This article and a more detailed guidebook (free PDF download) explores the spectacular calcretes of south-central Washington. The thick, bright white CaCO3-rich paleosols overprint the Pliocene Ringold Fm, Plio-Pleistocene fanglomerates, pre-Wisconsin flood gravels, and early Palouse loess. The blanket-like hardpans formed in alluvial sediments low in the landscape where strong evapotranspiration moved large volumes of water through the soil column via vegetation rooted near

Rulo is a Palouse outcrop with a twist . The Rulo site is a large, double-sided roadcut located a few miles northwest of Walla Walla along Sudbury Road. Roadcuts and nearby outcrops expose what at first appears to be the same-old, same-old innards of a Palouse loess hill, but upon closer inspection proves to be much more interesting. Faulted Miocene basalt bedrock is overlain by locally-derived gravel and an unusual micaceous, fossiliferous fluvial deposit of Pliocene age. Ab

The Reese Coulee site is a two-sided roadcut along Hwy 12 between Wallula Junction and Touchet, WA. The cut is important because Missoula...

Thanks for all who attended the 2023 Friends of the Pleistocene PNW Cell's field trip and for sending in your pics! Calcrete. Proper...

Exotic clasts in gravel . An exotic clast-bearing conglomerate at White Bluffs Overlook was left by an ancient Ice Age flood. The...

Revised interpretation - I am revising my interpretation of the brown, cemented sediments at Hendricks Road. These same beds rest atop...

George gravel pit . George gravel pit . Location is N of historic Burke, WA and NW of non-historic George, WA. George is not Burke . My...

I took a swing at correlating 26 of Kevin Lindsey's stratigraphic columns from White Bluffs (Lindsey, 1996, Appendix A). A couple day's...

Harder Road Site. Harder Rd crosses the Cheney-Palouse scabland tract. This roadcut is mentioned in Baker (1973) and other articles on...

Any excusion into Lind Coulee will include some adventure. This outing involves recent faulting and interesting Plio-Pleistocene...