The STEM Lecture series presents Stephen Senturia on The Grand Coulee: What Is It? How Was It Formed? at 10:30 am in the Performance Hall and streaming. This lecture will focus on the unusual geological features of eastern Washington state, including the Grand Coulee, Dry Falls, and the Channeled Scablands, and the half-century saga of scientific discovery that identified the cause: catastrophic flood erosion as more than 500 cubic miles of water from Glacial Lake Missoula, formed from melt-water at the end of the ice age, raced across Idaho, eastern Washington, down the Columbia River Gorge, flooding not only the location of Portland, Oregon, but even the Willamette Valley as far south as Salem. It’s a great story, not only the stunning geology, but also a demonstration of how difficult it can be for scientists to accept a new idea.
