Willamette Valley Erratics
Courtesy of the floods, Oregon's fertile Willamette Valley boasts not only rich
soils that once mantled the scablands far to the east but also glacial
"erratics" (rocks carried far from their site of origin). Geologists believe
these erratics arrived inside icebergs caught in a Glacial Lake Missoula flood.
When the bergs grounded and melted here, the rocks were left high and dry,
hundreds of miles from where they once lay.
