‘Nick From Home’ Livestream #61 - Spokane Geology

[@jeffbyrd424]

I so much enjoy your live stuff, I lived right under one of the water towers, one day I went over when something was going on, MAN that water was cold.....

[@rmwoodjr]

As a child at Irving Grade school our class took a field trip locally and dug up plant fossils which I found fascinating. Thanks for revivifying the experience.

[@petersaari-gh1zg]

It's always a pleasure to keep learning new things.

[@Pidxr]

I have a nice cobblestone brick size piece of that Dishman Hills granite

[@OldThomMerton]

There is more basalt to the the west of the Dishman Hills Granite . . . I live on South Hill on top of the basalt cliffs that overlook all of that ice age gravel. The Bowl and Pitcher is in Riverside Park along the Spokane River. Use Maxwell westbound and then Pettet (Doomsday Hill!) and then drop down to the Downriver Drive and a little further along is the place. Current ripples south of the airport. Wow. I've seen those south of Medical Lake Rd west of 90 and east of Four Lakes. I should have know! 😯

[@wesmahan4757]

If you can kayak the Spokane River in the Spokane Valley and past the Idaho border, all along both banks you can see natural springs coming out of the banks, which is the Spokane Aquifer leaking into the river. (And there is no basalt where the river runs through the most of the valley & Idaho; it's running through Missoula Flood deposits. And by the time it gets to downtown Spokane - beginning around the Millwood area, it IS carving through basalt layers.)

[@wesmahan4757]

(Warning: this "Tyson Mudfossil" is a 100% nutcase!)

[@eugeneschmidt7941]

As you drive into Spokane from the west you pass the airport and start down the valley into the city. There is basalt along the grade. Is it possible that this basalt edge served as a dam to serve as a roadblock or rather a 'speedbump' to the ice age floods that caused them to dump their gravel load and fill the Rathdrum Prarie? The waters then with a reduced bed load passed over the 'speedbump' and continued on their way.

[@5USgRWFH]

go back to Clarkia, ID and ask for directions to Marx Butte. I could take you there but I forgot the road numbers. Go past Marx Butte another 1/2 mile and climb the ridge to the left. The granite spires on the ridge resemble the back of a giant Stegosaurus. Happy trails!

[@malcolmcog]

I missed your livestream yet again, as I live in little old England in the wrong time zone. However I love watching these.

[@luthermclain2959]

Thanks Nick! Had to skip out in the middle of the show, so just finished watching it. I've been visiting family and adventuring around in the Spokane valley for years, so it was great to learn so much more about it. I'll have something new to share with my 11 year old nephew the next time I get down there.

[@edwinreece438]

Fascinating stuff. It seems that Washington state has some of the most interesting and varied geology of the USA.

[@1234j]

61? All of them great. Thank you again, Nick. Cheers from Jane in Hereford in England.

[@jamesmoore9511]

Absolutely loved the movie.

[@jamesdownard1510]

Love this (I live in Spokane). A lecture I heard on Lake Columbia some years back at the community college by local geologists suggested the gravel deposition here was comparable to that in Lake Coeur D'Alene, where the Missoula flooding slammed into the lakes, slowing down just enough to drop off their heavy gravel gunk as the water headed on to carve the open landscape beyond. I'd speculate there is no lake here now (unlike Coeur D'Alene) because the repeated flooding (37 in the 2016 Hanson & Clague accounting) finally carved too many leakage routes to sustain a lake here now. If any wish to comment on that hypothesis, would be much welcome.

[@american5564]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ice Age Floods were witnessed by the natives. What an event that would have been to behold.

[@richardstephens3642]

There's a book of native stories by Roy Wilson of the coastal Salish

[@HiddenTreasure777]

Thank You Brother Nick !

[@donnaanderson5529]

God bless you and yours sir from Sherwood Oregon.. so grateful to have found your channel.. what a refreshing well of wisdom and blessing you are to so many..you truly are anointed to do what you do brother👍🏼🌎

[@wesmahan4757]

MARLI MILLER!!! Her 2nd Edition Oregon and Washington "Roadside Geology" books are SUPERB!

[@kathryncase9253]

Thanks, Nick!

[@neatcompletehandymanservic3831]

Love these live streams.

[@donnaanderson5529]

So sorry for the loss of your dear friend Tom/ really enjoyed his Instagram

[@markbell9742]

We are all just extras in their movies; Beautiful.

[@koreydevine7766]

Do I have a place for you to see. The oldest rock are literally in front of my house. Gneiss, Quartzite make up the land this old property is built on.

[@nio837]

I just came across with this video. I wish I discussed some geology while lived n studied at SFCC. It would have improved a lot my technical vocabulary indeed.

[@jameswyatt5859]

Hello from Houston!

[@mkaythrush2277]

Just founds this ssthis channel Christopher Scotese

[@justinsimpson436]

Wow! Rathdrum Prairie is under 600 feet of gravel deposits. Great example of flood water energy.

[@stonestudebaker4593]

Guess the floods are why I have sand in my yard. I am in North East Spokane, AKA Hillyard.

[@evilpandakillabzonattkoccu4879]

so, I live in Spokane Valley near a park called Maribeau Point Park and....its a gift for those of us who love rocks. before you read this report (made to aid in teaching k-12 kids about the region) on the area, a fun fact: the built new apartments here and blasted into the bedrock that is mentioned below. you can bet, I was there collecting samples. brought back hundreds of pounds of rock.....absolutely gorgeous stuff! you'll see what I mean in if you read the report below. also, out our apartment window (across the river) we see huge basalt cliffs....and it's amazing that they didn't destroy all the old rock! anyway, the report about the park my apartment is next to: "GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF THE SPOKANE VALLEY AREA The known geologic history of Mirabeau Point Park and its immediate surroundings can be traced back to about 1.1-1.4 billion years ago. At this point in Earth’s past, an ancient time period geologists term the Precambrian, the entire area was part of a massive basin that became a large inland sea. During this time sea levels rose enough to inundate large portions of northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. Within this large inland sea, known as the Belt Sea, thick layers of sediment were deposited over a very long period of time. These sediments were then lithified (cemented) into sedimentary rock. About 140-200 million years ago, during Earth’s Mesozoic time period, a large magma chamber intruded (invaded) the sedimentary layers deep underground. As it cooled, the magma turned into a coarse- grained igneous rock called granodiorite. Igneous is a term used to describe rocks that are formed from the complete melting of rock, then the cooling of magma. Granodiorite is very similar to granite, a rock commonly used for countertops. This granitic intrusion would one day become the rock that you are walking on here at Mirabeau Point Park. Approximately 100 to 150 million years ago, during Mesozoic time, collision of the plates beneath the earth’s crust caused the deep burial of the sedimentary layers and granodiorite. This tectonic activity led to metamorphism of the rock here at the park. Metamorphism occurs when minerals in a rock are changed due to contact with a lot of heat, plus or minus pressure. The change from one type of rock to another occurs without completely melting the original rock, such as occurs in the formation of igneous rock. There are two basic types of metamorphism, regional and contact. Contact metamorphism occurs at high temperatures, with no pressure. Regional metamorphism also occurs at high temperatures. However, this type of metamorphism is characterized by immense pressure when tectonic plates of crust collide. This pressure causes the visible parallel alignment of minerals (foliation) in the rock. Locally, the deep burial of the granodiorite caused it to be regionally metamorphosed into gneiss, the well-foliated metamorphic rock we see throughout the park. In 1968, a geologist named Paul Weiss identified and named this particular unit of rock the “Newman Lake Gneiss”. Eventually, the collision of the plates ceased, and about 40 million years ago, a very interesting thing happened. The plates began to relax and extend apart! This is the very nature of plate tectonics. The plates, miles beneath our feet, are constantly moving, shifting course, and reshaping our earth. This change in tectonic activity led to a regional uplift of the earth’s crust, including the Newman Lake Gneiss. Extensive faulting (fracturing and displacement) of the uplifted crust began to occur at that time. A large fault, termed a detachment fault, developed deep in the crust as it was being uplifted. The detachment fault allowed the crust to separate and slide during uplift, thus causing the mineral lineations and mylonite to form. Close to 17.5 million years ago, during the Miocene Epoch, huge amounts of lava erupted and flowed over much of the Pacific Northwest, including the Spokane Valley and Mirabeau Point Park area. The lavas, referred to as “Columbia River Basalts”, cooled into a fine-grained, dark-colored igneous rock called basalt. Thick layers of this basalt can be observed throughout Spokane and eastern Washington. The basalt can be seen in the prominent cliffs along the north bank of the river to the north of the park. In more recent times, approximately 15-20 thousand years ago, numerous massive floods marked the end of the last ice age. These floods are thought to be some of the largest floods ever in Earth’s history. The floods were caused by the periodic emptying of glacial Lake Missoula, a 3000 square mile lake in Montana that held about half the volume of water of present-day Lake Michigan. When the flood waters reached this area, they were traveling at about 60 miles per hour, and were several miles wide and 300 to 400 feet deep! The raging torrent scoured out the valley we see here today, eroding it into a much deeper and wider valley than had been here before the floods. These “Missoula Floods” were slowed somewhat by the fact that this area was at the bottom of another glacial lake, Lake Columbia. As this towering force of nature met Lake Columbia, it dropped a lot of its bedload, sediment consisting of coarse sands, gravels, and boulders. The combined mass of water then sped off to the west and southwest as one herculean flood, ripping apart the landscape in a frenzy of torrential violence on its way to the ocean. Present-day Mirabeau Point Park is located right on top of a 56 acre section of the Newman Lake Gneiss. The gneiss is exposed in numerous outcrops throughout the park. This durable metamorphic rock has withstood the forces of millions of years of violent tectonic activity, and several thousand years of catastrophic flooding and erosion. The park is part of an “island” of bedrock that is surrounded by the gravels and boulders deposited by those giant floods so long ago. To the north of the park, the Spokane River continues to erode into the valley, and landscape development all around the park has permanently redefined the surface geology. Still, inside the park, surrounded by the quiet beauty of nature, very little of our earth’s history has been altered, except that which has been altered by the earth itself."

[@evilpandakillabzonattkoccu4879]

@@57menjr really? I dont know where to look and that sounds like a blast to explore! I know the usual spots that everyone knows (like the equestrian park across the river from the Northside area) but I'd love to visit caves, if you'd be willing to share locations! It's rainy now, so everything is in flood warnings (or, they were a day or two ago, anyway), so I'd obviously avoid them until it was a bit nicer out.. but rock climbing, bouldering and exploring caves (within reason....I'm not ballsy enough to go through narrow passages and whatnot haha) is a new hobby of mine, so that would be a great trip! Thanks for the info too! I may be able to look it up know that I know they are around here!

[@evilpandakillabzonattkoccu4879]

@@57menjr also.... I can't imagine how amazing the area was in the 60's! 2 nights ago, we had a decent northern lights show (which are gorgeous out in Nine Mile, where I grew up) but now.... there is so much light pollution, you could barely see it, and only when you used your arm to shield your eyes from the parking lot lights. 😶 There used to he fields between us and trent....now, it's parking lots, a coffee shop and apartments. Even by Trent Elementary, there is now a storage unit there and another coffee shop... all between the Elementary school and the church. It's a busy area now... and a homeless highway. So far this year (as fire season is already upon us) we've had two brush fires between Trent and 1-90. so, should be a fun fire season. I was a kid, but I remember firestorm '91 very vividly....and I have a sick feeling this season might be similar.

[@robchristiansen1710]

Rathdrum Prairie. I would think the water was traveling too fast to deposit gravel, Especially sand.

[@IamValentina66]

Yup. Got them both

[@bagoquarks]

*SUBTITLE:* The Rathdrum Prairie - 'twas filled in, not carved out.

[@wildwolfwind6557]

Could all of the basalt that was removed from the Spokane area happen in one flood? If not, would earlier 'gravel' deposits have been washed away with each additional flood along with more basalt until enough basalt had been removed to fill with the 'gravel' deposits it currently has? (In other words, did all of the basalt (that has been removed) have to be removed prior to the existing 'gravels' being placed / dropped?) 🤔 Could the basalt have already been removed prior to the start of the last glaciation period? 🤨 If Bretz was correct about the Spokane ice sheet being over Spokane, how (if at all) could that make a difference in the likelihood of Missoula floods coming through there at the time (MIS 6)? 🙃 🥶🧐

[@johnjunge6989]

I take field trips to places I've never seen, modifying mine now to come through you I-90 / Washington area, whats best drive route to see these things you describe

[@smurch93060]

... here's Johnny, again, living in Lorenzo, Texas....

[@johnhopkins6658]

Oldest rocks on the planet are in Quebec, I believe.

[@treborg777]

Just watched this, and I have a question: is it true that without the deep lava flows in eastern Washington, the level of the Moses Lake area would be 1000 ft + lower? That central eastern Washington would be a deep valley, and Spokane would be in a mountain range on the eastern edge?

[@eidrith493]

Nick covered this on a video from last year. Apparently the weight of the lava depressed the crust.

[@sherrylhenning5630]

Australia? Any kimberlite?

[@hertzer2000]

The ash in the Native American story could represent the comet impact fallout. When is Randall Carlson cohosting...lol.

[@lauram9478]

❤

[@markbell9742]

Asahel in Hebrew; pronunciation not close, I don't think.

[@KathyWilliamsDevries]

$220 on yoga?

[@billy-go9kx]

Witches live around Rathdrum!

[@wtwrva]

....love your deplorable frogs......

[@donchilders226]

Ya man a lot of content drifted collision upheaval lava floods ice sheet ground up stuff on the top you got it silt stone some kind of flood.