Field trip set to explore ice age geology near Tri-Cities

RICHLAND — The past is right beneath our feet, and a field trip planned for the Tri-Cities area aims to bring that home, according to an announcement from the Ice Age Floods Institute. 

“The purpose of this is to help local people understand what they’re living on and what’s beneath your feet,” said retired geologist George Last, who’s leading the Geology of the Tri-Cities on March 28. 

The trip will begin at the Richland Community Center and tour high points and quarries to get a good look from both high and low at the geological effects of the ice age. Another stop involves some ice age erratics in plain sight, at a traffic circle in downtown Kennewick, Last said. 

The final stop will be at the Coyote Canyon Mammoth Site, Last said. 

“We can look at exposures of at least seven ice age floods,” Last said. “And then the loess deposits, and of course, get some information about the Columbian Mammoth that’s been found there and is being excavated.” 

The Columbian Mammoth roamed eastern Washington throughout the last ice age, called the Pleistocene Epoch, according to the website of the Mid-Columbia Basin Old Natural Education Sciences Research Center Foundation, which maintains the mammoth site. The first mammoth bones were discovered there in 1999, and the foundation has accumulated hundreds of ice age specimens, including mammoth bones, from the site. 

The trip is open to the first 25 people, and the last day to sign up is March 25, according to the announcement. Most of the trip will be done in vehicles, but there will be as much as 1.3 miles of cross-country hiking on unimproved game trails, and some of the areas the trip will cover are steep, with uneven terrain and loose gravel. Local wildlife may also be out and about that day, Last said, including rattlesnakes, wasps and such, so attendees should be aware of that and keep an eye out. Participants should plan to bring their own lunch and water, and wear sturdy, closed-toe shoes.  

The itinerary is subject to change, Last said. 

Participants will meet at the Richland Community Center at 8:45 a.m. to be sorted into carpools, according to the announcement. The trip will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

“(People say), ‘Here’s this agate, here’s this really nice piece of petrified wood,’” Last said, ‘But it’s the story about where that agate came from and how that petrified wood was developed (that’s interesting).” 

For more information or to register, visit https://bit.ly/TCFieldTrip.