Zooming Success!

The Conservancy’s first Zoom (video conference) presentation, “Zoom with a View: Flows to Floods – Fill, Scour, Rinse and Repeat,” delighted and challenged participants. Thanks to drone footage we flew high above the “Rimrock to Riverside” land between Palisades Park and Riverside State Park. Then, thanks to Nigel Davies, geology expert from Eastern Washington University, we drilled down deep into the area’s geological layers.

The evening began with the drone footage of the area’s surface features, narrated by Todd Dunfield, the Conservancy’s Community Conservation Program Manager. Then Davies presented a comprehensive explanation of the area’s geology. He started by detailing the formation of Washington state by accretion of ancient land forms from the west. Next, the stress on the continental crust caused fissures to open, with successive lava flows across the Columbia plateau. Finally, repeated cycles of Ice Age floods scoured the basalt flows, creating the Spokane valley and aquifer, as well as the fascinating rock formations we enjoy at Rimrock.

Davies recommended the “app” entitled ROCKD, which allows users to determine the specific geology beneath their feet.

Special thanks to Nigel Davies for his insightful presentation, to the attendees for their thoughtful questions, and to all of you, the Conservancy’s supporters who made this program possible.

Stay tuned for future Zoom presentations, as well as actual land encounters, which will begin when it is fully safe to do so.

Note: For details about the Rimrock to Riverside project, which expands Palisades Park by 120 acres and connects it to Riverside State Park, see the Summer 2019 and Winter 2019 INLC newsletters.