The Channeled Scabland; back to Bretz?

The Channeled Scabland, Washington State, United States, is only partly the result of erosion by the catastrophic drainage of Glacial Lake Missoula: there were other sources of meltwater. Recent sedimentary investigations of some sites in the Missoula basin, and in the Channeled Scabland, support a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geology (Boulder) 1999-07, Vol.27 (7), p.605-608
Main Authors: Shaw, John, Munro-Stasiuk, Mandy, Sawyer, Brian, Beaney, Claire, Lesemann, Jerome-Etienne, Musacchio, Alberto, Rains, Bruce, Young, Robert R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Burlingame Canyon
Cenozoic
Channeled Scabland
Columbia Plateau
erosion features
Geology
glacial features
glacial lakes
Glaciers
Ice ages
lacustrine environment
Lake Missoula
lake sediments
Lakes
Ninemile Creek
northeastern Washington
paleofloods
planar bedding structures
Pleistocene
provenance
Quaternary
Quaternary geology
reconstruction
rhythmite
sedimentary structures
sedimentation
Sediments
Soil erosion
United States
upper Pleistocene
upper Wisconsinan
varves
Washington
Wisconsinan
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Summary:The Channeled Scabland, Washington State, United States, is only partly the result of erosion by the catastrophic drainage of Glacial Lake Missoula: there were other sources of meltwater. Recent sedimentary investigations of some sites in the Missoula basin, and in the Channeled Scabland, support a single large late Wisconsin flood, as opposed to multiple floods proposed for this time period. Sediment in the Glacial Lake Missoula basin records rapid infill by jokulhlaups draining into Lake Missoula from upstream, punctuating a long period of normal varve sedimentation. This was independent of sedimentation in the main Scabland tract, where proximal and distal rhythmic beds are explained as resulting from multiple pulses, or surges, within a single flood. Geomorphic and sedimentary evidence supports the conclusion that drainage from the Cordilleran trunk valleys was important, and pulses were probably related to the drainage of these valleys.
ISSN:0091-7613
1943-2682
DOI:10.1130/0091-7613(1999)027<0605:TCSBTB>2.3.CO;2