In August the Ice Age Floods Institute was offered an opportunity to share an exhibitor booth with the Tualatin Ice Age Floods Foundation (TIAFF) at a major geological conference, the October 10-13 Geological Society of America (GSA) Convention in Portland, OR. This gave IAFI an opportunity to present the Floods Story and educate a worldwide assemblage of geological professionals, researchers, and students, many of whom were not even aware of the Floods or their immense scope. The IAFI Board jumped at this opportunity, approving the registration cost and putting the booth development in the hands of the Columbia River Gorge Chapter President and IAFI Webmaster, Lloyd DeKay, aided by IAFI Membership Secretary, Sylvia Thompson, who also represented TIAFF along with Dr. Scott Burns of Portland State University.
With Dr. Burns influence, we were able to acquire a corner booth space very near the main GSA area that ensured a good parade of participant traffic past our booth. We used 3D modeling software to design the booth to scale, then began assembling the materials for the booth. We used QGIS software, with assistance from Stacy Warren of Eastern Washington University, to develop a new map that highlighted the Floods paths, various glacial and temporary lakes along the floods path, as well as the final resting place of much of the sediment eroded by the Floods on the Astoria Submarine Fan. We then printed the map and other images, purchased, trimmed and covered 2” foam insulation boards for display walls, borrowed tables, made table covers, and gathered IAFI Store materials for sale.
The day of reckoning came Oct. 8th, when we moved everything to the Oregon Convention Center and set it all up. The Exhibit Hall opened at 5:00pm and we began telling the story that would repeat many times over the next 4 days to people from around the world. We talked with relative locals (WA, OR, ID, MT, NV and CA), people from other parts of the US (at least AK, AZ, UT, CO, TX, AR, IA, KS, KY, IL, MN, WI, LA, GA, NC, SC, AL, FL, NJ, NY, MA, NH, VT, RI, CT), and several countries (including Canada, Finland, Holland, UK, Italy, Morocco, Zimbabwe, India, China, Australia, Columbia, Mexico, and Costa Rica). In all, there were 2,700 in-person participants this year. Our booth was one of the most popular and usually had 2-5 people at a time looking at the displays.
Geologic luminaries such as Vic Baker, Richard Waitt, Scott Burns, Bruce Bjornstad and Nick Zentner also stopped by, attracting even more visitors to the booth. We gave away National Park Service, IAFI and TIAFF brochures and we sold books, maps, hats and t-shirts as well as our packets of chapter brochures.
Though it involved a lot of time and work for the members and volunteers who manned the booth, we feel it was well worth the effort to educate and spread the Story of the Ice Age Floods. Many thanks to IAFI members Lloyd DeKay, Sylvia and Rick Thompson, and TIAFF volunteers Jerianne Thompson, Yvonne Addington and Linda Moholt for helping make this effort a stunning success. And we now have materials and experience that will serve well for future professional, educational and general public events like this.