It's difficult to explain to most people why geology is so fascinating and awe-inspiring. When I see formations like these hidden in plain sight, the hair on the back of my neck stands up
I love watching field geology, I get both the beautiful landscape and the cool science. Also, the little OSHA guy inside me wanted you to be wearing a safety vest when you were beside the road at the end. 😛😶
Such a great episode. Jerome is fantastic. Love seeing this less formal, “out in the field” side of him as he follows a hypothesis and interprets on the fly. Thank you both!
Jerome is fantastic at describing this landscape! Like we're standing there watching the floods at the end of the Ice Age. Thanks for getting Jerome back on camera Nick!
Definitely a geologically diverse area. Quite familiar with Tunk Mtn area up into Aeneas Valley. Also familiar with the area due east of Riverside up Johnson Creek Rd/Riverside Cutoff Rd., where if one takes the first dirt road north (to the right) about 1 mile east of Hwy 97 is an area known as the Lime Belt where Albtight cave, situate on Cave Mtn., largest limestone cave in Washington. Personally been down to very bottom of the cave and could feel a cool breeze coming up from the progressively narrowing passage. Many people are not aware that Albright Cave has two cave entrances. Just north of Riverside, where Hwy 97 crosses the Okanogan River, a.ka., Janus Bridge, take the dirt road that goes up to McLoughlin Canyon and there is an extense cave system that i am personally quite familiar with known as McLoughlin Caves. This is one of the largest cave systems of Washington state. It is essentially a mountain that is fractured in criss-cross fashion with numerous interconnected passages with some impreesive size rooms, extremely narrow passageways that drop several hundred feet down that requires climbing gear. If you find a large manilla rope that goes down a steep passage it was left there by me and two rock climbing buddies one day back in early 1990s. See, Caves of Washington, by William R. Halliday. Albright Cave @ p. 40; McLoughlin Cave @ p. 43. ger_ic40_caves_of_wa.pdf
Can't get into edit my comment to make correction that Johnson Creek/ Riverside Cutoff Rd is not east, but west of Riverside. The Lime Belt /Cave Mtn area is also accessible by heading north up Hwy 97 about 6 mi. to South Pine Creek Rd., head towards Fish Lake.
Thanks for the rope! My buddy and I made it to a rope but didnt trust it. We brought back our own and my buddy dropped 20 feet or so and could tell it went a lot deeper. We didnt have any climbing experience so we turned back. Good times! That was 2001-2002. Amazing mountain! We heard rumor, maybe even found an old newspaper article saying another entrance across the river was dynamited. We were looking for the stash of guns hidden there by outlaws!!
I think i saw your Mitisbishi Van Near Enderby Last week? At Eby Hand Launch for the Shuswap river...i ve lived here since 1969, luv Nicks Vids and both ur guys expertise, im a hobby Geologist, i have some cool spots i visit often near here. Many questions unanswered about my area,( great divide, Fraser/ Columbia river systems , Enderby Cliffs, Mabel Lake Glacial Eratics etc etc )
Jerome is so good. Such a pro. I am always impressed and want to hear more. Keep your eye on him all you flood geologists; he will make important discoveries in his time.
I lived in that area for a number of years when I first moved out here. I never gave the landscape a thought other than it was a far cry different from the woods of upstate NY.
Wonderful video! I have lived in Omak all my life and as I get older, I am more and more interested in the geology of my surroundings, our state and the PNW abroad. I find gratitude in finding your older videos on CWU's TH-cam and your teachings here on your personal TH-cam. Thanks to you and Jerome for igniting theories, connections and energies into this area of the world.
Thank you Nick for driving up to the Okanogan and capturing this visit with Jerome. I was taught that the "Okanogan Lobe" of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet came down all the way to Grand Coulee and pushed the Columbia down the Dry Falls, Lenore and Soap Lake channel? Where was the extent of the Okanogan Lobe. I see the Tunk valley as a lake that formed on the side of the Okanogan Lobe. This is water came from local creek flow but it runs into a wall of ice plugging up the Okanogan valley so it forms a lake on the side. Each of the flats in the Tunk are deltas where the sediments from the creek, meets still water forming the steep drop off common to above gradient energetic creeks. For your younger viewers, Brewster Flat (the great terrace) is where NASA established a radio listening post for communication with the Mercury and later manned space programs. When John Glenn orbited Earth in space in 1962 and then attempted reentry into the Atmosphere, a sensor went off that indicated that his heat shield might have slipped. America waited eight minutes while the Mercury Capsule, named Freedom 7, came over the Pacific from the west and dropped through the "Van Allen Belt" that inhibited radio reception. About a third of the population of Earth, listened to "Freedom 7, this is Brewster Flats, do you copy?"Over" multiple times until John Glenn answered and we knew he had not burned up as he entered the atmosphere. The heat shield sensor turned out to be faulty. Freedom 7 landed near Turk Island, in the Atlantic as planned. John Glenn went on to be the oldest astronaut to ever go into space, on the Shuttle Discovery, (1998) after retiring from the Senate at age 77. He said he was never so happy in his life to hear that call from Brewster Flats.
Thank you for reminding all of us that Washington had a part to play in our learning about space. Time blurs what we feeble humans consider “history.” While our Earth’s history is counted in millions and billions of years. We are just a blips on the last few seconds of Earth’s last minute of time. I am almost to retirement age but I keep learning things about this old world of ours and the more research I do the more rabbit holes I want to go down. But I don’t think I will have enough time to discover every thing on my list; it is now about 70’ish pages long single space typed. Oh well maybe the person getting my papers will find my list and take up the research. I can only hope. Nick you opened a new line of research for me because of geology and for that I will forever be greatful. You have brought so many learned scholars on that have pointed me to the right place at the right time. You are one of the professors who I wish had been teaching my geology class. It was so dry and boring that most of the class slept (class was at 7:30 am) and there were just a few of us taking notes. But having a majority of the class needing note’s payed for a higher standard of living for that semester.
Jerome raises lots of questions which really need to be answered by further investigations into the structure of the “flats” and other terrace like structures. No guesses as to who will be then one to watch in the future. Thanks Nick for allowing Jerome to open up about his thoughts. Great video! 🐻
What a great video , kudos Nick and Jerome. Jerome like you Nick is a great teacher and has a talent for info delivery, always very interesting/entertaining!! The lidar maps are such a treat!!
The effect of heavy snow falls during the Ice Age reached far south of the ice sheet terminations in the northern states of the lower forty-eight, producing glazier cut valleys where no glaziers have existed for thousands of years. I imagine the ice sheets, as they progressed south, over topped mountains and glazier filled valleys, filling in the valleys and then sliding over the top to fill in the next valley, and so on. As the ice sheets receded (they were still moving south, just melting back faster than their southward movement) leaving great depths of ice in those valleys. Eventually exposure of mountain peaks collecting solar heat and rising temperatures could cause melting, water ponding and cutting through mountain peaks thousands of feet above the current valley floors. Alluvial fans, bench's, flats and such could form high on the sides of a glazier filled valley.
That is a good point, heavy snowfalls may have produced local glaciers, after all a glacier apparently exists in Mt. St. Helens's crater now, it doesn't take long.
Wow, that was really interesting, thanks Nick and Jerome. Lidar is so cool. Even I knew immediately what those ripples were as soon as i saw the pic. it reminds me of why I enjoy B/W photography in that... when you remove the color you are more free to see the form. Lidar removes all the stuff that clutters up the picture so you can see the shape of what's really there.
Great outing, guys! Hope you can do more! If you're near Omak, try getting out to "Balancing Rock" near Omak lake. Very cool huge erratic balancing on a smaller rock... The landscape and lidar images of the Columbia river channel from Kettle Falls to the Spokane River look a lot like what you've explored there in the Okanagan. Lots of benches full of rounded river cobble. We even have a huge gravel pit full of river cobbles on the summit of Addy-Gifford road at 2800 ft. Exciting stuff! And don't forget to check out the erratic boulder fields east of Curlew! No other site like it!
I'm not a geologist, but I really enjoy learning about the planet via programs like this one. Thanks to your teaching Nick, I saw the "terraces" and noticed the dips in the road before you and Jerome explained them, and I guessed what the "terraces" were correctly. You taught me to look at the earth with a scientific eye/mind. Many thanks to you and Jerome, and to all the scientists past and present who have contributed to our current understanding of the Earth's processes. It is all pretty darned wonderful. Literally wonder-full.
Tunk creek is where my Grandpa found the Thulite I gave Nick. I think you might find more ripples in Horse Springs Coulee north of Aeneas lake by Tonasket. We found mussel shells in terraces around Tonasket, clearly the ice had melted enough to allow feed for them for a time and that the benches were probably shores of a river lake. When the ice came back it drove the river up and over the area south of Janis bridge which eroded and allowed the lake to drain? The river, for a time, looks like it followed Hwy 97 down the higher valley of Crumbacher lake prior to the drainage opened up south of Janis bridge.
The Similkameen River has always provided way more water flow than the Okanogan and it used to flow through the Spectacle lake valley. I suppose it's possible that it even went south past Blue lake into fish lake, then into either the Conconully, the Crumbacher lake area or both.
I've always thought the same. No geologist, just a local. Both those valleys (spectacle n blue) are deeper and wider than the current water could form. Some may be from flooding coming down Toats coulee, but it seems more water volume and time than Toats would provide. Similkameen is a good explanation, especially since it flows that direction through Palmer lake during flood stage.
@@thomashart1560 I thought about this a bit more and decided that the east side of the coast range Canadian cascades would have always provided way more runoff than the the inland mountains around the Okanagan, draining all the water east of the Fraiser. The square mileage of drainage would have been huge. The backed up Columbia drainage probably fed into either the Okanagan and/or the Similkameen as well adding even more water. All the benches in the US Okanogan and south down to Wenatchee could have come from the two rivers together.
There are terraces where I live and it was very interesting to hear Jerome telling of the formation of those in WA. Ours are marine terraces formed by wave action and erosion combined with lifting of the landmass. It took me aback to think of them formed by deposition and then erosion. I'd love to have a beer around the campfire with Nick, Jerome and Skye and just listen to them talk new ideas! Thanks Nick!
I think that fan shaped feature is an alluvial fan then another or same event came from the river channel from the left and eroded the fans edge. Maybe it is an actual glacial dam, or yokelalps type situation? I think I spelt that wrong. The Icelandic term for flood caused by volcanic activity melting a glacier.
Lake Missoula was a 'perfect storm' arrangement where one of the south-moving tongues of ice (Purcell lobe) crossed and blocked a west-flowing river, (the Clark Fork of the Columbia). But you don't have that same geometry in the Okanagan/Okanogon. Here, you have south-flowing rivers, and south-flowing ice lobes. So it's hard to construct a way to have one intercept and block the other to impound a large lake which will eventually breach and contribute to the erosion seen in Washington. Perhaps a fast-moving ice tongue from a side valley blocked drainage as the main Okanagan tongue receded northwards. But 'Where's the Lake?' is my question. No remnant shorelines. No lacustrine clay, no varves. No dropstones. So we have to go with sub-glacial flow which doesn't leave much evidence. The new mega-ripples shown on Lidar are compelling...but could they have been formed by an unusually rapid period of glacial melt which filled the valley with deep runoff?
Tonasket wa. When you get up in this area I would like to show you Whitestone mountain and flats. Many geology and flood features that you will find interesting.
I believe Nick was here in the area 5 years or so ago. There was a geology tour that left Tonasket high school and cruised the Loup through Nighthawk. I missed it, but I hope to catch the next one! From what I heard, they couldn't get access to Whitestone Mtn. They had been trying for years but its private and couldn't get permission. That mountain held a lot of mysteries they wanted to solve about local geology. Good talk Jim. Thom
Lidar is a useful tool. I'd hoped for more about the talks with Jerome about subglacial water discharge from Canada into the US Okanogan. Here we go! Stay tuned. Thank you Nick and Jerome!
Fascinating again gentlemen thank you! I look forward to more in this country. I was born just over to the east there in Colville. Spent my childhood roaming the hills of my family cattle ranch on a mountain east side of the Kettle River, just 20 miles from Lake Christina BC. I just love that country.. Now we look to the future with a video of Jerome, Skye Cooley and you Nick!
Sounds like Kelly Hill. I used to be a Beekeeper with Joe Holt in Kettle and we had bee yards all over Kelly Hill. It was my favorite place to eat lunch while working. Locations were Anderson, Madsen, Hansen, Dewey Beardsley, Koschutski, etc... Heaven on Earth.
Gifford gal, here! Been studying the features along the Columbia and they have all the same characteristics as Nick and Jerome pointed out in the Okanagan...didn't find any ripples on the lidar here though. Lots of "streamlines", especially around Hunters.
I'm always excited to learn from Jerome and happy to see him in the field! Maybe Jerome can give Nick some contacts and we'll see Nick on Kosmographia!
Nick is a whole level above Komodo’s audience which is all good. One is science the other speculation not to be confused. Guess I just like the old man back in Smyrna GA
Your in my back yard kind of, I am in Omak, and just Off Greenacres Rd. is where you are at up by the Airport. I am presently unearthing a large gravel bar south of you guys about 4 miles on highway 20 mile marker 231 by Smallwood Farms.
Always love learning new thing with you professor. I'm a new viewer and really enjoying your 351 series right now. It's amazing and wish I had you as a teacher in school.
Thanks, Nick and Jerome! Cool how clear that Lidar is! Thanks for showing us yet another weapon in our arsenal to find evidence to prove hypotheses! Will look forward to hearing where those rocks in the terraces come from!
The large flat thats was eroded to create that area they are standing on was created when all the material washed out of the valley that Omak lake is in and was all deposited right there during the flood. That material was pushed there with flow out of the columbia up over the omak lake valley (kartar valley). I think it was all part of the event that broke up the lower Okanogan lobe
Fascinating episode showing the Geomorpholgy of the area with a view using new Remote Sensing via LIDAR. Plus the possible future hypothesis of the history, causes of past events. EXCELLENT!!!
I’m really enjoying these videos lol. The rippled bench up to the 10min mark…. Looks a lot like a dirty silt free of stone, and into my mind jumps the thought that this could be the redistributed Okanagan lake or Similkameen valley glacial silt beds. In part.
As soon as I saw the 1st lidar image i said "Whoa!!!" Imagine that boat ride. Geomorphology always reminds me how impossibly short our lives are and the power of nature & time. Thanks for bringing us out here Nick, you never fail to turn on my imagination in visualizing being there as all these events happen. I drove up hwy 97 through those ripples back in 1997 but like everyone else, I failed to notice them.
Thanks for taking us along and sharing this interview and field trip, most interesting. Surprised to see large rounded rocks in soil there. I wouldn't have guessed that to be old flood plain.
Thank you, Nick! This is timely as we are driving out of the North Cascades in four weeks and can check out the Great Terrace where the Okanogan meets the Columbia near Brewster! Always enjoy hearing Jerome’s theories. Best Wishes. Leslie from near Boston.
very interesting video, at 19:10 where your talking about the benches, could they be the remanence of a land slide coming down from above, where looser material was deposited from either the ice that was there, or another way, with natural erosion scattered around their bases ?
At 7:54 I think Jerome is trying to describe Kame Terraces. Like a lower shelf along the side of the hillside and are pretty much equal in height from where you are standing. Sometimes there are a couple of terraces present like along US 97 and southwest of Riverside, WA. Those LIDAR landform maps are fascinating. You can see the ripples left by the water . Better than what google can show . Great information on what happened with the glaciers and meltwater floods here.
Thanks again Nick, you and Jerome would have blast here in Central Alberta. Starting 200 meters outside my front door. Our house sits on Moraine near a flood cut(30m) on the Red Deer River . The area here in the City has exposed sandstones ,lens of sand and silt. Kettles , Waves and Flow Channels throughout the area. I wonder if Alberta Geological Service has done any LADIR work here .
Very interesting stuff! Interesting observations and questions, and as Rachel suggests below, Lidar appears to be a very useful tool. I need another lifetime to explore and understand all this…
The Okanagan Country, also known as the Okanagan Valley, is a region located in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington (where it is spelled the Okanogan Country), defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Okanagan River.
No, we saw those while in an Air Balloon, just because you guys finally seen it don't mean anything. Now your going up tunk where i go every weekend. My family has one of the oldest cabins on Crawfish Lake which is just above you. Did you see the Mining of Thualite just off the road after the big ditch.
Makes me wonder about the Gangplank north of the Denver Basin. Denver Basin cut by the South Platte and is Cache la Poudre part of the north side? Is the Gangplank an outwash terrace from the Rockies?
Johnson Creek gravel Wall, now we believe most the Flats around Omak are Gravel bars, i was born here lived here and dug hundreds of big holes here and that is my findings sir.
Thank you for this wonderful informative series.
I love these geomorphology discussions. Fascinating to try to understand how a landscape got that way.
Late comment - The ripples can be seen on google maps in the satellite mode. The terrace show up nicely on google maps in the 'terrain' mode.
You have assembled quite a crew, Nick. Thank you for all that you do.
Listening and watching knowledgeable folks thinking and musing and processing, is such a great thing for learning.
It's difficult to explain to most people why geology is so fascinating and awe-inspiring. When I see formations like these hidden in plain sight, the hair on the back of my neck stands up
Thank you Nick n Jerome. Hope to attend a lecture someday!
I love watching field geology, I get both the beautiful landscape and the cool science.
Also, the little OSHA guy inside me wanted you to be wearing a safety vest when you were beside the road at the end. 😛😶
Such a great episode. Jerome is fantastic. Love seeing this less formal, “out in the field” side of him as he follows a hypothesis and interprets on the fly. Thank you both!
Jerome is fantastic at describing this landscape! Like we're standing there watching the floods at the end of the Ice Age. Thanks for getting Jerome back on camera Nick!
Under ice river flow uphill was a new thought for me.
outstanding conversation and visuals. Thank you
Thank you for the interesting possibilities. So much more to learn of our joint geology in the Okanagan (Canadian spelling) and Columbia River valleys
Definitely a geologically diverse area.
Quite familiar with Tunk Mtn area up into Aeneas Valley. Also familiar with the area due east of Riverside up Johnson Creek Rd/Riverside Cutoff Rd., where if one takes the first dirt road north (to the right) about 1 mile east of Hwy 97 is an area known as the Lime Belt where Albtight cave, situate on Cave Mtn., largest limestone cave in Washington. Personally been down to very bottom of the cave and could feel a cool breeze coming up from the progressively narrowing passage. Many people are not aware that Albright Cave has two cave entrances.
Just north of Riverside, where Hwy 97 crosses the Okanogan River, a.ka., Janus Bridge, take the dirt road that goes up to McLoughlin Canyon and there is an extense cave system that i am personally quite familiar with known as McLoughlin Caves. This is one of the largest cave systems of Washington state. It is essentially a mountain that is fractured in criss-cross fashion with numerous interconnected passages with some impreesive size rooms, extremely narrow passageways that drop several hundred feet down that requires climbing gear. If you find a large manilla rope that goes down a steep passage it was left there by me and two rock climbing buddies one day back in early 1990s.
See, Caves of Washington, by William R. Halliday. Albright Cave @ p. 40; McLoughlin Cave @ p. 43.
ger_ic40_caves_of_wa.pdf
Can't get into edit my comment to make correction that Johnson Creek/ Riverside Cutoff Rd is not east, but west of Riverside. The Lime Belt /Cave Mtn area is also accessible by heading north up Hwy 97 about 6 mi. to South Pine Creek Rd., head towards Fish Lake.
Thanks for the rope! My buddy and I made it to a rope but didnt trust it. We brought back our own and my buddy dropped 20 feet or so and could tell it went a lot deeper. We didnt have any climbing experience so we turned back. Good times! That was 2001-2002. Amazing mountain! We heard rumor, maybe even found an old newspaper article saying another entrance across the river was dynamited. We were looking for the stash of guns hidden there by outlaws!!
Shhhhh dont tell the seattle people about cool things there.
I think i saw your Mitisbishi Van Near Enderby Last week? At Eby Hand Launch for the Shuswap river...i ve lived here since 1969, luv Nicks Vids and both ur guys expertise, im a hobby Geologist, i have some cool spots i visit often near here. Many questions unanswered about my area,( great divide, Fraser/ Columbia river systems , Enderby Cliffs, Mabel Lake Glacial Eratics etc etc )
Jerome is so good. Such a pro. I am always impressed and want to hear more. Keep your eye on him all you flood geologists; he will make important discoveries in his time.
That Skye Cooley is pretty good, too--far-looking and insightful, and great at sharing his thought-processes with us.
@@jackprier7727 Plus a really cool name.
and so will you Skye.
Another great video! in the thumbnail it looks like body cam footage of a Dr. Jerome traffic stop going on,lol 😆
I lived in that area for a number of years when I first moved out here. I never gave the landscape a thought other than it was a far cry different from the woods of upstate NY.
Udderly fantastic...
Wonderful video! I have lived in Omak all my life and as I get older, I am more and more interested in the geology of my surroundings, our state and the PNW abroad. I find gratitude in finding your older videos on CWU's TH-cam and your teachings here on your personal TH-cam. Thanks to you and Jerome for igniting theories, connections and energies into this area of the world.
Love the interaction between Nick and Jerome!
Love the Okanagan! Great vineyards on our benches. 🇨🇦
Love the Jerome videos. He has such a good way of educating his audience just like you do. If he ever does some public lectures I'd love to watch.
Thank you Nick for driving up to the Okanogan and capturing this visit with Jerome. I was taught that the "Okanogan Lobe" of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet came down all the way to Grand Coulee and pushed the Columbia down the Dry Falls, Lenore and Soap Lake channel? Where was the extent of the Okanogan Lobe. I see the Tunk valley as a lake that formed on the side of the Okanogan Lobe. This is water came from local creek flow but it runs into a wall of ice plugging up the Okanogan valley so it forms a lake on the side. Each of the flats in the Tunk are deltas where the sediments from the creek, meets still water forming the steep drop off common to above gradient energetic creeks.
For your younger viewers, Brewster Flat (the great terrace) is where NASA established a radio listening post for communication with the Mercury and later manned space programs. When John Glenn orbited Earth in space in 1962 and then attempted reentry into the Atmosphere, a sensor went off that indicated that his heat shield might have slipped. America waited eight minutes while the Mercury Capsule, named Freedom 7, came over the Pacific from the west and dropped through the "Van Allen Belt" that inhibited radio reception. About a third of the population of Earth, listened to "Freedom 7, this is Brewster Flats, do you copy?"Over" multiple times until John Glenn answered and we knew he had not burned up as he entered the atmosphere. The heat shield sensor turned out to be faulty. Freedom 7 landed near Turk Island, in the Atlantic as planned. John Glenn went on to be the oldest astronaut to ever go into space, on the Shuttle Discovery, (1998) after retiring from the Senate at age 77. He said he was never so happy in his life to hear that call from Brewster Flats.
Thank you for reminding all of us that Washington had a part to play in our learning about space. Time blurs what we feeble humans consider “history.”
While our Earth’s history is counted in millions and billions of years. We are just a blips on the last few seconds of Earth’s last minute of time. I am almost to retirement age but I keep learning things about this old world of ours and the more research I do the more rabbit holes I want to go down. But I don’t think I will have enough time to discover every thing on my list; it is now about 70’ish pages long single space typed. Oh well maybe the person getting my papers will find my list and take up the research. I can only hope.
Nick you opened a new line of research for me because of geology and for that I will forever be greatful. You have brought so many learned scholars on that have pointed me to the right place at the right time. You are one of the professors who I wish had been teaching my geology class. It was so dry and boring that most of the class slept (class was at 7:30 am) and there were just a few of us taking notes. But having a majority of the class needing note’s payed for a higher standard of living for that semester.
Jerome raises lots of questions which really need to be answered by further investigations into the structure of the “flats” and other terrace like structures. No guesses as to who will be then one to watch in the future. Thanks Nick for allowing Jerome to open up about his thoughts.
Great video! 🐻
What a great video , kudos Nick and Jerome. Jerome like you Nick is a great teacher and has a talent for info delivery, always very interesting/entertaining!! The lidar maps are such a treat!!
Thank you for all you do to keep us interested in geology in Washington State
That was a great field trip. How exciting to be in on potential new theories and research. Beautiful locations as well! Thanks for taking us along.
Great use of the Lidar and great detective work by Jerome. I wish high resolution Lidar was done everywhere. thx nick
The effect of heavy snow falls during the Ice Age reached far south of the ice sheet terminations in the northern states of the lower forty-eight, producing glazier cut valleys where no glaziers have existed for thousands of years. I imagine the ice sheets, as they progressed south, over topped mountains and glazier filled valleys, filling in the valleys and then sliding over the top to fill in the next valley, and so on. As the ice sheets receded (they were still moving south, just melting back faster than their southward movement) leaving great depths of ice in those valleys. Eventually exposure of mountain peaks collecting solar heat and rising temperatures could cause melting, water ponding and cutting through mountain peaks thousands of feet above the current valley floors. Alluvial fans, bench's, flats and such could form high on the sides of a glazier filled valley.
That is a good point, heavy snowfalls may have produced local glaciers, after all a glacier apparently exists in Mt. St. Helens's crater now, it doesn't take long.
Wow, that was really interesting, thanks Nick and Jerome. Lidar is so cool. Even I knew immediately what those ripples were as soon as i saw the pic. it reminds me of why I enjoy B/W photography in that... when you remove the color you are more free to see the form. Lidar removes all the stuff that clutters up the picture so you can see the shape of what's really there.
🥳 So nice to see you and listen to you again Jerome🥰 Thanks Nick 😍
Great outing, guys! Hope you can do more! If you're near Omak, try getting out to "Balancing Rock" near Omak lake. Very cool huge erratic balancing on a smaller rock...
The landscape and lidar images of the Columbia river channel from Kettle Falls to the Spokane River look a lot like what you've explored there in the Okanagan. Lots of benches full of rounded river cobble. We even have a huge gravel pit full of river cobbles on the summit of Addy-Gifford road at 2800 ft. Exciting stuff! And don't forget to check out the erratic boulder fields east of Curlew! No other site like it!
I'm not a geologist, but I really enjoy learning about the planet via programs like this one. Thanks to your teaching Nick, I saw the "terraces" and noticed the dips in the road before you and Jerome explained them, and I guessed what the "terraces" were correctly. You taught me to look at the earth with a scientific eye/mind. Many thanks to you and Jerome, and to all the scientists past and present who have contributed to our current understanding of the Earth's processes. It is all pretty darned wonderful. Literally wonder-full.
Thanks Nick and Jerome. I so enjoy turning on one of these videos and learning about geology and deep time. Keep up the good work.
Tunk creek is where my Grandpa found the Thulite I gave Nick. I think you might find more ripples in Horse Springs Coulee north of Aeneas lake by Tonasket. We found mussel shells in terraces around Tonasket, clearly the ice had melted enough to allow feed for them for a time and that the benches were probably shores of a river lake. When the ice came back it drove the river up and over the area south of Janis bridge which eroded and allowed the lake to drain? The river, for a time, looks like it followed Hwy 97 down the higher valley of Crumbacher lake prior to the drainage opened up south of Janis bridge.
The Similkameen River has always provided way more water flow than the Okanogan and it used to flow through the Spectacle lake valley. I suppose it's possible that it even went south past Blue lake into fish lake, then into either the Conconully, the Crumbacher lake area or both.
I've always thought the same. No geologist, just a local. Both those valleys (spectacle n blue) are deeper and wider than the current water could form. Some may be from flooding coming down Toats coulee, but it seems more water volume and time than Toats would provide. Similkameen is a good explanation, especially since it flows that direction through Palmer lake during flood stage.
@@thomashart1560 I thought about this a bit more and decided that the east side of the coast range Canadian cascades would have always provided way more runoff than the the inland mountains around the Okanagan, draining all the water east of the Fraiser. The square mileage of drainage would have been huge. The backed up Columbia drainage probably fed into either the Okanagan and/or the Similkameen as well adding even more water. All the benches in the US Okanogan and south down to Wenatchee could have come from the two rivers together.
Thanks for letting us tag along.
Tunnel valley under ice, type of sediment, and uphill water flow in places discussion very interesting, didn't know anything about that.
There are terraces where I live and it was very interesting to hear Jerome telling of the formation of those in WA. Ours are marine terraces formed by wave action and erosion combined with lifting of the landmass. It took me aback to think of them formed by deposition and then erosion. I'd love to have a beer around the campfire with Nick, Jerome and Skye and just listen to them talk new ideas! Thanks Nick!
count me in.
Me 2!
I think that fan shaped feature is an alluvial fan then another or same event came from the river channel from the left and eroded the fans edge. Maybe it is an actual glacial dam, or yokelalps type situation? I think I spelt that wrong. The Icelandic term for flood caused by volcanic activity melting a glacier.
Another lucid, informative video. Thanks, Nick and Jerome.
Fascinating!
The volume of deposition is humbling.
Never heard of Jerome Lesemann, enjoyed listening to him.
You got me hooked, will be in this area July butterflying.
So cool to be on the ground floor with you and Jerome! Loving all the field videos Nick.
it's great to see Jerome and get his veiw.
Lake Missoula was a 'perfect storm' arrangement where one of the south-moving tongues of ice (Purcell lobe) crossed and blocked a west-flowing river, (the Clark Fork of the Columbia). But you don't have that same geometry in the Okanagan/Okanogon. Here, you have south-flowing rivers, and south-flowing ice lobes. So it's hard to construct a way to have one intercept and block the other to impound a large lake which will eventually breach and contribute to the erosion seen in Washington. Perhaps a fast-moving ice tongue from a side valley blocked drainage as the main Okanagan tongue receded northwards. But 'Where's the Lake?' is my question. No remnant shorelines. No lacustrine clay, no varves. No dropstones. So we have to go with sub-glacial flow which doesn't leave much evidence. The new mega-ripples shown on Lidar are compelling...but could they have been formed by an unusually rapid period of glacial melt which filled the valley with deep runoff?
Great job gentleman!! I always enjoy expanding our understanding of our neighborhood. Thank you both!
Thank you Professor Zentner
Very interesting!
Tonasket wa. When you get up in this area I would like to show you Whitestone mountain and flats. Many geology and flood features that you will find interesting.
I believe Nick was here in the area 5 years or so ago. There was a geology tour that left Tonasket high school and cruised the Loup through Nighthawk. I missed it, but I hope to catch the next one!
From what I heard, they couldn't get access to Whitestone Mtn. They had been trying for years but its private and couldn't get permission. That mountain held a lot of mysteries they wanted to solve about local geology. Good talk Jim.
Thom
Keep up the great work you guys.
Nice you again Jerome and you too Nick. Always fun to see you and learn more
Lidar is a useful tool. I'd hoped for more about the talks with Jerome about subglacial water discharge from Canada into the US Okanogan. Here we go! Stay tuned. Thank you Nick and Jerome!
Fascinating again gentlemen thank you! I look forward to more in this country. I was born just over to the east there in Colville. Spent my childhood roaming the hills of my family cattle ranch on a mountain east side of the Kettle River, just 20 miles from Lake Christina BC. I just love that country.. Now we look to the future with a video of Jerome, Skye Cooley and you Nick!
Sounds like Kelly Hill. I used to be a Beekeeper with Joe Holt in Kettle and we had bee yards all over Kelly Hill. It was my favorite place to eat lunch while working. Locations were Anderson, Madsen, Hansen, Dewey Beardsley, Koschutski, etc... Heaven on Earth.
Gifford gal, here! Been studying the features along the Columbia and they have all the same characteristics as Nick and Jerome pointed out in the Okanagan...didn't find any ripples on the lidar here though. Lots of "streamlines", especially around Hunters.
Jerome has a very interesting project, wonderful like updates as he finds answers. Great video once again Nick, clear and 5x5
Always happy to see there are new ways to see old questions to create new Knowledge in the here and now. Having fun, keep up the good work. Thank you.
Thanks Nick
My son lived in Twisp. Before the place burned down I noticed the river rock were at least 150' above the valley below.
I'm always excited to learn from Jerome and happy to see him in the field! Maybe Jerome can give Nick some contacts and we'll see Nick on Kosmographia!
Nick is a whole level above Komodo’s audience which is all good. One is science the other speculation not to be confused. Guess I just like the old man back in Smyrna GA
Your in my back yard kind of, I am in Omak, and just Off Greenacres Rd. is where you are at up by the Airport. I am presently unearthing a large gravel bar south of you guys about 4 miles on highway 20 mile marker 231 by Smallwood Farms.
This has been excellent.
Please show more of this area, even up to Orville and Osoyoos on the Canadian side.
Always love learning new thing with you professor. I'm a new viewer and really enjoying your 351 series right now. It's amazing and wish I had you as a teacher in school.
Those guys have an interesting job.
Thanks, Nick and Jerome! Cool how clear that Lidar is! Thanks for showing us yet another weapon in our arsenal to find evidence to prove hypotheses! Will look forward to hearing where those rocks in the terraces come from!
Wow. Simply amazing and exciting new information. Thank you for all the years on the TH-cam. Information is entertainment.
Thank you Nick, it's always nice to hear what Jerome has to teach us
I really love his intelligence and love for geology.
The large flat thats was eroded to create that area they are standing on was created when all the material washed out of the valley that Omak lake is in and was all deposited right there during the flood. That material was pushed there with flow out of the columbia up over the omak lake valley (kartar valley). I think it was all part of the event that broke up the lower Okanogan lobe
Wassup? They taught you more than me! Good stuff
Fascinating episode showing the Geomorpholgy of the area with a view using new Remote Sensing via LIDAR.
Plus the possible future hypothesis of the history, causes of past events.
EXCELLENT!!!
I’m really enjoying these videos lol.
The rippled bench up to the 10min mark…. Looks a lot like a dirty silt free of stone, and into my mind jumps the thought that this could be the redistributed Okanagan lake or Similkameen valley glacial silt beds. In part.
Thanks again Nick. Wonderful area.
I was in that area in June. Great to see some geology that I can actually relate to.
I just love this stuff!
Appreciate the great photography. I notice you picked a nice place to interview so you get nice wild flowers in the picture and nice view also
As soon as I saw the 1st lidar image i said "Whoa!!!" Imagine that boat ride. Geomorphology always reminds me how impossibly short our lives are and the power of nature & time.
Thanks for bringing us out here Nick, you never fail to turn on my imagination in visualizing being there as all these events happen.
I drove up hwy 97 through those ripples back in 1997 but like everyone else, I failed to notice them.
Thanks for taking us along and sharing this interview and field trip, most interesting. Surprised to see large rounded rocks in soil there. I wouldn't have guessed that to be old flood plain.
"Not a mega flood" I mean 50 feet deep at 30 ft a second is still a heck of a flood, lol.
Can only assume the cows were standing around conversing before you arrived.
Loving this!!!
I keep jumping the gun and being a very annoying teacher's pet.... every other minute!!
You guys are nailing it first timer!!
Thank you, Nick! This is timely as we are driving out of the North Cascades in four weeks and can check out the Great Terrace where the Okanogan meets the Columbia near Brewster! Always enjoy hearing Jerome’s theories. Best Wishes.
Leslie from near Boston.
So interesting. Thank you.
Fascinating
very interesting video, at 19:10 where your talking about the benches, could they be the remanence of a land slide coming down from above, where looser material was deposited from either the ice that was there, or another way, with natural erosion scattered around their bases ?
This is what I've been waiting for... I see evidence all around my area (Trail BC) of once great floods. Glacial til is abundant at 3500 ft.
Large volumes of water came out of the Okanagan and the Columbia. Never
knew about the ripples at Omak. Thank you.
At 7:54 I think Jerome is trying to describe Kame Terraces. Like a lower shelf along the side of the hillside and are pretty
much equal in height from where you are standing. Sometimes there are a couple of terraces present like along US 97
and southwest of Riverside, WA. Those LIDAR landform maps are fascinating. You can see the ripples left by the water .
Better than what google can show . Great information on what happened with the glaciers and meltwater floods here.
Great stuff
This was awesome, so great to have lidar to see the ripples! Really interesting to hear Jerome’s thoughts. Thank you Nick and Jerome!!
Thanks again Nick, you and Jerome would have blast here in Central Alberta. Starting 200 meters outside my front door. Our house sits on Moraine near a flood cut(30m) on the Red Deer River . The area here in the City has exposed sandstones ,lens of sand and silt. Kettles , Waves and Flow Channels throughout the area. I wonder if Alberta Geological Service has done any LADIR work here .
So interesting learning about my old stomping grounds as a teenager.
Yip, Yip, Yahoo... thank you Nick, thank you Jerome.
Well done, Nick.
Wow, wish I could tag along with these guys and learn
Very interesting stuff! Interesting observations and questions, and as Rachel suggests below, Lidar appears to be a very useful tool. I need another lifetime to explore and understand all this…
Amazing stuff! I can tell that lidar changes the whole science of geology.
The Okanagan Country, also known as the Okanagan Valley, is a region located in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington (where it is spelled the Okanogan Country), defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Okanagan River.
Very interesting content Nick! Thanks.
No, we saw those while in an Air Balloon, just because you guys finally seen it don't mean anything. Now your going up tunk where i go every weekend. My family has one of the oldest cabins on Crawfish Lake which is just above you. Did you see the Mining of Thualite just off the road after the big ditch.
Makes me wonder about the Gangplank north of the Denver Basin. Denver Basin cut by the South Platte and is Cache la Poudre part of the north side? Is the Gangplank an outwash terrace from the Rockies?
Johnson Creek gravel Wall, now we believe most the Flats around Omak are Gravel bars, i was born here lived here and dug hundreds of big holes here and that is my findings sir.