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Events Calendar

Unless otherwise indicated, all IAFI events are free and open to the public.
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•May 5, 2008
Puget Lobe Chapter Meeting, Shoreline, WA.
The Monday, May 5 meeting of the Puget Lobe Chapter will be held at the Shoreline Historical Museum at 749 N. 175th. St. at 7 pm. From I-5, use Exit 176 to get to N 175th St and take it to the west. The museum is about one mile west of the freeway, and just one block west of Aurora Ave (Hwy 99). It's on the south side of the street, and there is plenty of off-street parking. It is suggested that you use the ground-level entrance on the south (back) side of the building. There is access there to an elevator. The meeting will be in the large meeting room at the east end of the main floor.

The program will feature Jon Riedel, geologist and glaciologist with the North Cascades National Park, speaking on new findings related to the ICE AGE GLACIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF SKAGIT VALLEY, WASHINGTON AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. Topics will include the Regional Cordilleran Ice Sheet drainage network through breached divides in Skagit valley, Extent of the alpine glaciers during the last ice age (Evans Creek stade) in Skagit Valley, and Paleoecology and the magnitude and timing of climate changes in Skagit valley during the last ice age.

Summary: The Skagit valley contains important information about the ice ages, and unlike the rest of the Cascades Range to the south has undergone intensive, repeated continental glaciation. Northward drainage patterns established in the Tertiary in the North Cascades were reorganized to accommodate southern drainage of Cordilleran Ice Sheet meltwater. Repeated continental glaciation rendered the Skagit an interconnected valley, with meltwater routes opening it to the Fraser and Okanogan watersheds, and linking it to a drainage system around the east and southern margins of the Puget lobe of the ice sheet, discharging to the Pacific Ocean via Chehalis River. The key event in the establishment of this system was breaching of the North Cascades crest at Skagit Gorge. Alpine glaciers have also taken their turn shaping the North Cascades, but the record of their activity is fragmentary in the Skagit valley when compared to valleys farther south that were not inundated by the ice sheet. While difficult to discover, alpine glacier deposits provide evidence of local and regional climatic conditions during the beginning and end of the last ice age.

IAFI membership forms will be available. Applications and checks will be accepted on the spot and promptly forwarded to the Institute. If you know other people who would have an interest in this meeting, but who are not yet on our notification list, please pass along the information about the meeting. For the rest of the year, chapter meetings are being planned for September and November.

For more information, please contact Mark Sundquist, 206-817-5299.

•May 7, 2008
Lecture by Gene Kiver, Spokane, WA.
The Cheney-Spokane Chapter is sponsoring a free lecture, "Geology of the Grand Coulee: Washington’s Grand Canyon", Wednesday, May 7, 6:30 p.m. at Eastern Washington University, Science Building, Room 137. Dr. Eugene Kiver, EWU Geology Professor Emeritus, will give an illustrated talk on the amazing story of how one of Washington State’s most scenic features was formed. Giant floods of lava about 15 million years old were later gouged deeply by one of the largest floods of water known in the geologic record. For additional information, contact Melanie Bell; (509) 954-4242.

•May 10, 2008
Cheney-Spokane Chapter Field Trip, Cheney, WA.
"Field Trip to Mars" (via the Lower Grand Coulee). This all-day geology field trip by bus will explore the Missoula Flood story as recorded in the remarkable landforms and sediments in the Grand Coulee. The massive complex of eroded channels, dry falls, and water-torn bedrock in the Grand Coulee and elsewhere in eastern Washington were formed by the catastrophic failure of Glacial lake Missoula, a glacier-dammed lake in northwest Montana. The last of numerous discharges occurred as recently as 14,900 calendar years ago. This area is the earth example that was used by NASA to plan the highly successful mission that placed two rover vehicles on Mars. Rover 1 and 2d continue to explore the planet’s surface. Trip leaders are Dr. Gene Kiver and Bruce Bjornstad. Buses will leave from Lot P12 on the Eastern Washington University campus promptly at 8:00 a.m. and will return approximately by 5:30 p.m. Lunch and a guidebook will be provided. For complete information and to register, please download the registration package. Contact: Melanie Bell; (509) 954-4242.

•June 4, 2008
Ellensburg Chapter Meeting, Ellensburg, WA.
Ryan Karlson of Washington State Parks will present "An Iceberg Graveyard: Ice Age Flood Deposits of the Vantage, Washington Area" at the Ellensburg Chapter meeting, 7 pm, Hebeler Hall room 121 at Central Washington University. Ryan is a former geography student at CWU. His talk will focus on field research of flood deposits in the area surrounding Vantage. More information: Nick Zentner, (509) 963-2828.

•June 21-22, 2008
Northwest Geological Society Field Trip, Eastern Washington.
"The Western Channeled Scabland," led by Bruce Bjornstad. Open to up to 15 IAFI members. Day 1 (June 21): Leave Bellevue 8AM. Drive to Vantage; merge with IAFI group ~10:30AM at Ginko Petrified Forest State Park. Begin tour of flood features: Frenchman Gap, Frenchman Coulee (short hike), Evergreen Ridge, Potholes Coulee (short hike), Babcock Bench, West Bar Giant Current Ripples, Crater Coulee. Drive to Ephrata for the night. Day 2 (June 22): 8 AM - Head into the lower Grand Coulee to view Soap Lake, Lake Lenore Caves/Great Blade (short hike), Coulee Monocline, Deep Lake Pothole Swarm (short hike), Dry Falls. Turn around midday (after lunch) and head south toward: Summer Falls, Pinto Ridge, Ephrata Fan, Quincy Basin, Drumheller Channels, Frenchman Hills Erratics. Return to Vantage by 4 PM. Arrive in Seattle 6PM. For more information and to register, please download the announcement and registration package.

•June 28, 2008
Coeur du Deluge Chapter Field Trip, Hope, ID.
"Digital Data Collection Mini Field Trip." The Coeur du Deluge Chapter Summer 2008 Chapter Meeting will be a field trip to six locations in the Hope / Clark Fork (Idaho) area, with members taking digital field notes, that is, photographs and GPS points, of physical and viewable evidence of features pertaining to Ice Age Floods events. The purpose is to build a digital library of Ice Age Floods feature locations. The information can then be shared via the web on sites such as Geocache (http://www.geocaching.com/) or EarthCache (http://www.earthcache.org/).

The field trip will depart at 9:00 am from Hotel Hope and travel by carpool to the selected locations. Mark Heisel and Mark Pullen will serve as trip leaders. The Mini Field Trip will conclude with a picnic lunch and a Chapter business meeting. Bring a sack lunch for the picnic. For members interested in having breakfast beforehand, Hotel Hope opens at 8 am. The hotel is located at 126 West Main Street in Hope and can be reached at 208-264-6004. Contact: Sylvie White, 208-265-8883.

• September 26-27, 2008
IAFI Annual Meeting and Field Trip, Polson, MT.
The 2008 IAFI Annual Meeting and Field Trip will be hosted by the Glacial Lake Missoula Chapter on Friday and Saturday at Polson, Montana. Plan now to join us for this great weekend under beautiful fall weather!

The meeting place and field trip starting point will be the Best Western Kwa Taq Nuk Resort in Polson, Montana, a community located on the southwestern shore of scenic Flathead Lake.

The IAFI Board will meet Friday at the Resort. The Annual Meeting and presentation for all members will take place at the Resort on Friday evening, 9/26. The Saturday, 9/27 field trip will be an around-the-lake excursion with a principle focus on various lake, flood and glacial features associated with the Flathead Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet and the northern arm of Glacial Lake Missoula. Trip leaders will be Larry Smith, geologist with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology; Marc Hendrix, professor of geology at the University of Montana; and Lex Blood, retired geology instructor from Flathead Community College.

A block of rooms is being held by the Resort. The nightly rate is $73.99 and is good for the nights of 9/25, 9/26, and 9/27. Reservations can be made by calling 406-883-3636. Please make your reservations early to ensure a room at that rate.

The cost of the field trip will be approximately $55 for IAFI-members and $75 for non-members. Complete information and registration packet will be available this summer. For convenience and energy savings, Missoula-area participants will be able to board the bus in Missoula; similar arrangements will be made for Kalispell-area participants if two buses are needed for the field trip and the response from that area exceeds 30 people.

Please Note: Only one bus has been reserved so far, and we will add one or two more buses only if there is sufficient committed interest in the field trip. Since this is football season, there is competition for buses in western Montana. The ability to secure an additional bus or two is dependent on an early knowledge of the number of people planning to attend the field trip. For that reason, I am asking that those planning on attending the field trip to notify me of their intent as soon as possible; however, please do not send any payment with that notification. Formal registration and payment will be requested later in the summer. Should the trip be over-booked, those who send notification will receive priority seating. My addresses are: Norman Smyers, 1520 Winchester Court, Missoula, MT 59804; or normsmyers@aol.com.

The complete registration packet will be available here later this summer, and will also be included in the Summer 2008 IAFI newsletter.

For more information, please contact Norm Smyers at normsmyers@aol.com.

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Last updated 05/05/2008.   Contact the Sitemaster.