Reading an interpretive sign at Fields Bridge Park (bobcat)

Interpretive sign about the Willamette Meteorite (bobcat)

• Hikes to this destination:
  • Fields Bridge Hike   (TH | <—   —> | LOG)

• Weather forecast: NWS/NOAA
• Maps: Oregon Hikers Maps Google Maps
• Latitude, Longitude: 45.3471, -122.6746
• Elevation: 85 feet

Description

Various interpretive signs at Fields Bridge Park, part of the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail, describe how a 15 1/2 ton iron/nickel meteorite washed up on a slope above the Tualatin River near here. The meteorite originally found itself embedded in a thick ice sheet, somewhere in what is now southern British Columbia or far northern Idaho/Montana. Several thousand years later, a cycle of massive floods, known as the Missoula or Bretz Floods (after the geologist J. Harlen Bretz) hurtled at 60 - 80 mph down the course of the Columbia River all the way to the Pacific Ocean. These floods, perhaps up to 100 of them between 15,000 - 18,000 years ago, came as huge ice dams gave way at the end of the Ice Age and massive amounts of meltwater from the continental ice sheet were released. The floods deposited sediments all along their course, but also transported large icebergs, some of them rafting massive boulders, among them what is now known as the Willamette Meteorite.

The famous rock, which is the largest North American meteorite, was venerated by the Clackamas Indians, who recognized its singularity, but only became known to settlers in 1902, when it was found by Ellis Hughes. By that time, the above ground part of the meteorite, being composed mostly of iron, had rusted away. The meteorite was displayed at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, sold to a collector, and then donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde sued for the return of meteorite to native territory, but eventually reached an agreement with the museum to hold a ceremony every year in the meteorite's exhibition hall.

Even though the meteorite fetched up on a hillside above the Tualatin River, it is named after the old settlement of Willamette, now part of West Linn.

More Links

• Willamette Meteorite (Wikipedia)
• Willamette Meteorite Agreement (American Museum of Natural History)
• The Willamette Meteorite: Lessons from Oregon’s Ancient Extraterrestrial Visitor (University of Oregon Library)
• Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail Tour Stop I - Willamette Meteorite Interpretive Trail (Huge Floods.com)
• The Amazing Heavenly and Earthly Journey of the Willamette Meteorite (American Local History Network)
• The Crown Section of the Willamette Meteorite (Willamette Meteorite.com)
• Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail (Wikipedia)

Contributors

bobcat (creator)