Ancient wood fragments puzzle area scientists

EPHRATA, Wash.—Nobody really understands how the waterlogged wood fragments got 200 feet below the surface of the Columbia Basin plateau. But there they were, oozing water, when drillers boring the second Bacon Tunnel opened them to daylight early in 1977. Geologists for the Bureau of Reclamation excitedly took samples and photographs of the wood, hoping preserve them as historical artifacts. Project Geologist Dan Neumann called them "unique. Most wood that age is solidified like petrified wood."

Handle with care Holding a large sample of wood over 14 million years old, Hydrologist Jerry Harrod of the Bureau of Reclamation explains how it was found 200 feet below the surface, in the exact center of the Second Bacon Tunnel. Since most wood that age is petrified, this find has puzzled project geologists.

That's the important thing about these—they are still wood, the organic material hasn't been replaced by silica minerals.

In addition, the wood has been estimated as about the same age as the Gingko Petrified forests. "There are some interesting characteristics of the wood, as might be expected from something 14 to 25 million years old," wrote Conservator Gerald Grosso to Neumann in May 1978. "It behaves much as would waterlogged wood in general — shrinkage, cracking, warping, it behaves like wood (when) attacked by a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide and yields a brown stain; it is soft and extremely heavy for its size because of the great degree of replacement of cellulose and hemicellulose indirectly, by water. This wood appears not all that different from what we often encounter."

Grosso's involvement stems from the bureau's desire to "preserve, stabilize and restore" it for permanent storage, Neumann said. Based at the Pacific Northwest Conservation Laboratory at Port Orchard, Grosso is attempting to find methods to hold the wood together.

As presently constituted, the wood is fragile and simply crumbles away when allowed to dry out. The bureau kept about half of the two cubic feet removed from the tunnel, storing it in thick plastic bags frequently refilled with water. Neumann said Grosso was chosen because he had ideas on what might work. Having received the other half, he's tested many different chemicals on the wood.

"Grosso stabilized one piece on an experimental basis," Neumann said. "He wanted permission to write a paper on the treatment, for a historical society, and we gave him permission."

The wood was found by several people including Neumann and project hydrologist-technician Jerry Harrod, who said the display was located about a mile from each end of the tunnel. "We found a whole root system. There's no doubt in my mind they were standing upright and something just flowed over them," Harrod explained

That something was red-hot lava, which today forms the Frenchman Hills basalt flows—called thus because of the geological era in which the material was overlaid, though the named hills are 75 miles away.

Ancient but intact Although 14 million years old, this piece of wood appears to be a sample of contemporary waterlogged wood. This piece is almost two feet long. Construction workers found the weird wood in the center of the second Bacon Tunnel.

The trees were standing in lakes, which filled in the top of the underlying Vantage sandstone layer. "Maybe it was a sandy beach," Harrod said. "When the basalt went into the water, it made a pillow-like indentation. The largest piece we found was one and a half feet in diameter—a couple feet long. You could identify them as tree trunks just walking through the tunnel.

"They found real petrified wood farther down the tunnel," Harrod added. "That formed sort of an opal substance. It came out of the same area but in a different sort of geological formation."

The Second Bacon Tunnel is part of a major Bureau of Reclamation/Columbia Basin Irrigation District construction project. Water from Grand Coulee Dam destined for the Basin's farm irrigation system must be conducted under a geological depression called a coulee (or valley). To accomplish the task, project engineers designed a 22-foot-diameter steel-reinforced concrete siphon tube connected to a two-mile-long tunnel, which requires no energy beyond that supplied by the flowing water. The second project, started in 1977 and due to be opened next year, supplements an earlier, smaller siphon and tunnel completed in the late 1930s.

What wood was taken out in 1977 and 1978 will have to be spread around to all interested parties. There won't be any more chances to examine the wood, since the concrete tunnel lining is now completed, covering the formation. Harrod said some of the wood has even been taken to Hanford, and Grosso said he sent some to WSU for examination. Neumann said as he gets preserved pieces back, he will distribute them to various organizations, including the Grant County Museum at Ephrata.

"I'm mad at myself for not taking better pictures at the time," Harrod lamented. "At the time, I was in there pretty steady, walking back and forth past them. I meant to go back and go back, and just never did."

Published by The Columbia Basin Daily Herald, Scripps-Howard League Newspapers, Moses Lake, WA, 98837