RICHLAND, Wash. – A new book details how a dramatic series of Ice Age Floods transformed the landscape of the inland Northwest.
The new book called, “On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods: The Northern Reaches,” details what happened when floods whooshed into the Northwest and created the channeled scablands.
Bruce Bjornstad spent five years researching and writing his geologic guidebook. One fact in the book: It might have been as many as 1,000 floods that shaped the region, not just two or three big events.
Bjornstad says he mostly loves unearthing the clues of the Ice Age Floods, but also “I love the arid lands because they are easy to move around in. There aren’t trees to get in the way, you can pretty much wander anywhere around this area. And I love being outside in the solitude.”
Bjornstad says most people know about the Missoula Floods that came from Montana, but he says other floods came from ice sheets in Canada and from a huge glacial lake in Utah.
On the Web:
“On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods: The Northern Reaches”:
http://www.keokeebooks.com/northernreaches.html
Copyright 2012 Northwest Public Radio
Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network