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The Heresy Begins, "Unbelievable"!
The pieces fall together, with the many land formations that could not be explained by the old school erosion theory geologists J. Harlen Bretz shook the geological community with a radical idea of a cataclysmic flood on the scale that seized the breath of the community. A hell fire of controversy followed in the years to come regarding this heresy.
In 1923 Bretz continued his studies by publishing geological papers referring to these areas and formations as "The Channeled Scabland", Dry Falls, current ripples know as West Bar, scoured buttes, basins and Potholes Cataract, valley potholes. Though Bretz could not support his idea with "The beginning" yet another man Joseph T. Pardee for the United States Geologic Survey had written about the Glacial Lake Missoula. It would not culmunated until 1942 when he would publish again regarding the "giant ripple marks". These ripples as high as 30 with lengths of near 250' would suggest the very nature of the torent need to support Bretz.
Click the icon picture to here more on the flood and erattic stones here in the Tualatin/ Willamette valley..
Task to Complete the Cache.
A) As a requirement of Earthcaches, the following question must be answered and emailed to the cache owner.
1) What are the two names for the type of rocks here?
2) How many erratic rocks are here?
3) What Buildings are within 100' of the coordinates?
4) Who was the Geologist that identified the reason for the stones to be here?
5) How deep was the water in the valley?
6) Where are they from and how did they get here?
7) Is this a typical Baradam kind of cache, why or why not and how does it differ?
B)Log your find of this earthcache online. Photos are no longer allowed to be required for earthcaches, but I would love to see your photos from your visit. However, if your answers to the above questions are incorrect, a posted photo of yourself at the earthcache site with your log might just get me over look a little bitty mistakie.
C) As required for Earthcache listings, incomplete logs will be deleted without warning. An incomplete log is one that does not include an email within a reasonable amount of time to me with the correct answers to all of the questions.
Follow this link to the the GSA History page on Pardee. For a much better and complete story line on the developement of cataclysmic flooding hypothesis.
Congrates to Amygems for here FTF....
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Geological How Can It Be?
Did you know that 12 to 15,000 years ago in this very place you would have been standing under 400 feet of water under Lake Allison that stretched from Kalama, Washington to Eugene, Oregon. Yes, at the end of the last ice age a phenomena amounting to what some would call a catastrophic event comparable to what others would call the results of a biblical disaster took place in the Northwest. You say, no way. Oh, yes can you imagine standing in what is called Wallula gap just out of Pasco, Washington where in the mater of minutes you would look down and watch a towering wall of water some 1,000 feet high moving at around 50 mph carrying huge chunks of ice sweeping with it mud, rocks and everything else smaller than a mountain with it . Much of the fertile soils of the Willamete valley is sediment from the flood waters, just like the rich river deltas.
What is in the Name?
These rocks know as glacial erratics, yet with another special name too, dropstones. Even massive rocks larger than the 40 ton slab of granite like the ones at Erractic Rock State Natural Site southwest of us in Sheridian, Oregon rode the turbulent flood waters with giant plates of ice to find themselves resting in far away places. The ice encapsulated or rafted these mammoths eventually fractured or melted then to drop their loads or settle to the lake floors. This is where the rocks received there names erractics because their type and composition is not that of the native area. No, these are distant travelers from as far as hundreds of miles away like ours which came from 650 miles away possibly down the Clark Fork River of Montana. By the way, these glacial erractics are not just in the Northwest like Oregon and Washington but New York, Massachusetts, California, Germany, Esonia, Falkland Islands, Chile, Russia, Mongolia, and well I'll stop there but everywhere.
Where it all began?
The story behind the rocks, let's say about 18, 000 years ago however I like to think less than that, at the end of the Ice Age a glacier's lobe part of the Cordilleran Ice sheet had advanced down the Idaho Panhandle to an area presently occupied by Lake Pend Oreille. The magnitude of this lobe stood to a spiring height of well over 2500 feet as it dammed the Clark Fork River forming the Glacial Lake Missoula. estamites make the lake a some 500 cubic miles, yes miles of water making this flusher the size of Lake Erie and Ontario.
When the Gates Burst Forth
When the gates broke open, the wall of water rushed forth sweeping with it all that could not deny it forces. Looking for every week crevasse even in the walls of basalt, every soft hole the torrent whirl pools bore to great depths and this ravaging tool of nature sucked the surface like the sea ripples the sands of the ocean. These geological forces of nature changed the face of the landscape gorging out here and rendering new land formation there like the huge gravel bars even as tall as 400 or more feet high. These acts of nature also left deposited of sediment in many valley floor along the way leaving yet others to rest in the mouth of the Columbia River. As the Ice Age closed this action on a smaller scales continued as the ice receeded from the face of the earth. These forces were the very evidence that drew the minds of certain geologist to ask how and why.
Click one of the picture icons to the right to give you a geological tour of some more information on flood waters in the Northwest.
The icon to the left leads to more information on erratics.
 The icon to the left leads to a computer illustration of the flood waters and how they sweep the lands.
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