Ice Age FloodsIce Age Floods National Geologic Trail
Home·Field notes·HW125
Bretz-era field site

HW125

One Middle Pleistocene: New Thesis Paper

Year documented
Medley Flood Sites
Category
Medley Site
Coordinates
46.2345, -118.3728WGS84
Trail
Ice Age Floods NGTWA / OR / ID / MT

Original field notebook

One Middle Pleistocene: New Thesis Paper— Medley Flood Sites

This is one of more than 1,800 field sites cataloged in the early scabland surveys — the bedrock of the Ice Age Floods scientific record. The Bretz-era researchers walked the ground first; modern cosmogenic dating, LiDAR, and remote sensing have since extended and refined what they mapped.

Capture roadmap

What this site looks like once Phase 1 lands.

Every site along the trail will receive the full Terrain360 capture treatment: ground-level 360° panoramas, drone aerial imagery, and photogrammetry-based 3D models that visitors can spin in their browser. This page reserves the slots; the imagery flows in as field capture completes.

360° panoramic

Walk the site in your browser

Ground-level 360° panorama, every step along the feature, captured by Terrain360 field crews.

Phase 1 target · June–July 2026
Drone aerial

Read the landscape from above

Drone flyovers reveal the geometry of catastrophe — ripple marks, gravel bars, and scour patterns invisible from the ground.

Phase 1 target · June–July 2026
3D photogrammetry

Spin the geology in your browser

Photogrammetry and Gaussian-splat models let visitors rotate, measure, and inspect features in detail-page WebGL viewers.

Phase 1 target · June–July 2026
What we know now

How modern science extended the record

These flood deposits contain clues about the number, timing, and magnitude of individual flood events. Modern analysis of rhythmite sequences and clast composition continues to refine our understanding of the flood chronology.

These sites document Missoula Flood deposits identified by researchers studying the downstream effects of the catastrophic flooding through the Columbia Basin, Columbia Gorge, and into the Willamette Valley.