From: jawod@fuse.net   
      
   Larry Caldwell wrote:   
   > 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.   
   >   
   Larry,   
      
   What a good description.  Nice job.  There's a good book on the subject:   
   "Cataclysms on the Columbia" by Allen and Burns.  It was devoted to J.   
   Harlan Bretz, the geologist who deciphered the terrain to "find" the   
   ancient floods.   
      
   His views were not well accepted at the time.  His analysis was later   
   borne out by aerial photographic analysis as well as satellite imagery.   
      
   But, I am most impressed with a single man walking in and around the   
   landscape and coming up with what some considered a preposterous   
   proposal: that huge areas of Eastern Oregon and Washington were scoured   
   by repeated floods of biblical proportions, and not that long ago.   
      
   That he had not much more than a 2 dimensional view of complex   
   geological features is even more impressive.  I think this is a great   
   example of a scientist with tremendous imagination and analytical strength.   
      
   Yet, almost no one knows his name.   
      
   John   
   PS, I vaguely recall this coming up on the group a long while back.   
   apologies for any redundancies.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)