From: lobby.dosser.mapson@verizon.net   
      
   jawod  wrote:   
      
   > 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.   
   >   
      
   PBS or Discovery did a show on the floods and they did a good job of   
   giving credit to Bretz.   
      
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