Pateros - Ice Age Boulders & Terraces

Nick Zentner | April 24, 2024
Scouting and Brainstorming for a new 'Nick On The Rocks' episode.
'Nick On The Rocks' playlist: • Nick on the Rocks

[@LesHeifner]

Nick, you say you’re just a teacher, just an educator but you think big. Such good stuff.

[@shonaormiston2689]

Such an awesome landscape. An amazing contrast between the fields of water transported granitic booulders and the unfinished and almost artificial appearance of the Great Terrace slopes. I love hearing the way your mind processes from one aspect to another. Great material for an episode of Nick on the Rocks. 🐻

[@sasquatch3945]

Nick, I have an idea for a vantage point just above the town of Methow where, in the evening, you can see dramatic views of terraces up the Methow Valley. I often stop there on the way to the store to take pictures because it is so dramatic and beautiful. But there are also terraces at my property much further up another, smaller valley above Methow. In fact, my property, and many cabins in the area are located on mini-terraces that are about 50ft high and 100-300ft wide and snake all around the small, high valley I am in. I imagine they formed the same way, but at a much smaller scale. But it is such a unique geological landscape I imagine you would love to see it. There are also exposed road cuts near my place with some very interesting ribbons of material you may be interested in. As an audience member I would certainly be interested in learning more about it!

[@Andy-rp3ee]

Amazing how much you open our eyes to look at the landscape differently. Just wow! Impressive is a great word for it. Thanks Professor Nick!

[@laurafolsom2048]

Oh my gosh I am so excited! I have been looking at these boulders and asking questions for several years now I’m so glad you’re covering it.!!!

[@crowfeathermedia]

When i was working for Fedex my route was from Wenatchee to Twisp Winthrop and Mazama. Thats when I first came across your videos. Made the trips more interesting. Use to drive that stretch every day.

[@garymiller2499]

Excellent idea for a program Nick. I live up the Methow and have often pondered how these huge rocks arrived here - particularly the basalt erratics on the west (Pateros) side of the river. There is no basalt on that side of the river so they must have been torn from the east and deposited at the mouth of the Methow River. Also, that bend in the river at Pateros strikes me as perfect for a huge eddy to form as the massive floods arrive and turn sharply south. I can envision the water pooling, swirling, and slowing there just enough for a large amount of debris to fall out of the water column - just before the water accelerates again on it's way to Wenatchee! Thanks again!

[@marksinger3067]

Nick and morning coffee is a fine combo... Thanks..

[@sueellens]

Thank you for sharing this part of the process. I appreciate all of the info you provide and the time it takes. The scenery is an amazing plus. ❤

[@sharonseal9150]

Nice little surprise this evening to see a new video this evening! Thanks for bringing us a long for these excursions Nick. One thing I would love to know as you visit these sites are the elevations. I have become somewhat obsessed since discovering that the compass app on my iphone also gives elevations and that is helping me plot out all the terrace remnants around Wenatchee and Malaga, and also when I find erratics up higher on the Malaga Slide. .

[@paulmcmanus6222]

Sorry. They only give me a choice of thumb up or thumb down... So, I clicked thumb up 3x!

[@cigdemcapan4241]

As you turn west onto US153 from US97, Methow valley has similar height terrasses but significantly less boulders/erratics.

[@Finallybianca]

New to EBurg and so glad to have found your channel

[@briane173]

Boy have you come to the right place. Perhaps THE best geology _teacher_ anywhere. If you just found Nick's channel he's got enough stuff saved there for you to binge on for months. And I encourage you to do so, in order to get a stupendous education on WA geology from corner to corner. Nick is a _fabulous_ teacher and presenter.

[@TopazLucille]

Thank you for this Nick! Since watching your short and long series for years and having built in Twisp from Covid year to present, I have been fascinated and puzzled by the geology from Twisp to Wenatchee, especially the terraces and erratics (above Wells Dam on the east side of the river) and have verbally spoken the words “I wish Nick would come and explain this to me!” Looking forward to the Nick on the Rocks episode!

[@hunglo666]

since coming across your your awesome content every time im driving through the Gorge or eastern WA I'm always telling my family about how all those rocks and boulders formed and how they got there thanks to your vids

[@seanthorntonmd3908]

Great photography, Nick. You made it easy follow your musings.

[@spamletspamley672]

Great views and thoughts again thanks Nick. (y) Could the boulders have been part of an earlier ice rafted dam that backed up the river to make one of the lower terraces, but then got blasted out of the way and scattered, when a flood came through? Then a bigger lake formed from a dam further down and built up the finer sediments for the main, higher up flats over a much longer time period? How anyone can do the mental gymnastics in 4D to sort it all out, I can't imagine! But it's awesome to think about.:)

[@mikelouis9389]

Being from western Pennsylvania, I am well familiar how the changes in the landscape can confuse and amaze a young mind. It boggles the mind how much impact ice can have on rock.

[@laurafolsom2048]

I’ve been asking about all this. My home town❤

[@sallys1570]

I love the terraces here. This is my neck of the woods. In the winter, the terraces are very visible coming from the north down 97 when covered with snow. I've been trying to learn about the origin of the boulder field in Pateros and to see you talk about this is exciting. Over a year ago, I downloaded a paper written in 2017 by Richard B. Waitt because it had some information about this area. I thought perhaps it was the terminus of a lobe of the Cordilleran ice sheet. I'm a geocacher, not a geologist, and am trying to learn more. You make me want to read more of this field guide! Thanks.

[@vinnynorthwest]

That was an interesting talk on geology as well as a “behind the scenes” look at planning a show…will be looking forward to it!

[@malcolmcog]

Where I live in the Midlands of England thre are many glacial features, I am trying to make sense of them and I thank you for your commentary of your local geology !

[@scottcox9108]

Came across Nick from Fleming yacht KZbin channel, cruising up the river to Idaho talking about the floods as they traveled. Interesting to imagine that during the ice and glacier time, the land had to be devoid of much vegetation, like what you might experience up in the Arctic. Probably didn't look much different 😂

[@lidrec]

Nick! I'm born and raised on horseback in Anacortes ! I'm 63 yrs old ! I have ridden all over Mt Erie and the surrounding area. In Washington Park there is Glacier ...scar you might like! we all signed out names on it smooth surface ! It's on it's way to the best fishing spot on Fidalgo Island...

[@wadehines9971]

All I can think is "look out for rattlesnakes"

[@systemuser8701]

Aah . . . a bona fide Washingtonian !!!

[@kayakangler7683]

I visit this area a few times a year, and that specific boulder field and the terraces have long captivated my thoughts. Notice that the terrace looking north toward Pateros is sloping downward to the east? That’s a bit unusual because it’s sloping in the opposite direction of the flow of the Columbia and any floods coming from Montana. I can only imagine that there must have been a section of the ice sheet coming from the west down what is now the Methow River valley and possibly meeting up with a segment of the glacier flowing the opposite direction. A little south of that area toward the dam, you can see multiple terrace levels that should be pointed out in your video. What are the implications of multiple terrace levels there? I’ve counted as many as 4-5 in some areas. Are the highest terraces the oldest? What can the levels tell us about the number of flood occurrences in that area or their respective volumes? To me, the boulders like similar to rocks near Grand Coulee which is east of this location. Could that be a possible source? Or is there good evidence the rocks came from the north? Such an amazing area in that it experienced heavy glaciation and mega floods, possibly tens of thousand or hundreds of thousands years apart. We need Jerome and Joel to visit there and bring some grad students along to do some investigating!

[@7inrain]

I'm living in the lower Rhine area in Germany and here we have terraces at different heights above the Rhine river, pretty similar to what you are looking at. In fact they are called the 'Rheinterrassen' (Rhine terraces). They weren't caused by the different ice ages - the ice sheets never reached this area (albeit close) - but simply by the river meandering and time and again picking a new river bed. Maybe this is the mechanism by which the terraces in your area formed.

[@TheHillbillyEngineer]

Another great idea for a "Nick On The Rocks" episode! Make this one a double! :)

[@systemuser8701]

You make me so HOMESICK! Thank you😢!!! _While you're in the neighborhood, tell us what you think about the, so called, Bottomless Lake and the Ice Cave that blows cold air all the time in the highway cut just north of the Chelan Airport!_

[@charlesflorian1758]

Be Looking forward for this video - Thanks - Charlie 😊

[@marywolf1824]

It was so cool to hear your thought process as you looked at the landscape.

[@williampool3080]

Nick, according to the video of the "Evolution of the Rio grande River" the oldest drift could be at the top of the terrace. The youngest at the bottom. Or some mixtures in between will have the youngest drift at the bottom depending on the mass of cobals and the velocity of the flood. From what you pointed out in the video my theory is that the erratics trying to keep going in the same direction they moving from inertia either rolling or on top of the ice sheets. The the lower mass of the drift the higher the rocks would go. So the heavier rocks should naturally be on the bottom. When I was prospecting I learned that the gold would fall on the inside of the curve of the river. So in this case the mass of the rocks is very important. All the heavier material will be deposited on the inside of the curve depending on the speed of the flow of the River or the ice sheet. The curve of the river will definitely break up the ice sheet. The ice sheets could be stacked up thousands of feet at the curve of the river. I'm thinking possibly the youngest drift of the flood should be in the middle of the bottom of the terrace. Also the size of the terrace May determine the earliest flood. Thank you for reading my text.William Pool

[@user-ny4bp4oe4j]

..further north, if those hills were covered in tundra or taiga, they'd be right at home; alpine valleys at high altitude look just like those hills, minus those huge boulders; with a little imagination! ~ from AK-USA🇺🇸❄☃

[@tomessary4099]

Lake beds … could they be from damming of the river … huge flood and a “moraine” dam? Flood slows and sand/gravel/rocks backup the water? Like at the southern end of Washington … “Wallula?” gap? I love your teaching!!!

[@bonblue4993]

Hi Nick! This looks really interesting and I look forward to seeing a show on this. The boulders and the flats are really cool.

[@steveanacorteswa3979]

I would say Glacier smoothed, then transported in a flood after a melt. They are all on the outside of the curve of the valley but they would have had to be in the river for a long time to get that rounded.

[@LoreTunderin]

Could a moraine at the southernmost extent of an older ice sheet contain those boulders? Could such a moraine form the dam holding back a younger proglacial lake? Seeing those tumbled boulders makes me think of what happens when an earthen dam is undercut by water pressure, ejecting the dam material with the floodwaters.

[@fredmunson8603]

WOW NIICK, I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE BOLDERS WERE ERATICS. THANKS FOR THE NEW INFORMATION. MASSIVE AMOUNT OF WATER TO MOVE THIS BOLDERS.

[@kristo5747]

I would love to have Prof Z come down to Joshua Tree in southern California. It's such a fascinating area.

[@auntiejen5376]

What a fascinating area! I'd love to see more...

[@user-mb9mo8ku8w]

YES! Been hoping for a lot more on the terraces you scouted with Jerome!

[@jensoboleski]

Wow, Nick on a runway?! Two of my favorite things to nerd out on combined into one video, geology & aviation.

[@Snappy-ut4bj]

Wow what a beautiful shot looking across that surface. Hell yeah!

[@deborahferguson1163]

Yes it IS beautiful!

[@DanFarrar]

Panorama photos can get those terraces Nick.

[@kayakangler7683]

I.C. Russell (1898) coined the term "Great Terrace." He saw evidence of an ancient lake in this area. The terrace is clearly visible up the Okanagan Valley northward and just past Entiat southward. But as I've spent time in that area, I've also observed it on the south shore of the Columbia River 60 miles to the east near the mouth of the Naspelem River and even to Elmer City. I don't think it's been mapped that far eastward, but it appears to me to be clearly visible. The corresponding terrace is also visible on the north side of the river in that area, and you can drive up it as you ascend Buffalo Lake Road.

[@tgeezee3453]

love it ty nick

[@donnabonn92]

Hi Nick, long time followers from our home in the upper Methow. So happy to see you exploring this area of N.C. Washington that has perplexed us for many years! In addition to the "flood boulders" and terraces you are proposing to feature, I would be thrilled to have some mention and perhaps musings on the giant troughs/ditches/channel(s) on the East side of the Columbia in this area. In this video, one channel is clearly shown at 5:13 and 6:25, and also right above your left shoulder at about 16:10. There is a lot to "perplex" about geologically in this area! Love it... and thank you for being a teacher to so many of us!!!

[@thatdumbguy]

Be interesting to see the mineral composition of those boulders to help figure out where they came from.

[@dlloyd46]

Those big boulders are erratics

[@organicelliottwave2938]

If the beds that you are looking at at 20:40 are actually lacustrine, I wonder what kind of slack water was created (and for how long) when both arms of the ice sheet met and dug out the Lake Chelan basin? So much to think about! Love the "thinking out loud" videos, Nick!

[@peacenow4456]

Oh boy, a fresh video! Could some of those boulders have made a dam and created a lake behind it and may be froze solid then melted and pushed boulders out?

[@laurafolsom2048]

The ice caves were there down Apple Acres rd.

[@doncook3584]

I’m on my morning walk on the fringes of Omaha, Nebraska and there’s a Tom turkey out in a cornfield trying to attract a couple of hands which are nearby. It’s overcast watching this video is just wonderful. I thoroughly enjoy all of Ch Work.

[@Mrbfgray]

Fascinating stuff.

[@jonathanblubaugh5049]

Plus there's a great gravel pit behind the hill just northwest of the airport.

[@scottwilhelme9880]

Is there a modern event that has been recorded of before and after flood tumbled boulders that you are aware of that you can show? Maybe a dam break that could show how much water flow is needed to move X sized boulders? That would be a neat educational video.

[@williampool3080]

Is there any way to establish if the rocks were on top of the ice sheets or in the water during the floods? How long would it take a rocks that size to melt through the ice? The big clue that I see because I've seen the Yakima River freeze on the Horn rapids dam. When the water started rising and lifting the ice sheets up the ice sheet started breaking up. I see that big curve that big curve is the key. The terraces stopped the ice sheets until the water lifted the ice sheets up. The ice sheets started moving in a chaotic fashion downriver dumping the erratics all over the the flat terrain. Your big story is that curve in the water.

[@hjpngmw]

That must have been some flood to bring such large boulders along with it. Could a landslide have helped it along?

[@MrRmeadows]

@Nick Go up the Methow valley. There are more terraces up that way at different levels.

[@steveanacorteswa3979]

You would think you can match the granite in the boulders to the source up river or up the Columbia to find out their origin.

[@hiker1658]

Can you make a stronger link between the orchards and the ice age roll in setting up the soil for it?

[@JimLinnertz]

I watched this episode with great interest. How did the "Milk Duds" get there? Could it be that they are remnants of ancient great Lahars or the remains of an ancient great glacial moraine, either of which have been washed over with great floods, whisking away the silts, sands and light gravels, leaving only these large boulders.?

[@hjumper8238]

Thank you for this and as already stated by others, this I out of the box approaches and a credit to your methodology of learning while teaching. Bravo!

[@Eternal_Hoop]

Another great observation

[@DakotaRose2546]

Is it possible to use luminescence dating on various boulders to determine how long they've actually been sat there? Also has there been any measuring done to determine the heights of the various terraces and whether there's a correlation between that and the various floods that have come through?

[@alexbradmckay]

Just a little further south in Chalan Falls, you can see the Chalan River cutting through, what looks like to me, glacial till.

[@xalash]

can the bowlders be sourced? were they quarried locally?

[@alpineflauge909]

awesome content

[@cyndikarp3368]

Good Thinking! More Science Is Needed. There is a lot of rounded granite's, much higher on terraces. How far east do rounded granite boulders extend?

[@anaritamartinho1340]

😮...many questions 😮...do it!🙂

[@reefshadow1]

You are just a treasure. Watching you from atop the Malaga Slide :)

[@Paleoman]

Hi Nick, break out that acoustic guitar & play an intro to Nick on the rocks. BTW you rock ! Awesome video as usual. Thank you Mr. Z.

[@Paleoman]

Thanks for the :) Any thoughts to sourcing that Wenatchee Clovis Moss Agate? It has to be basaltic flow as its origin. Hot springs percolating up through the flow for millions of years but where???? One of the layers that flowed across Washington millennia ago. But where?

[@organicelliottwave2938]

Nick, has there been any OSL dating done on the flood boulders there?

[@OVTraveller]

Hi Nick, could 'blue' isotopes be discovered on the bottom of your boulder strewn field......to give a guidance to your older/ bigger question. Deeper layers would unlikely to have been affected by the younger/ smaller floods. Cheers and thanks for the mental stimulation.

[@jaymacpherson8167]

Would the depth profile of the unconsolidated material differ between flood deposits versus glacial erratics at locations where the respective transport mechanisms impart different energy levels? Along that line, would the grain size distributions also differ by energy levels? Of course interwoven repeat events by both mechanisms would make for a more complex condition today.

[@TheZinmo]

Could the terrasses have been build during the Glaciacion totally without the Columbia, in a time where it flowed down Grand Coulee? Just with Material from the Cascades, and afterwards, when the Okanogan Lobe gave way, only then could the Columbia and the last Missoula floods carve the new valley?

[@frankd5871]

The big boulders cam down from Winthrop they are on the inside bend of the river. There was less flow from Okanogan. The flow was restricted just N of Beeb. The smaller stones came from Winthrop and Okanogan. Perhaps the stone types could be investigated. Perhaps the flats were a similar height as the restriction. The small stones were all the way across the present river valley and were washed away in the last 12000 yrs now showing the valley and banks/flats. The licheans on the big boulders may show how long they have been there. At 11.03 / 26.40 boulder with broken off piece - the licheans on the broken off faces may be younger than those on the rest of the boulder. Perhaps there was a mass of mud, water, stones (several vids on utube show mud avalanches) that ran out of momentum at the bend. Debri moved up onto the far side of the bend and left there. Are there more boulders and flats further down stream? Good as a viewer to be asked questions - what could have happened.

[@catherineleslie-faye4302]

Ohhh... how many ice age flows are we seeing here? Pre 16 mil, 16 mil, post 16 mil, 200 thousand and newer ice age flooding? I'm hooked!

[@jessimatic]

What about a repeat event meeting point of floods from multiple directions? And then lots of erosion? The mysteries of the high plateau! Thanks for the behind the scenes episode sketch!

[@jonathanblubaugh5049]

3:13 Western Meadowlark 🥰

[@janetcollins1129]

nice to hear the process of planning and exploring :)

[@brianlhughes]

One thing I've noticed about the Pateros boulders is that they drastically thin out the further south you travel from town as the ground slowly gets lower as you go.

[@brianlhughes]

Omak flats, looks to be formed partially from the Similakmeen river through Conconully, look at all the pot holes! That area NW of Riverside also looks to be a large fault, which when it occurred, changed the landscape of the terrace that was already present! It's easy to see that the terrace was cut off just NW of Riverside by the fault. It looks like a lot of water flowed through the canyon that 97 runs through past Crumbacker lake, but when? It also appears that the current path of Okanogan river past Janis bridge is new as well as the Similakameen's path which now heads toward Oroville. The valleys, the geology, of the Okanogan doesn't appear match the current locations of both rivers!

[@billgilmore7604]

This would be a great program. I've been through this area 100's of times, often stopping just south of Pateros to look at these rocks wondering how they would be deposited by flood waters here, and really only in this location is the only place you see such a large deposit, unlike other flood deposits. You add the terraced landscapes and this makes sense. Please do tell!

[@jonathanblubaugh5049]

Wouldn't we need to trench the granite boulder field to determine whether it's till or a fluviatile gravel bar? Are there giant ripple marks? Does US97 have a road cut through it?

[@xalash]

at ~11:14 we see some fractured bowlders. do the fractures look more fresh than the bowlder as a whole?

[@MrRmeadows]

If you look at the Columbia river before the dam was put in, there are really large rocks in it. Possible the Columbia used to run over there where the rocks are.

[@horizon42q]

Very interesting subject. It may take many years to figure out. Forensic Geology is needed.

[@hagvaktok]

I read a while back about erratics in the Arctic being measured somehow for age,. Is this Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclides? Wouldn't TCN dating give you the date of those erratics?

[@dancooper8551]

Lots of interesting questions that need to be addressed.

[@user-vd4ko1wu7e]

❤❤❤

[@redant6065]

Wouldn't the mineral composition of the boulders help explain their origin?

[@briane173]

12:20 Until you get a more definitive answer on the propellant for these boulders I can totally buy the idea that they were washed in here by massive outwash floods, perhaps in Blue time. The Magic Valley in ID toward the tail end of the Bonneville flood is replete with square miles of boulders that were tumbled in by that flood -- all reposed at essentially the same angle. I can envision violent outwash plucking out these boulders and picking up more and more along the way, enough to where these boulders amassed and became a battering ram of their own, picking up and tumbling even more rocks as the outwash progresses down the valley. This landscape really does resemble what was left over by the Bonneville flood; so I don't think it's such an outlandish idea that this was the product of glacial outwash as opposed to glacial rafting.

[@douglasdunn7267]

I'm thinking those boulders are part of the Blue times. I've spent time there in my life and up at Alta lake. I'm convinced the old ice sheets were there a long time before Missoula. Perhaps many times. Thanks Nick!!

[@sidbemus4625]

At 10:37- 10:43. One of my favorite saying ( A O T K ). Would a good updated phrase be " Back Side Over Mr. Coffee " ? Nick is there any chance these rocks were pushed along under the ice while being subjected to or within a flowing " slurry " of cobbles/silt/boulders/water ?

[@ralphgehteha9924]

What about that very angular block next to the rounded ones? Hss been in the shot several times.

[@richarddavies7419]

Did glacial outwash from one or more of the advances/retreats of the Cordilleran ice sheet contribute to terrace material? - just a thought.

[@laurafolsom2048]

The boulders on one side are different than the boulders on the other side

[@thomassherer8682]

I've been wondering when you would get around to doing a video explaining that boulder field near Pateros...

[@jeffbybee5207]

Could the slack water sedimentss be from lakes formed by Columbia river basalts pushing the old Columbia to the west at 16 million years ago?

[@rainaldkoch9093]

It is my impression that such a large area can only become that flat by shallow-water waves over thousands of years. Only a very big, sturdy dam would create such conditions. River basalts are surely a candidate. How long would it take to fill the lake with sediment and boulders?

[@HarrietSmall-mq2tl]

Pretty. Never been there. I can see it. They are big!

[@HarrietSmall-mq2tl]

The boulders have been dumped on the outside of a curve of the river. Are they over on the other (inside) of the curve?

[@GrayPlayer]

Outside of flowing rivers will run slower allowing objects to be dropped more so than inside.