The Channeled Scablands are a unique geological erosion feature in the U.S. state of Washington. They were created by the cataclysmic Missoula Floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Plateau during the Pleistocene epoch. Geologist J Harlen Bretz coined the term in a series of papers in the 1920s. Debate over the origin of the Scablands raged for four decades and is one of the great debates in the history of earth science. The Scablands are also important to planetary scientists as perhaps the best terrestrial analog for the Martian outflow channels.

River valleys formed by erosion normally have a 'V' cross section, and glaciers leave a 'U' cross section. The Channeled Scablands have a rectangular cross section and are spread over immense areas of eastern Washington. They exhibit a unique drainage pattern that appears to have an entrance in the northeast and an exit in the southwest. The eroded channels also show an anastomosing, or braided, appearance. There are also immense potholes and ripple marks, much larger than those found on ordinary rivers. When first studied, no known theories could explain the origin of these features.

Sir Patrick Stewart, OBE (born 13 July 1940) is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television. He is most widely known for his television and film roles, such as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and its successor films, Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men film series, and as the voice of Avery Bullock in American Dad!.

Stewart was born on 13 July 1940 in Mirfield, near Dewsbury in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He is the son of Gladys (née Barrowclough), a weaver and textile worker, and Alfred Stewart, a Regimental Sergeant Major in the British Army who served with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and previously worked as a general labourer and as a postman.

In a 2008 interview, Stewart said: "My father was a very potent individual, a very powerful man who got what he wanted. It was said that when he strode onto the parade ground, birds stopped singing. It was many, many years before I realised how my father inserted himself into my work. I've grown a moustache for Macbeth. My father didn't have one, but when I looked in the mirror just before I went on stage I saw my father's face staring straight back at me."