Prehistoric Washington

An Ice Age Blast

Whoosh!!! A wall of ice and water comes crashing down out of the mountains as a group of onlookers watch in horror. They never realized that such an enormous lake existed beyond the mountains. They simply had no reason to wander up among the frozen, lifeless peaks and glaciers.

Obviously, there WAS a lake up there, and it must have been released by a collapsing wall of ice.

Although the land is filled with game and edible plants, they know there are powerful forces they can only marvel at. They’ve seen vast lava flows reminding them of the congealed blood of fallen giants. They’ve seen fossils of strange beasts that were caught in the hot lava.

The two oldest men in the party witnessed a volcanic eruption when they were children. They were watching their parents butcher a mammoth when they were startled by a tremendous booming noise that seemed to come from the sky. A couple  hours later, they were astounded to see a plume of smoke rising from an unseen mountain deep in the rugged ranges far to the west. Some time later, the sky began raining ash on them.

There were afraid for their lives but really couldn’t do much. Fortunately, they were only dusted with a couple inches of volcanic ash.

How ironic that they’re now under attack from a spirit from the normally quiet east — while butchering another mammoth! The slain beast is forgotten as they watch in awe, thankful that they made the kill on a hill. Would it prove high enough to keep them safe?

All are speechless as the loudest noise they’ve ever heard pounds their ears. A herd of horses on the plains below are stampeding ahead of the flood with no hope of escape. Enormous boulders and chunks of glacial ice bounce around like pebbles in the frigid surf. One hunter nervously laughs at the sight of a herd of horses fleeing from icebergs!

A couple weeks later, the hunters — amazed to be alive — are exploring a rugged lava canyon carved by the monster flood. They encounter fossils of strange creatures they’ve never seen before, obviously uncovered by the flood. More familiar are some chunks of petrified wood and the carcass of a Columbian mammoth. They have no way of knowing that these creatures will one day be adopted as the official gem and fossil of a state called Washington.

Washingtonsaurus?

Why were no dinosaurs on the list? Washington lie under ancient seas during much of the Age of Dinosaurs. In addition, the ancient lava flows and volcanic ash that cover so much of Washington make it a rather poor region for hunting for fossils in general.

Western Washington is crossed by the Cascades, a mountain chain known for its not so dormant volcanoes. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens served warning that Mt. Rainier — the highest mountain in the Pacific Northwest states — could blow any year.

Much of eastern Washington is buried under a thick blanket of lavas laid down during the Miocene Epoch some 5-20 million years ago and the early Pliocene Epoch. known as the Columbia Plateau, this rugged landscape wasn’t the product of violent volcanic eruptions. Rather, it represents lava that oozed out of the depths time and again over many millions of years.

But the presence of lava or volcanic ash doesn’t mean one can find no fossils at all. Although fossils aren’t found in lava, they can be preserved under, on top of, or between lava flows. Thus, Columbia Plateaus lavas have preserved Washington’s most famous fossils — the fossilized trees of Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park and the fabled Blue Lake Rhinoceros — along with Idaho’s state fossil, the Hagerman horse. Washington’s official state fossil is the Columbian mammoth.

Evergreen Elephants

Four people from Seattle were searching for petrified wood in Blue Lake basin in 1935. Suddenly, they spotted a cavity in a rock wall. Crawling inside, they found several small bones lying around.

Scientists later determined that the bones belonged to some kind of rhinoceros. Only one complete tooth was found. The worn tooth indicated the animal was probably old when it died.

To get a better idea of what the animal looked like, they decided to make a mold of the cast. They had to carry water up a 200-foot cliff, then crawl into the dark, dusty mold.

The mold indicates the animal was probably at least 50 inches tall at the shoulder and about eight feet long from snout to tail. It probably weighed about a ton. It was lying on its back with its legs sticking up and appears to have been bloated.

Two known prehistoric North American rhinoceroses fit the description — Diceratherium and Subhyracodon. But Subhyracodon lived at least 12 million years before lava began to form the Columbia Plateau. So, for the time being, the Blue Lake Rhino is considered a Diceratherium, a rhino that sported two horns growing side-by-side on its snout.

Prehistoric elephants have also achieved some measure of fame in Washington. In 1970, a mastodon rib with a spear point embedded in it was discovered in a peat bog on a farm near Seqium on the Olympic Peninsula. Apparently, the spear didn’t kill the animal, because the wound was healing. The mastodon lived two or three months until it was attacked by people again. This time it was killed and eaten on the shores of a pond that later became a peat bog.

There was already evidence that people had hunted mammoths in North America. But this was the first proof that people had also hunted mastodons in North America. Another prehistoric elephant, the Columbian mammoth, was later adopted as Washington’s state fossil.