'Mondovi Horseshoe' & Withrow Moraine

CWU's Nick Zentner visits the Mondovi Horseshoe and Withrow Moraine in June, 2023.
Mondovi Horseshoe: goo.gl/maps/yv4up8D4JJzb8tUN9
Withrow Moraine: goo.gl/maps/yCWtH5MzkUsqeAKb8

[@Bear-jr3ei]

its really easy to get hooked on geology with a teacher like Nick!

[@WashingtonPerspective]

The driving was a very effective way to display the change! Good thinking

[@tomhall7633]

Always enjoy the opportunity to look back 17K years, because looking forward 50yrs is making me both dizzy and nauseous. Thanks Professor.

[@zbyrd85]

These videos make my job as a delivery driver more interesting. Bald Ridge road was part of my first route 11 years ago.

[@stephenshort839]

I'm amazed at the stark difference between N. and S. of the Morain.

[@sidbemus4625]

Hello Nick and the Zentherd.

[@Rodneygd]

Thank you for sharing and showing me places I’ll probably never get to experience first hand. All the best!

[@ericramos3416]

Maaan. You're making me want to stay in Washington EVERY time I watch a new video. Thank you, so much.

[@eliaslyman9256]

Another fantastic video! Thanks for such informative and kindly communicated content.

[@susanwymer6912]

Milk Duds is the perfect analogy for these basalt erratics! I grew up in an area littered with granite erratics. What an eye opener to see basalts instead of granite and yet know that both terrains were affected by ice. Thank you!

[@whitby910]

Illuminating to see the contrast. Thank you. I so appreciate your time and considerable effort to help me understand a little more. (UK)

[@DyreStraits]

Thank you Nick. I enjoyed it very much.

[@peacenow4456]

Garden looks lovely, Nick and Liz!

[@synovium]

Very interesting, as usual. Also very relaxing just gazing into the beautifully flowing landscape.

[@gordongadbois1179]

GNEISS FIELD WORK. NICK BY THE ROCKS.

[@Poppageno]

So much farming changing the landscape in the last 100 years.

[@churlburt8485]

Not that much in this area.

[@sharonewidow6027]

It would be great to see more driving video's with commentary from you Nick. Thank you.

[@CongoMine]

As a member of the Seattle Glider Council soaring club based in Ephrata every summer, I spent over 25 years and many, many hundreds of hours flying my sailplane all over the Columbia Basin looking down at the beautiful terrain discussed in this lecture and others. Wow, what a treat to now get to understand a little bit of what I was looking at all that time! I often noticed that the land north of Withrow past Mansfield and on up to the Columbia featured those big boulders and areas that looked scraped and gouged. Your explanation crystalizes what my eyes were seeing from a few thousand feet up! Very cool. Thanks for another fascinating field trip!

[@katemcclain8405]

What fun, I like learning with you and the gang!

[@johnadams3100]

Excellent lecture!! I really enjoyed it.

[@lorrainewaters6189]

This is TopNotch again, Nick. Now I have a better sense of the scale of a moraine. You are wonderful.

[@gunther3527]

And another lesson I could follow on maps. Thank you!

[@timblack6422]

Very interesting and educational, Thank you, Sir!

[@robertdufour2456]

Professor! You are looking great!!!

[@robertdufour2456]

What a beautiful world you live in!

[@hilmaallen1302]

I am get the impression of waves in the landscape especially with the road being so straight, a really great experience.

[@jamescahill2772]

Great job, interesting geology lesson. Thanks Prof!

[@davidyoung8105]

Fascinating. Deep time is spiritual bliss.

[@bobbyadkins885]

I really enjoyed the driving tour, gives us at home a different perspective I think

[@MarkRenn]

I followed along on Google Maps while watching the video. When I switched to Terrain view, there is a blatant line north of Withrow that marks that boundary. It's no gradual thing. Within a few feet, the geology changes completely. Fascinating!

[@leestamm3187]

It's also plainly visible in the satellite view.

[@anthonycamilleri7297]

Hello professor Nick, from Melbourne Australia, you are looking great 👍

[@noodgenoodgerson2660]

This was super fun for us to watch, because we live on Bald Ridge. The old-timers around here called the fields on the edge of the ridge "The Breaks", because it is the line where the vast wheatland ends, giving way to the forest which marches north into Canada. Our house is less than 1/4 mile from the edge of the forest. We have the best of both worlds - open farmland with long territorial views, and also the nearby forest and the amazing pre-historic view to the north across the river... I've often pondered the geology of this area, it does seem so unique.

[@joehalliday6081]

You have the best videos, so personable and well-edited, interesting content. As a flat lander in the war zone named south side Chicago, your videos offer a welcome escape. Someday, someday.

[@marycomeau9364]

Those are beautiful haystack rocks. Wow❤

[@runninonempty820]

Very interesting and informative. It felt like I was right there in the car. Whoever first discovered the importance of the haystack rocks must have been thrilled!

[@zazouisa_runaway4371]

Love those unusual video too ❣️❣️❣️

[@floydt2029]

Nice video work on this video Nick, the moraine is impressive!

[@d.t.4523]

Thank you. Keep working, good luck.

[@archeanna1425]

This was an excellent episode. The way you filmed the scenery was delightful and your commentary was crystal clear. You can do more of these any time. Thank you.

[@frankbarnwell____]

On catch-up. Gneiss after work video. Thanks Mr Zentner. 5x5

[@Snappy-ut4bj]

Thanks so much for all of this insight.

[@Rachel.4644]

That was really fun, and a pretty day to be out! We used to love riding our m/c's there, but again without knowing and appreciating all the geology. Videoing through the windshield worked well. Thank you for the nice Sunday drive, Nick. ❤

[@colettehaskell9133]

Thank you so much Nick! You are amazing and I'm so grateful I found you, I have never loved or understood milk duds until you...😊

[@bobanundson9247]

You are amazing

[@bgschultz]

Thanks for the road trip Nick! Great commentary. Good luck & keep us posted in your search for the edge of the Spokane Ice Sheet. Blaine Kaslo BC

[@michelecharlton1871]

Beautiful part of Washington.

[@alpineflauge909]

world class content

[@Aengus42]

There was me, here 10 minutes from the White Cliffs of Dover in the UK, pining for geology that you have in Washington state. I've been in awe of the channeled scablands, dry falls streamlined islands & plumge pools cut out of sheer bedrock. BUT!!!! I just watched a video on how the UK became an island. It seems that I'm just a few miles from all these features! The ice sheets on one side and the chalk ridge that joined us to Europe on the other collected the water from the Rhine et al plus the meltwater as we entered an interglacial, formed a huge lake at the southern end of the North Sea held back by the chalk. I know that you all see where this is going! Add in a little earthquake (I've experienced these myself in Folkestone) and the chalk gave way... Preserved at the bottom of the English Channel are all the features yhat you guys have above ground. A line of dry falls (that if the sea wasn't there i could view by looking down into them from the White Cliffs between Folkestone & Dover) leading to 150 metre deep plunge pools, channeled scablands, streamlined islands ect. It's a spitting image of everything you've taught me about Nick! Watching the lecture I followed perfectly and had the I benefit of having seen all these features in your videos. I'll edit in the lecture in a bit as I'm on my 'phone but I had to cone and thank you for the grounding in your megafloods do that I can not only understand my own, but "feel" them too! Thanks mate! If we ever meet, the first round's on me! 🍻 It's called "Megaflood: How Britain became an Island" on the Imperial College London's KZbin channel. Also on the same channel "Britain's Lost Landbridge to Europe" Talk about deja vu!

[@ArmChairgeology]

MOST INTERESTING!

[@wendygerrish4964]

Wow I was able to follow your journey on googley maps using satellite mode. Eratics and milk duds.

[@garypaull9382]

And here I was trying to wrap my head around some Paleozoic bedrock and now I'm looking at patterened ground on LIDAR around Monrovi! I also noticed that the ice margin on the 1961 map was not shown coming down Lake Chelan. Great thought provoking episdoe again Nick!

[@daltongrowley5280]

Whoever coined the term "haystack rocks" described those things to perfection.

[@frankbarnwell____]

Or very slowly falling meteorites.

[@isabellame7326]

Go to a diner or bar in the town to meet people. That won't seem intrusive 😊 very cool traveling video! Thanks!

[@laurafolsom2048]

I used to have a friend that lived in Withrow, been there a few time. I’ve driven that area quite a bit. Might be time to do it again!

[@Utahdropout]

Loved getting out and seeing the countryside. Your explanation is excellent. Bringing the geologic history of the area is so much fun. Your passion for this effort is palpable. Thanks for what you do.

[@beckyd712]

Thank you Nick Zentner! Your videos and classes are an adventure.

[@kban77]

That was a great video. i really liked the drive. you can see the vegetation and topography change. If you stop by a couple of the ''milk duds'', do you happen to see any of them stuck in the soil at an angle? Indicative of getting pushed along by flowing water? Or are they all just plopped down and marooned by ice?

[@loveistheanswer8137]

Awesome

[@savage1r]

You should also take a drive down highway 291 that goes along the spokane River. Keep your eye on the south and west slopes and you'll see massive amounts of all different types of rock types. When you approach Suncrest, there's a hill called big sand you'll have to drive up. There's a pull off area there. Go down to where the barrier is and climb up. It's just a huge conveyor belt of every different kind of rock imaginable.

[@cindyleehaddock3551]

Cool! Have always heard the folk custom of putting bits of volcanic rock in your flower pots and beds helping things to grow better. This is like seeing it in super scale. 😮 Thanks again Nick for another fun geohike folks can actually go on to check this geology out for themselves. I think this dryland stuff really illustrates how folks should be farming, instead of what happened to the Great Plains loess in the dust bowl chapter. But then, now there is some nice loess in the eastern states...😁

[@timothykerrigan597]

Dude, gotta find that horseshoe!

[@kdubate1974]

I truly appreciate the college field trips that you provide. Greeting from the Driftless area of Southwest Wisconsin near Romance, WI.

[@douginorlando6260]

Wow! The transition from homogenous farm land. then up the huge moraine. then scattered rocks as big as houses just laying there unmoved since the ice sheet melted brings home compelling evidence this was where the ice sheet boundary was

[@stevew5212]

thanks Nick. That was cool to see a moraine.

[@edithmatheson1828]

That sudden change would be astonishing to anyone passing through who didn't know to expect it. Especially if they were going north - "where did the fertile fields go?" they would wonder.

[@peacenow4456]

Why wouldn't weeds and dirt have blown, grown over the small gravel/rocks? Always love the travelogues!! Thx Nick!!

[@kicknazz4248]

FANTASTIC!!! THANK YOU NICK FOR THE GEOLOGY JAUNT. 🍻

[@johnnash5118]

Enjoying this episode while sitting at my house on a back-yard lawn chair, which is on Central Washington loess in the North-Central Willamette Valley, 350 miles SW. Thanks Nick/Harley!

[@markp.9707]

It depends on the ice sheet! I think older version of the ice advances were erased by the later floods. I think they advanced far further south then we believe.

[@laurafolsom2048]

Yes they group the rocks.

[@paulliebenberg3410]

Whoa Nick! I like your real time windshield-view presentation of the change in terrain at the Withrow Moraine. Excellent illustration. It won't be long and you'll be using an Insta360! Or a drone! I see that Noraly gives lessons on the latter!

[@winnieg100]

Thank you so much for the fascinating lecture and expose of the Withrow Moraine and the rocks and milk duds. Since I live in Florida and I don’t expect to see this ; you are giving me an excellent look at the evidence of the youngest ice age ice sheet. Washington is truly a beautiful state.

[@savage1r]

You should go to the mouth of deep creek and walk your way up it. REALLY interesting: 47.77215686828037, -117.55223592573056

[@georgewyse8378]

I live right in that same square on the Spokane river and hike that area frequently. You need to access it from a different direction. I'll take you there anytime, well, when it's cooler that is, 103F today.

[@georgewyse8378]

Not me.

[@kari-gs4eq]

I don't know if Washington farmers do, but Minnesota farmers will pick rocks out of the fields and drop them in piles on the edge of fields. Looks like I grew up in a moraine.

[@FollowerOfClay]

Hey Nick, love your videos. They are so interesting. I myself live in an area that is a morane. Everything is flat here (Leipzig/Germany). Great for biking :)

[@jeffbybee5207]

Nick you are so great I've loved listening to you and all the videos she put out but theat cute The cute names for stuff gets in the it's almost like you gotta learn next language to learn the geology and and as I get oldor maybe senile Hearing the proper name over and over helps me so much better are they really called haystack rocks cause dumb drops I'm sure itisn't Really love your teaching and wishing you the very best

[@pauldickman4379]

As soon as you started driving up the moraine the environment shifted from the wheat to sagebrush. From watching "Crime Pays" I know that's a pretty strong indicator the geology shifted as well. And then once you got to the haystacks, it was just all flowers and grass but no sagebrush. I don't know what it means but it was interesting to me!

[@raymonddettlaff1386]

I love Crime pays. I wish Nick would take him on a field trip looking at Maphic soils and ultra Maphics

[@sharonseal9150]

Ever since the Bretz 1930 paper from last week I am looking around and trying to see the Wenatchee area through different eyes - Bretz said moraine overprinting a slide here in Malaga and moraine in East Wenatchee, yet right above East Wenatchee there are the deep loess dry land wheat fields of Badger mountain and the Waterville plateau. Hmmmm........ Things are getting more complicated rather than clearer, LOL. Given the sheer expanse of time for things to be altered over and over again by advancing and retreating ice sheets I think a lot more careful field work might be the only thing to clarify things here in the Wenatchee Valley. I think there is more to learn before it is "settled". Bretz was certainly an experienced field geologist specializing in glacial features, so I think his evaluation of the area has to be given credence or at least a second look. Thank you as always for taking us on these field trips and letting us see the features through your eyes, and giving us new things to ponder!

[@kens.213]

I drove this road a few weeks ago. It wasn't a huge question in my mind about why that huge ridge north of Withrow and beyond was so different than a few miles back, but I'm happy to see the 'why' that was lingering in my head as I drove through the area. I was always curious about those huge boulders sitting in rolling fields east of Ephrata where I live. You've covered that one for me too. Thanks for these videos, Nick, been watching you for a few years now and have enjoyed your careful interpretations for us laymen. Thank you!. Just can't figure out why I get the urge to buy a German chocolate cake once in a great while???

[@LewisDawson-agau]

Me too for the GCC ( German Chocolate Cake).

[@StereoSpace]

One thing I notice is the haystack rocks seems to occupy the tops or be embedded inside mini-drumlins. The drumlin-like features could easily be the remnants of sub-glacial outwash tunnels.

[@TimKirkPhotos]

A driving video, but absolutely fantastic. One of the top 10. I was watching in anticipation just wondering where the evidence of the ice advance was. Thanks for all you do.

[@howardbritt634]

You wondered if the farmers collected rocks and piled them together in the Withrow Morraine. Answer is yes and they would do it to preserve their farming equipment from damage. This from my mother-in-law who grew up there in the 1920's through 1930's.

[@zaftigshiksa]

What a delight to get out of South Jersey rain and heat, to ride shotgun with you, there, in the amber waves of grain. Such a delight learning earth physiology, and you know it’s always the professor that makes the class. You are one very optimistic, clear thinker and talker. Thank you for the ride. Great fun!

[@whyjnot420]

That question from the beginning... Considering I am from Connecticut, I don't have the most detailed mental image of Washington (the closest I have ever even been to Washington is Illinois), my answer was pretty close to that line on the map, though I was thinking a little further south (and with way less detail of course). Being from where I am, that basic question about how far the ice advanced, immediately and always makes me look east in my mind. Directly at Cape Cod. Which is one of the reasons I love Nick's videos. They are all focused on the other side of the nation. It is not that I would ignore the west otherwise, it is simply that stuff that is local or I can drive to in a couple of hours or have been to previously are a bit easier to learn about since I know the basics of the area already. I imagine his videos would be interesting regardless of where he was describing though.

[@spamletspamley672]

Thanks for another unexpected treat. Those ice-dropped rocks look like they are doing a grand job of maintaining some habitat for wild flowers! I'm rather curious as to why everyone is looking for sharp edges and enormous thickness at the maximum extents of continental ice sheets, when the current ice caps do not have either smooth edges, or giant lakes in front of them? We are still in the last ice age retreat, so why should the leading edge have been any different in character, than the retreating edge now? In Google Earth, from high up, I can make out lineations in the landscape that correspond to the 'ice edges' marked on your maps, but, what really stands out, is the surface of your 'German Chocolate Cake'. I can't see a young feature like this anywhere along the edges of the current ice sheets. Everywhere else, the edges follow radiating ridges and river valleys that direct the flow of both the ice and the run off: there are no curving lines marking out former tongues of ice, though there will, no doubt, be small moraines in each valley or fjord. There is no big flat area on which to drop 'haystack' rocks. It looks to me that your area is quite unique, in having a recent lava plateau, that had not had time to develop a distinct watershed pattern for meltwaters to follow, like they do everywhere at the moment. The patterns of the water channels that we do see on the basalt, are just what we would see on any flat surface, where water does no know which way to go, but, where there was loess, I would imagine that braided channels started to develop as the permafrost started to melt and mobilise surface layers of mud. As the ice retreated back to the Spokane river, the slopes of the south side of the valley would have given the melted permafrost muds the closest point of run off, making the gulleys in this area more developed than further south on the basalt plain. (Had it been covered in trees before the Ice Age? Where did they go?). Looking at today's ice sheet edges, it looks to me, that ice would have extended down the valleys until it filled the Spokane valley, and, only then got to move forward over the basalt plain, but without a gradient to follow, it stuck, and dropped your line of moraine. (Is there loess under those 'haystack rocks' by the way?) I've not looked at all your videoes on the ice and lakes yet, but, looking at how things stand with today's ice sheets, I'm having trouble imagining the vast quantities of water being released all at once anywhere, but, if it did happen, it will have been because your 'chocolate cake' blocked all the escape routes used in previous advances and retreats. Thanks for showing us the scenery and keeping the puzzles coming. (Here on the Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire border, not far from where the River Thames used to flow to the Wash, before the last ice advance reset it to the south, I have had the central heating on twice so far this month, while everywhere else had the hottest summer ever!)

[@bruced1429]

Nick I really enjoy your video talks , there is so much to learn and you do a great job feeding us the information. I was wondering if you might consider a trip to BC and to the Trail area of BC , north of Spokane and where the Columbia enters Washington. There is some wonderful , I call them cut bank moraines and aparently very nearly the oldest rock in the world ,which crosses the Columbia as a dyke. The Univercity of Alberta as in years past held classes there . If there where Ice ages periods which did not cross the border it might be something to look into. I believe there where more ice ages than we currently think. I have ice age eggs ( boulders the size of VW Beatles ) poking up all over. The Beaver Valley is actually part of a hanging valley with waterfall. Maybe you could have a look see sometime.

[@douglasdunn7267]

Great show Nick! Havent been in that country since I was a kid, long ago. Thanks for the tour. I'll be watching for more.

[@sidbemus4625]

CAPTAIN! Captain! Sir Crows Nest reports erratic milk dud to Starboard side. ( At 23:00 ).

[@mpetersen6]

That's one titanic erratic

[@win89121]

A driving review! Awesome.

[@syfrettsj]

Thanks for another very fine video, Nick! I have to wonder if LIDAR imagery would show subtle elevation changes sufficient to define Bretz's horseshoe elevated area. It seems odd to me that an advancing, massive glacier would somehow diverge around a low topographic feature, rather than override it. Still working on the first cup of coffee this morning, so maybe I'm not thinking clearly...

[@emanuellandeholm5657]

Professor, I'm going to reinterpret your question: How much damage did the ice sheets do during the Weichselian glaciation? Well, my country was nearly scraped clean. We have so little of the sedimentary rocks remaining here in Sweden. What we have are pockets of old uplifted limestone (Öland and Gotland) and sandstone here and there (Gävle, Ekerö, Scania, southwest of Gotland), together with ancient wackes in various states of metamorphism. The rest is crystalline, igneous stuff and some real old shales in the south west. I'm told they have found dinosaur remains in the extreme south of Sweden, which is Scania, so I guess that's a thing. Of course, the mountains ("Fjällen") that were erected during the Caledonian orogeny brought up all sorts of rocks to the surface and not all of that was wiped out. Some of that stuff even made its way south as glacial erratics.

[@ThisIsMe3699]

Bumped into a cricket at 9:07😁

[@VolcanoGoldDiggerAdirondacks]

What kind of soil under the top soil? Does it look like it came from a volcano?

[@mikespangler98]

Could bald ridge be treeless because it's sand and gravel and won't hold water well enough to support trees? There was a small esker back home (Wisconsin) that was only really visible in the fall because the sandier soil there was popular with red oaks, while the other trees preferred the slightly wetter ground off the esker.

[@mikespangler98]

The Washington Road and Recreation Atlas has a marking for the Withrow Moraine east of Moses Coulee too. There is a pretty clear start to it on Road L, but it didn't seem seem nearly as clear cut on Road O, also called St Andrews Road. (The east-west portion of 172 is also Road 14, handy to know if you are keeping track of where you are.) on Road L there were some granite looking chunks in the rock piles and even in the road cuts. But there are also haystack rocks south of US 2. Did the glacier push south briefly, then pull back and churn in place for awhile? US 2 is sort of closed at the moment, but you can still get up there if you are sneaky. Ephrata to Road B to sheep Canyon to Whitehall road goes to US 2. Or turn right instead of left at the first 90 on Whitehall, go east to Schoolhouse aka road J, then north to 2. I like it up there. 😊

[@celestemclaughlin1356]

One thing I noted about the haystack erratics is how much greater the deterioration appears to be vs what you have shown of those attributed to the younger glaciation and floods. Just thinking about it!

[@lethaleefox6017]

Usually, there is a difference in rock type, this bunch is basalt... the iceberg erratics are often granites...the ice packed and dropped haystack ones could be either, but this bunch Nick called basalt... basalts can usually be tagged with origin chemistry....?

[@davitm1]

I am curious about the specific source of these boulders. Any idea of how far they might have been transported?

[@whyjnot420]

Seeing those glacial erratics all over out in the fields is really something. Here in Connecticut we have tons of them as well, but not really out in fields. Or at least, they aren't fields anymore. I only know one like that. The rest are tucked away in forested areas. So they are far far far less pronounced on the landscape. caveat: The most detailed knowledge I have is northwest Connecticut, the further you get from that part of the state, the less I know of it.

[@amariebeaubien]

ooh a Kelvin Helmholtz cloud behind Nick's head at 27:22!