Interesting, Diana. Thanks --Ediger On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Diana Tomchick <diana.tomch...@utsouthwestern.edu> wrote: > I first heard of the Glacial Lake Missoula flood in my Physical Geology class > at Washington State University. The most famous coulee that resulted from the > flood was of course the one that was filled with water as a result of the > Grand Coulee Dam. It was always a treat to hear about interesting geologic > formations (and the state of Washington is full of them), then go on a short > road trip to see them firsthand. > > For photos of the current landscape and an interesting graphic outlining the > extent of the flooding, see this article from the Washington State University > alumni magazine and also the Ice Age Floods Institute web site. > > http://wsm.wsu.edu/s/index.php?id=472 > > http://www.iafi.org/ > > Diana > > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * > Diana R. Tomchick > Associate Professor > University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center > Department of Biochemistry > 5323 Harry Hines Blvd. > Rm. ND10.214B > Dallas, TX 75390-8816, U.S.A. > Email: diana.tomch...@utsouthwestern.edu > 214-645-6383 (phone) > 214-645-6353 (fax) > > > > On Feb 13, 2011, at 9:28 PM, Mixon Bill wrote: > >> The cave connection of this second item from the "Windy City Speleonews" is >> just J Harlen Bretz. Yes, no period after the J, which was his full name. I >> had lunch with him when he was 94 at his house, Boulderstrewn, in Homewood, >> Illinois. I happened to drive by, on the way to the NSS convention in >> Bellingham, Washington, a few years ago, the Dry Falls three miles wide, >> where the state of Washington has a picnic area and displays. One >> non-technical source on the falls is >> http://www.gonorthwest.com/Washington/northeast/Dry_Falls.htm, although >> links onward from that page are broken. -- Mixon >> >> Cavers know J Harlen Bretz mainly as the author of "Caves of Missouri" and >> coauthor of "Caves of Illinois," which was published when he was 78 years >> old. To speleologists, he is best known for his famous 1942 "Journal of >> Geology" paper on vadose and phreatic features of caves. But his geological >> studies were by no means restricted to caves, and he is probably best known >> for (and is most proud of) of series of papers published between 1923 and >> 1932 in which he described the very peculiar geology of a large area in >> eastern Washington that he correctly attributed to a catastrophic flood. >> This theory was considered outrageous at the time, partly, at least, because >> it was a departure from the only recently ascendent geological dogma of >> uniformitarianism. But more recent research has fully proved him right. >> >> A lake, called Lake Missoula, was created in western Montana by a dam of >> glacier ice in northern Idaho. The lake contained some four hundred cubic >> miles of water that were released suddenly when melting caused the dam to >> fail. The resulting flood, called the Spokane Flood after the city presently >> near the upstream end, scoured nearly three thousand square miles down to >> bedrock and created huge canyons and cataracts, one three miles wide. It >> deposited gravel bars, some of which contain boulders several feet in >> diameter, a hundred feet high and a mile long, topped with giant current >> ripple-marks ten feet high. The water ponded behind the Wallula Gap, through >> which it poured a thousand feet deep. The peak flow from Lake Missoula, >> attested to by current ripples fifty feet high, has been calculated at >> twenty million cubic meters per second. (This is fifteen _cubic miles_ per >> hour. For comparison purposes, it is one hundred fifty times the mean flow >> of the Amazon River and ten or twenty times the total average flow of fresh >> water into the oceans of the world.) In a few days, it was all over. >> >> (Actually, there were a good number of such floods, as the ice dam >> reestablished itself. Note added 2011.) >> ---------------------------------------- >> A fearless man cannot be brave. >> ---------------------------------------- >> You may "reply" to the address this message >> came from, but for long-term use, save: >> Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu >> AMCS: edi...@amcs-pubs.org or sa...@amcs-pubs.org >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Visit our website: http://texascavers.com >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com >> For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com >> > > > ________________________________ > > UT Southwestern Medical Center > The future of medicine, today. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > >
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