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Channeled Scablands

Ecoregion on Columbia Plateau, WA

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The Channeled Scablands were formed as immense floods periodically broke through ice dams blocking glacial Lake Missoula during the Pleistocene. The depth and high speed of the flood waters scoured away the thick loess soil covering the plateau as well as portions of the underlying basalt bedrock. Patterned ground covers the basalt plateaus bordering the main flood channels. The patterns or “scabs” are mounds of loess surrounded by rock fragments. The scablands are generally too dry to support trees. The most common native vegetation on the scabland channels is the stiff sage-Sandberg’s bluegrass association.

— EPA

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Ecoregion