburst floods. Oxygen 16 is more complicated than silicon 26 because it's also present in the atmosphere as well as the rock. Aluminium 26 and beryllium 10 are also useful because they tend to only be produced through cosmic ray collision.
This litany illustrates the main reason why surface exposure dating techniques like this have only recently been developed. The sheer complication mitigated against them for a long time.