Simon Fraser University
Post Conference Field Trip - Channeled Scablands
May 8 - 11, 2009
Leaders: John J. Clague and Brent C. Ward
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The post-conference field trip is a three-day excursion to the world-famous Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington State . We will examine erosional and depositional evidence for repeated, huge outburst floods (jökulhlaups) from glacial Lake Missoula over a ca. 3000-year period near the end of the Pleistocene. The floods produced broad erosional tracts and high-energy bedforms that are visible from space, and deposited thick slackwater sediments in tributaries of the Columbia and Willamette rivers. |
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We will examine the end moraine of the late Wisconsin Cordilleran ice sheet on the Waterville Plateau, several flood-carved valleys (Moses Coulee, Grand Coulee at Dry Falls, Frenchman's Coulee), and the mega-ripple tract at West Bar. We will visit the museum at Gingko State Park to see the petrified plant fossils recovered from forests beneath Miocene basalts. We will also examine Missoula flood slackwater deposits and St. Helens set S tephras at Touchet, Mabton, and Zillah. We will swap stories on the long warm spring evenings that are guaranteed by the field-trip leaders. |