Scabland lecture coming to Colfax

Palouse Falls Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute has booked its next public lecture for Wednesday, May 3, at the Colfax branch of the Whitman County Library at 6:30 p.m.

Speaker will be John Soennichsen, the author of several books, including “Bretz's Flood,” a book on the 'rebel geologist' J. Harlen Bretz, who answered the riddle of how the dramatic coulees, gullies and deserts between Idaho and the Cascade Mountains in eastern Washington came to be.

Soennichsen received his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oregon and then went to Eastern Washington University to pursue his masters in fine arts and creative writing. He has also authored “Washington's Channeled Scablands Guide,” a comprehensive guide to exploring the area carved by the Ice Age Floods.

The lecture is titled “Washington's Channeled Scablands” and will feature a brief history of J. Harlen Bretz's scabland research and an audiovisual presentation that will offer a photographic tour of Washington's scablands.