Flood Basalts of the Pacific Northwest

[annettebryan]

I am in Australia but I can tell you all about the geology of the pacific north west. I started watching these lectures during Covid lockdown and really enjoy them. He is a great teacher.

[MoondogMcGill]

You Tube's algorithm randomly brought me here and now I'm happily binge watching. Very interesting content. Thank you.

[sweetbarry]

What the heck just happened? An hour ago I was watching a "how to" video on teaching my cat to use the toilet. I just finished an hour long geological lecture on basalt lava floods of the Pacific Northwest.

[jimbernard]

This is as good as teaching gets. You can completely forget all the modern techno BS, literally all you need is a chalk board and chalk. If you have a teacher who 1) Knows his or her stuff, 2) Is absolutely passionate about it, 3) can tell a story. That is all you need. This guy is fantastic.

[Pants]

This. This is what the internet was invented for. On a cold winter evening in Minnesota I can curl up with a relaxing beverage and see what The Great Algorithm at Youtube suggests for me. Tonight it was flood basalts in the pacific northwest. As I enjoy the lecture by the AMAZING Nick Zentner, in another window I periodically look up various things in Wikipedia as he mentions them. (The mass extinctions are fascinating!) I don't know how much of the details I'll retain, but I'm left with such a sense of awe and wonderment at our amazing planet and what "we" have learned through the countless hours of hard working geologists etc. being able to weave our billions of years of history into a compelling story.


Huge thanks to Nick for making geology too interesting to pass up, and to CWU for providing this wonderful material to us for free!

[oldladywhocares]

Ever since childhood, I have been fascinated by "pretty rocks". I am 75 now. I lived on a farm in the Willamette Valley just east of Lebanon. After watching these fun lectures, plus a few books about the region, I better understand what I was seeing. There was a hole that we called the quarry which contained water. Now, I think it was a vent hole. On that farm, there were tons of quartz, agates, thunder eggs, all over the fields so we could just pick them up. I have been lucky enough to travel through many areas discussed. Now I know that those "dinosaur backbones" were beautiful vent remains. So cool. Look forward to continuing to watch these shows. I went to school at Central, then Central Washington College in 1964 and was in the library during an earthquake when the building went east-west, then north-south. Thank you so much. I would love to come and visit Prof Zentner's class. He is a great teacher!

[liztaiNCAD]

Outstanding - I'm 84 and I never blinked for the whole video. I'm from Ireland, and we have a little bit of basalt columns too known as the Giant's Causeway.

[austinnasset]

Being a truck driver in Washington, and an ex well driller, I've seen above and below the ground these basalt flows, and they always amaze me. In north Spokane thru Deer Park there is a silica sand formation under 200 to 300 feet of basalt with burnt cedar trees. The sand is loaded with water, and the wood so well preserved you can smell the cedar just like a fresh cut board. Amazing

[stephenmccain]

These videos renewed my interest in geology and helped me work through my rather bothersome amphetamine habit

[noeditbookreviews]

I'll never take for granted the fact that I can so easily access lectures like this.

[jeffmoore]

Every now and then the YouTube algorithms pass something across your viewing.

This was a absolute gem, I'm not a American but a Australian and I was taken in by the lecture, wit and enthusiasm.

Man I would have loved to be in your classroom. Many thanks. Jeff Moore

[craftycriminalistwithms.z]

This guy is one of my favorite teachers, ever, even though I have never had him IRL, as my own teacher. Whenever YouTube guides me here I stay and I don’t even bother to look at the topic of his lecture at the moment, I just listen, and enjoy! Thanks for the amazing personality and lectures!!

[gafasd]

This should be on television. Instead of Jersey Shore, Kardashians and all the other mindless bullshit that is litteraly destroying young peoples(and older) minds.

[bobmetzger]

From one geologist to another, awesome presentation. What energy!

[adoptcolorado]

Love this guy and his methods, plus the fact at the end, he welcomes anyone interested to come join a class. If I was in the area, I certainly would have taken him up. Thank you for real teaching. A lost art nowadays. Nick is a gem.

[anorthosite]

Thank you so much for such a wondrous presentation.
As for Mass Extinctions: I did a Graduate paper on the KT Mass Extinction (Impact ??), back in the early 1980s.
I remained cautious/skeptical, wary of the tendency of the "most dramatic" hypothesis to be pushed to the forefront, in popular imagination.
Back then, we didn't have the discovery of the Chicxulub Crater as the "smoking gun". And in a sulfurous region, exacerbating the climate impact.
But even now, some Paleontologists argue that the Deccan Traps could ALSO have played a role, in stressing/decreasing world biodiversity, ~synchronous with the impact - similar to the Siberian Traps in the End-Permian. So I am reserved and (not being Paleo-vs-Geophysicist "tribal") am amenable to the Multiple Cause model.

[SaintNarcissa]

I feel like my University failed me because my geology professors didn't care about engaging students or whether anything was really learned. If you weren't at the School of Mines (Golden CO) then why would you take a geology course anyway. They just assumed we were all idiots. The professors there killed my spirit. Thank you for the lecture. It reminded me why I fell in love with geology in the first place. I'd rather be in the field than working at a bank any day. <3

[FLP]

I don't even know how or why i landed in this video, but this guy Nick Zentner is a good presenter and got me hooked

[maryseacross]

A wonderful lecture! As a truck driver I often wondered about these because I saw them for thousands and thousands of miles of driving and I finally understand what they are all about and my enjoyment will be more so to look for the Fissures. I look forward to listening to this these lectures in the future as well

[markvanleeuwen]

If i had teachers like this, I would have enjoyed school.