From: firstnamelastinitial@peaksky.com   
      
   In article , wmorris@neb.rr.com (Rick   
   Morris) says...   
   > On 8/29/06 8:31 PM, in article B6qdnYvdeIpXd2nZnZ2dnUVZ_oWdnZ2d@comcast.com,   
   > "JillAdams"  wrote:   
   >   
   > > Some people have been talking about a gigantic rock that is near Dayton   
   > > or McMinnville or Sheridan. Anyone hear of it?   
   > Is that Erratic Rock you are talking about?  6 miles east of Sheridan along   
   > Oldsville Rd.   
      
   Just to expand on this, the northern Willamette Valley is full of   
   glacial erratics.  During the Missoula Floods, huge hunks of glacier   
   were torn loose and floated down the Columbia.  When the flood backed up   
   into the Willamette Valley, some of these icebergs got caught in the   
   backwater, and melted.  This dumped the load of included rock they were   
   carrying wherever the glacier melted.  Most of the rocks got covered by   
   silt, but a few stayed on or near the surface.  The "Erratic Rock"   
   wayside on Highway 18 is just one of those rocks, out of many thousands.   
      
   Fifty years ago, there were still big piles of rock in corners of some   
   farmer's fields.  Some were native rock, but many were erratics.  Almost   
   all of them have been hauled off and used for fill, reclaiming the rock   
   pile spot for crops.   
      
   The Missoula Floods are why so much of the Willamette Valley is flat.   
   The sand and gravel formed a huge dike at the mouth of the Willamette,   
   which flooded the entire valley all the way to Eugene.  When the first   
   farmers moved into the valley, much of it was marshland, covered with   
   millions of waterfowl.  In the fall, flights of ducks, geese and swans   
   would blot out the sun for days.  As the wetlands were drained for farms   
   and cities, the birds lost their habitat.   
      
   When I was a kid, one of my classmates dug an almost complete mastodon   
   skeleton out of the bank of the Willamette near Dayton.  It had drowned   
   in one of the Missoula Floods and been buried in the silt.  The   
   Willamette is slowly cutting away those silt deposits.   
      
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