What is a Coulee?

What is a Coulee? Dramatic coulees of eastern Washington's Channeled Scablands were created by powerful Ice Age Floods that dug aggressively into the Columbia River Basalt flows.
Coulees are unique, box-shaped valleys created quickly by Ice Age Floods of the Pleistocene Epoch. Coulees are most notably found in the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington. Famous examples include Grand Coulee, Moses Coulee, and Frenchman Coulee.
This episode begins with Nick standing at the edge of Echo Coulee, just south of Frenchman Coulee. The classic look of a coulee is on display - flat coulee floor, vertical coulee walls, and no river in the coulee bottom. Beginning in the 1920's, geologist J Harlen Bretz tried convincing the science world that coulees like this one must be the result of large-volume, short-lived flooding events during the Ice Age. Opposition to Bretz's arguments lasted many decades, but today, the scientific community embraces the story of the Ice Age Floods.
After some nifty aerials by flying ace Tom Tabbert, the episode resumes with Nick standing at the base of a popular climbing route in Echo Coulee. A discussion of the fractured nature of basalt reveals that the basalt bedrock of eastern Washington - the Columbia River Basalt Group - plays a large role in coulee development. The vertical and horizontal fracture sets, created 15 million years ago when the lava cooled, aided the floodwater's erosive ability. The result? Coulees with vertical and horizontal components directly controlled by the fractures in the basalt bedrock.
Filmed in June, 2013.
Episode written by Nick Zentner and Tom Foster.
Video, Sound, & Editing: Tom Foster

[@Ellensburg44]

Good question. The basalt was carried downstream - sometimes just a few miles and dropped when the water slowed....sometimes all the way to the Columbia River Gorge and beyond!

[@panzerlieb]

Thank you. I was looking for a straight forward explanation of what a coulee is and this is it.

[@marybethjames-thibodeaux1927]

Just had a discussions of coulees with at woman from Louisiana. What she called a coulee, I would call a slough. Now I find there is a technical geological meaning as well. My brother was born in Grand Coulee. Those French Canadians throwing their words around.

[@Ellensburg44]

Yes, lots of different uses in different places. Thanks.

[@Ellensburg44]

Thanks for watching, Michael! Yes, some of the material off the coast of Oregon was deposited by the Ice Age Floods....but much of the big stuff (blocks of broken columns) were dropped in piles just a few miles downstream in places where the water slowed.

[@5enecan]

I watched all of your videos when I was taking short lunch breaks while studying for the Bar Exam 10 hrs a day last summer. Thank you! Hope to see more from you!

[@59vaughn]

Good music as well....love the learning....

[@Ellensburg44]

Ha. Thanks for watching.

[@deborahdavis7484]

I've watched quite a lot of your videos recently. You make learning about geology fun. Keep up the great work!

[@Ellensburg44]

Thanks much, Deborah.

[@mrdddeeezzzweldor5039]

Nice educational complement to Randall Carlson's descriptions of the flood events that shaped this lands and those downstream.

[@anoniconoclast2030]

Another good job by the hip dude.

[@earnieeveridge]

Thank you so much. I really love all your videos, and your candor. Please keep making them.

[@Ellensburg44]

Thanks much!

[@halibut1249]

Your explanation is as good today as it was eight years ago when you posted. I've been reading about Custer Nat'l Battlefield in Mont. and that terrain is full of coulees (e.g., Medicine Tail Coulee). If the shape is uniformly box-shaped, I suppose they are like the highways that get walled off on both sides to help sound proof (and sight-barrier proof) the adjacent residential neighborhoods that don't like having a highway running through them. Thanks for your vid.

[@Ellensburg44]

Glad we could help, delineater!

[@lynnmitzy1643]

Thank you📚professor Nick

[@avaa7651]

We miss you come back ❤

[@NetUser-qm2ks]

Just discovered this channel today and loving it. Great little format with lots of information to at least to start researching into some of these very interesting subjects, I love geology form my younger days. I actually was just on Joe Rogan's podcast with guests Graham Hancock & Randall Carlson that as one of the subjects of the podcast was about these huge late era ice age and post Ice age floods in the extreme northwestern contiguous United States mainly here speaking of eastern Washington State. How about that for a connection? 😂👍🏽🤔🖖🏽👽🤘🏼🐙💪🏽🌎✌🏽

[@maryg.7790]

This guy is a GEM!!

[@GeologyNick]

Thanks for the good question, Daniel. The Columbia River Basalts are a major reason for the coulee development - the lavas are thick and heavily fractured. Southern Idaho has basalt, but not like the CRB's. No thick lavas in central Canada either. Floods + CRBS = Coulees!

[@xxkittnenxx]

There's a bunch of areas in my region named "Such and Such Coulee" and I never knew was a coulee was. Thanks for the explanation!

[@Ellensburg44]

Thanks. Coulees are dry washes....not all from these big Ice Age Floods. Where is your region?

[@rogerdudra178]

Thanks.

[@Ellensburg44]

Thanks for the nice comments, Field Notes! I'll look for your channel....

[@JeremyWhy]

That was entertaining, concise and educational. 💚

[@TomTom-rh5gk]

Just the best.

[@CouleeTheSun]

Now, I can know what I am and where I'm from.

[@Ellensburg44]

Ha!

[@briane173]

@@Ellensburg44 And lemme guess -- his parents' parents are grand-coulees.

[@vanhopecomedy]

You have the best videos on youtube

[@jessicasfieldnotes]

Hey fellow Geologist! I started a channel talking about my mishaps in Geology Field Camps, I'm sure we all remember some awkward/death defying times right? I love seeing other geology channels. Your video is very informational very nice!

[@kenbobca]

I enjoy watching your videos and I learned something too.

[@47058]

PLS UPLOAD MORE

[@Ellensburg44]

Thanks for the encouragement.

[@trossk]

Now when i go to E Wash. I look at things a bot more different. Thanks for the vids

[@Ellensburg44]

Great, RW. That's what we're trying to do here...

[@thebaconized4733]

Love the intro. Great information and keep up the good work. Subbed.

[@Ellensburg44]

Thanks for the encouragement.

[@mountainmanwannabe9495]

So I've noticed that in many of these Coulees there are lakes. Yet I don't see ( looking down with Google Earth) any sources of flowing water. Did the floods erode enough bedrock that springs were formed and that is what the source of water is?

[@Ellensburg44]

Yes, most coulees do not have rivers. The lakes are sometimes fed by groundwater seeps....and sometimes artificial (irrigation runoff).

[@himanshusharma-pk9qo]

nice work sir. love and respect from India.

[@Ellensburg44]

Thank you. Hello from Washington.

[@jimslancio]

The coulees in Washington State resulted, I gather, from the confluence of two historical evelts, the 15-miillion-year-old flood basalts, and the more recent Ice Age floods. That makes me wonder whether there are coulees anywhere else on Earth, and whether equivalent historical events elsewhere could have set the stage for coulee production. It strikes me as unlikely. I also wonder where the word "coulee" came from. If the Washington coulees are unique on Earth, then is coulee an Indian word?

[@UTubeGlennAR]

>^. .^< Simple Process in a large scale. Thank You

[@joenicmck]

First, thank you for the excellent video! Planning a Wisconsin trip that seems to go from "This Coulee" to "That Coulee". I thought it must be a family name, lol!! Are those coulees formed the same way as the ones you showed in Washington? Thanks for any response.

[@zhazhagab0r]

As I am sure you have realized by now, they aren't. We essentially call all valleys into the bluffs "coulees". Had no idea it was a regional thing until I was 25.

[@KeyWestBluesX]

ive often wondered if some of the coulees such as rock lake may even reflect former lakes and river channels that had the weakest spots to be plucked and washed away with their clay and weak pellagonite you mention. sometimes i face clay and mixed up deposits and wonder if thats part of the reason the coulee behind my back is there. great videos when i think ive seen all of them i find more.

[@Ellensburg44]

Thanks for the feedback. Tough to speculate on former lakes and channels idea. Many floods hitting each area - going back to the earliest part of the Ice Age potentially. For water speeds, landforms have been carefully studied and math applied to features. I've seen nothing faster than 60 mph.

[@1keinic1]

Later in life, I realize now I should have been a geologist. In a way I think many of us are, such as when we go on hikes or drives to view and appreciate mother nature’s magnificent creations.

[@alphy79d]

Thanks! Funny I've never known the definition of Coulee before; I always thought it was just the name of a city. Can you tell me where all the basalt went? All that material should be somewhere now right?

[@Ellensburg44]

Much of the material traveled just a few miles and was dropped when the floodwater slowed. Basalt boulder piles. Some of it made it much farther downstream.

[@Xerethane]

Very informative. I started enjoying geology and geography years ago. Lately I've been studying glacial lakes Lahontan and Bonneville along with Sierra Nevada glaciation. Did a similar effect to the coulee's occur upstream on the Snake river when Bonneville drained down it? Or for that matter on Lake Agassiz in central Canada? I haven't heard of coulee's forming from other ice age floods.

[@Mudpuppynme]

What about the Coulee in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin? There was no glacier....

[@UTubeGlennAR]

Again, vary informative and interesting. So, because of their contraction cooling cracks around each individual basalt column, the columns were made for easy disassembly, removal and clean up by the high speed voluminous melt and ice dam flows????

[@Ellensburg44]

Yes.

[@johnwilliamson2276]

Are the coulees of North & South Dakota formed the same way? Around the battle site of the Little Big Horn there's coulees also. Or am I wrong?

[@Xerethane]

Interesting. I would imagine the repetitive nature of the floods had an effect as well - Bonneville only drained the once as far as we know while the Missoula floods may have occurred dozens of times. Agassiz did drain on multiple occasions but in different directions and across very different terrain (aka McKenzie river, Hudson bay etc...) Thank you. Do you know of anywhere else on earth that has produced similar terrain to the Washington Coulee's? I might enjoy some "light" reading. :-)

[@MrMAGBS]

Do you believe in twin landscapes? These Coulees in US are very similar to a place called “Fecho da Serra”, in Minas Gerais State in Brazil, where I have a property .

[@KeyWestBluesX]

one other thing ive wondered if once a coulee is formed and getting bigger i wonder how high the speed of the water and boulders gets on impact into the plunge pools my guess is that i has to be 200 mph minimum i will start keeping my eyes peeled for shattered impact areas. most are maybe under water like dry falls

[@Ellensburg44]

Totally.

[@Jesusisyhwh]

Where did all that rock go? Where did it pile up?

[@uratchr2]

so, where did all of the basalt GOE? Are there piles of basalt rock somewhere in southern Washington , Northern Oregon?

[@Ellensburg44]

Good question, Johnathan. The basalt blocks were dropped anyplace the water slowed temporarily. Piles of basalt near Ephrata, Mattawa, etc in Washington...and more piles in the Columbia River Gorge upstream from Portland, Oregon. Thanks for watching.

[@michaelgreene9889]

Are there debris flows off the coast of Oregon that are built by the carried off basalt columns?

[@jamesdriscoll9405]

I think it's the Astoria fan.

[@faithrada]

Aaaaaahhhhhh. Very.... coolee

[@franzwaltenspuhl8892]

I thought it was something that hugs a beer can or bottle☺️

[@anri.giorgadze]

what calls the song in the end of the video?

[@Ellensburg44]

Anri Giorgadze It's called "Barely Able To Play and Sing at my Kitchen Table".

[@lauram9478]

❤

[@deerjerkydave]

Is that Zentner on guitar?

[@Ellensburg44]

Yup.

[@luskpaul9593]

So I'm reading western novel in which they keep mentioning coulees and arroyos and I just had to google and here I am . In doggone coulee with some dude in a bowtie. Whoda thunkit?

[@patrickmcavinney1526]

Crinkle cut lava

[@brianfergus839]

1:55 very foolish to climb without a helmet !!

[@cmc89]

Basalt definitely is not created by volcanoes. Call me crazy if you want but those columns are clearly something else. Looks more biological. I came looking for answers but that’s not it

[@briane173]

They're formed by the same things contorting the landscape in Iceland -- flood basalts rising up from _fissures._ Big ones. and lots of them. And lots of separate events over a million or so years -- perhaps 16 million years ago. www.usgs.gov/observatories/cascades-volcano-observatory/columbia-river-basalt-group-stretches-oregon-idaho