Random Stories

By Jessica Blackwood
On a class field trip we stopped at Rock Lake to have lunch. While there, we were talking about the steep basalt walls of the coulee that was formed by the Missoula floods. Dr. Chad Pritchard and I thought it might be cool to figure out what kind of…

By Forest Trampush
At first glance the straight river paths of the Palouse River may not seem apparent due to steep basalt cliffs. However, at a second glance, the river makes numerous sharp turns at specific angles. This is especially evident looking to the south at…

By Miranda Caudill
Palouse Falls State Park, located 18 miles southeast of Washtucna, is a beautiful recreational campground that offers a breathtaking view of the Palouse Falls. The Palouse Falls and the surrounding land were carved out by the ice age floods that…

By Amie Andersen
Driving west on I-90 near the Garden Springs exit, number 277A, you can see more and more basalt...and then a short exposure of white layers in the rock overlying gravel. These layers are mostly ash, or tephra, from highly explosive volcanoes. When…

By M. Christopher Jenkins
Standing at the overlook of Palouse Falls, visitors can see that the basaltic rocks that make up the canyon have some sort of story to tell. These black rocks are part of the continental flood basalt province known as the Columbia River Basalt Group…

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…

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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