Missoula floods
E95487
The Missoula floods were a series of cataclysmic Ice Age glacial outburst floods that repeatedly swept across the Pacific Northwest, dramatically reshaping the landscape of what is now Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
Aliases (5)
- Missoula Floods ×2
- Spokane Floods ×2
- Bretz floods ×1
- Ice Age floods ×1
- Missoula Flood ×1
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
cataclysmic flood event
→
glacial lake outburst flood → paleoflood → |
| alsoKnownAs |
Bretz floods
→
Missoula Flood → Spokane Floods → |
| associatedWith |
Cordilleran Ice Sheet
→
Glacial Lake Columbia → Lake Lewis → |
| cause |
failure of the ice dam of Glacial Lake Missoula
→
repeated ice-dam collapses on the Clark Fork River → |
| created |
coulees
→
dry falls → giant current ripples → hanging valleys → large gravel bars → pothole cataracts → |
| deposited |
erratic boulders transported on icebergs
→
thick layers of silt in the Willamette Valley → |
| endTime |
approximately 13,000 years ago
→
|
| evidenceFoundIn |
Columbia River Gorge
→
eastern Washington → northern Idaho → western Montana → |
| hasOrigin |
Clark Fork River valley
→
Glacial Lake Missoula → |
| influenced |
regional drainage patterns of the Columbia River system
→
soil distribution in eastern Washington and Oregon → |
| maximumDischarge |
on the order of 10 million cubic meters per second
→
|
| maximumLakeDepth |
over 600 meters at the ice dam
→
|
| maximumLakeVolume |
approximately 2,100 cubic kilometers
→
|
| partOf |
Quaternary glacial history of North America
→
|
| recognizedAs |
one of the largest known freshwater floods on Earth
→
|
| recurrence |
dozens of separate flood events
→
possibly more than 40 major floods → |
| reshaped |
Channeled Scablands
→
Columbia River Gorge → Snake River Plain features → Spokane River valley → Willamette Valley → |
| startTime |
approximately 18,000 years ago
→
|
| studiedBy |
J Harlen Bretz
→
|
| timePeriod |
Late Wisconsin glaciation
→
Pleistocene epoch → |
| tookPlaceIn |
Idaho
→
Montana → Oregon → Pacific Northwest → United States NERFINISHED → Washington (state) → |
Referenced by (8)
| Subject (surface form when different) | Predicate |
|---|---|
|
Missoula floods
("Missoula Flood")
→
Missoula floods ("Spokane Floods") → Missoula floods ("Bretz floods") → |
alsoKnownAs |
|
Channeled Scablands
("Missoula Floods")
→
Channeled Scablands ("Ice Age floods") → |
formedBy |
|
Channeled Scablands
("Spokane Floods")
→
|
associatedWith |
|
Columbia Plateau
→
|
erodedBy |
|
Columbia National Wildlife Refuge
("Missoula Floods")
→
|
formedByGeologicalProcess |