Padilla Bay Reserve, Washington

Soil Types

Nearly all of the Padilla Bay watershed is made up of alluvial deposits from the Skagit River and glacial till. The exceptions are Hat Island, which is serpentine bedrockand dredge spoil islands.

Geology

Puget Sound was carved by continental glaciers containing 2,500 cubic miles of ice. The crushing weight of ice descended on the Puget Sound area two to four times in the last 100,000 years. The massive sheets of ice created valleys, basins and the north-south aligned bays commonly found in the area. The retreat and melting of the last sheet some 12,000 to 20,000 years ago left most of the topographic features of Puget Sound today. Since that time the Skagit River has been quickly filling in the bays it flowed into. Nearly all of the Padilla Bay watershed is made up of alluvial deposits from the Skagit River and glacial till. Saddlebag and Dot islands are bedrock features consisting of serpentinite rock that is over 200 million years old.

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