Graduate students from Scotland collect geologic samples on the Palouse

Beneath some of the richest topsoil on the planet lies a treasure of geologic data that helps tell the story of the world’s formation.

Often times, however, that story goes overlooked by locals as they pass by the exposed sections of earth that carry that tale.

“It’s amazing that this is sitting right out here in the open,” said Alena Ebinghaus, a doctoral geology student from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

Ebinghaus and her research assistant Kieran Wall spent Saturday morning in the rain chipping rocks off the top of Buck Canyon and shoving them into plastic bags.

The duo has spent the past two weeks climbing and collecting rocks from various spots throughout the Columbia River Basin to paint a clearer picture of prehistoric forces that sculpted the Inland Empire.

“Our hope is that we will find some pollen in the sediment layer that can give us more information about what the environment was like at that time,” said Wall.

Rock layers at the top of Buck Canyon, exposed by blasts used to build the state highway, tell the story of millions of years of geologic forces.

With a German accent, Ebinghaus quickly rattles out the names of the geologic eras that formed the Palouse as she explains what formed each different strata of rock laid out at the top of the canyon.

Beneath the loess soil, sediment from the ice age floods of Lake Missoula, can be seen a distinct layer of lava rock from prehistoric volcano eruptions from 13 million years ago.

Sandwiched between that lava layer and another one aged 14 million to 16 million years old is a two-foot layer of compressed sediment that collected between the massive lava flows.

“It’s something we hope will be of a lot of value to people in the future,” said Ebinghaus.

They expect to spend the next few weeks in laboratories at WSU to inspect their collections and interpret that information.