Ice Age Flooding and Glaciation in the Columbia River Valley Geology Tour

Jim O’Connor of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), one of the preeminent experts on the Missoula Floods, and Brent Cunderla will be your guides on a tour focused on the ice age floods and glaciation in the Columbia River Valley from Moses Coulee to Pateros. The tour, slated for 9 am to 5 pm Saturday, Oct. 6 begins and ends at the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center.

Topics for the tour include the Missoula and other floods and the relationship of these floods to the landscape of the Columbia River Valley, Moses and Grand coulees. The history of the Okanogan glacial lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet will be highlighted.

O’Connor majored in Geological Sciences at the University of Washington and earned an M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Arizona. Since 1991, he has worked at the USGS, intent on improving understanding of the processes and events that shape the remarkable and diverse landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. His primary research and writing activities center on stream channel and floodplain processes, glaciers, floods, debris flows, landslides, geologic and hydrologic hazards and the history of geology.

O’Connor is a current member of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of American, and has served on the Pima County Flood Control Advisory Board, the Hatfield Science Team. He is the current editor of Quaternary Research. The journal’s scope is global, building on its nearly 50-year history in advancing the understanding of earth and human history through interdisciplinary study of the last 2.6 million years.

A leader in scientific geology studies, O’Connor received the USGS Director’s Award recognizing his work in landslide response, the USGS Excellence in Science Award and received a Fulbright Fellowship for work in U.S.-Spain Cooperative Science in 2000. His academic publications are numerous, including six pages of professional citations.