Ice Age Floods Explorer

The Joso High Bridge

Around 1910 when construction began on this massive span, it was still the golden age of railroads. The Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company planned a new track between Portland, Oregon,…

Granite Boulder in the Scablands: Mountain Top or Glacial Erratic?

By Justin Luppens

Due to the ice age floods, when a large granitic rock is found near the Spokane Airport it can be hard to determine if it is an old mountain top surrounded by younger geological features or rafted in…

Medical Lake Bluff, Diving into the Geology

By Alyssa Fitzgerald

Looking at the beauty of Medical Lake is very relaxing, especially seeing the stoic bluffs or cliffs at the south end of the lake next to Waterfront Park. But have you ever wondered what kind of…

Browse Featured Stories

Random Stories

Mysterious Lava Flows and Fountains

By Alyssa Morinaka

Looking at all these brown and grey cliffs of basalt, who would have thought that geologists could figure out that they had once been shot out of cracks in the ground as buoyant convection plumes of magma? Well leave it to Dr. Richard James Brown and…

Starbuck Grade School

By Joanne Percy

Nineteenth-century Americans believed that a strong public school system was necessary for a town to prosper, and the city fathers of Starbuck were no different. The first school was built in the 1880s. In 1892, the school moved again to a small…

Planet of the Ape Caves

By Derek Johnson

Have you ever entered the odd hole in the ground, which is the entrance of the Ape Caves? Well if you have or haven’t, you may not know that these caves are actually a series of lava tubes. Lava tubes are found all over the world…on the…

William’s Lake Plunge Pool

By Kelsey Gardner

Just off William’s Lake Road, between William’s and Badger lake lies the William’s Lake plunge pool. Cheney’s Mayor Tom Trulove signed a purchase and sale agreement to purchase 15 acres of land containing the plunge pool. The purchase was important…

Lyons Ferry Gravel Bar

By Brea Lund

At the confluence of the Palouse and Snake Rivers, the Lyons Ferry area, an immense gravel bar formed from the flow of the monumental Missoula flood waters, as shown in Figure 1 (Bretz et al, 1956; Baker, 1973; Busacca, 1989). The Missoula…

You wouldn’t want these pillows on your bed:

By Rosilee Beretta

Deep Creek Canyon is a hidden gem of Spokane County that is located in Riverside State park. It is the remnants of ancient basaltic lava flows that have been carved out by cataclysmic glacial floods. The valley holds a bounty of discovery through its…

Browse all 66 Stories

Ice Age Floods Explorer

Ice Age Floods Explorer is a web and mobile platform for telling stories of the Missoula Floods and is an ongoing endevour focusing on student research. Ice Age Floods Explorer is a project of the Public History program and Department of Geology at Eastern Washington University. Most of the stories were created by EWU students. Co-editors are Drs. Chad Pritchard, Larry Cebula, and Paul Lindholdt from Eastern Washington University. Dr. Chad Pritchard is an Assistant Professor in the Geology Department. Dr. Larry Cebula is Editor of Spokane Historical. He is a Professor of History at Eastern Washington University and the Assistant Digital Archivist for the State of Washington. Dr. Paul Lindholdt is a Professor or English. Assistant Edit... Read more About Us