Kamiak Butte Essay

Kamiak Butte is named in honor of Chief Kamiaken of the Yakima Indian tribe. It is recognized as a National natural landmark, Pine Ridge Trail is the greatest attraction of the Butte. Kamiak Butte towers above the surrounding Palouse hills and rises to an elevation of 3641 feet. 3

Rocks present at Kamiak Butte:

Kamiak Butte is a quartzite and basalt rock type Butte. The rocks here are approximately 1.47 to 1.4 billion years old.2 This would place the rock formations in the Paleozoic era according to the geologic map.0

Quartzite is a non-foliated metamorphic rock. This rock is intrusive and forms when exposed to extreme amounts of heat and pressure. Over a billion years ago, there was an ocean where Kamiak Butte is. This ocean floor was made

For the first structure you just have to look around the town of Pullman – the rolling hills. These provide a larger impact on the Palouse are than expected. Through research I learned that these hills are called Loess dunes.2 Loess is soil made up of a rich combination of silt, clay and sand. Making it ideal for farming and a great habitat for wildlife.2 During the Ice Age glaciers covered what was most of the landscape on the Palouse. These glaciers crushed rocks and gravel into fine soils making it accumulate on the outside of the dunes. Later the earth would warm up and the glaciers receded, leaving behind this sediment. Wind blew the sediments in its current east to west trend. Soon they formed as dunes as wind blew it into the

Here the floor was compressed under extreme pressure at a convergent boundary, resulting in a shift upwards to create the Cascade mountain range.1 Then lava poured out of fissures that were in the earth’s surface, covering most of the landscape all the while leaving the buttes uncovered.1 This formed 6 to 17 million year old basalt. Better known as the Columbia River Basalt flows, this basalt flow covers almost 200,000 square miles in Washington, Idaho and Oregon. It is inches to several hundred feet thick.1

At the end of the last ice age windblown silt covered the lava and basalt deposits. This silt would go on to create the fertile rolling hills of the Palouse. This soil is more than a hundred feet deep in places. Soon, enough time passed for vegetation to take place and more soil started to form.1 The lava flows would end up damming streams flowing from the mountains; in turn forming the current lakes of the region. Layered between the flows of basalt are sand and gravel deposits that washed down from