Floods, earthquakes, fire, volcanic eruptions and the movement of oceans and continents. Sounds like the making of an apocalyptic movie. While not an upcoming summer blockbuster, it is the incredible formation of what we know as the Willamette Valley.
The story begins around 200 million years ago when the Pacific Plate started sliding beneath the North American Plate. Much of western Oregon and most of Washington didn’t exist, but over millions of years, the plate left behind shards of its surface, which was once a seabed. The shards continued to build becoming a marine sedimentary landmass. That land eventually became what we know today as Washington, western Oregon and the Willamette Valley — this movement and the development of new land continue to this day…