Glacial Lake Missoula : and its humongous floods / David Alt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alt, David D.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Glacial epoch--Northwest, Pacific.

Glacial epoch.

Floods--Northwest, Pacific.

Floods.

Missoula, Lake.

Physical Description:

viii, 199 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Missoula, Mont. : Mountain Press Pub., 2001.

Summary:

Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods tells the gripping tale of a huge Ice Age lake that, when it suddenly drained, unleashed more that ten times the combined flow of all the modern rivers of the world. This is also the story of geologists grappling with scientific controversy -- "of how personalities, pride, and prejudice sometimes supersede scientific evidence". Illustrated with photographs and two-color maps, the book follows the path of the floodwaters as they raged from western Montana across the Idaho Panhandle, then scoured through eastern Washington and down the Columbia Gorge to the Pacific Ocean.

Contents:

1 Truly an Inland Sea: Glacial Lake Missoula 7

2 A Window into the Past: A Visit to Glacial Lake Missoula 11

3 A Heretic in the Scablands: J Harlen Bretz and His Humongous Flood 15

4 Where Did the Water Come From? J. T. Pardee Returns to Glacial Lake Missoula 21

5 Hard and Distinctive Bedrock: Belt Rocks 23

6 The Once and Repeating Ice Dam: Several Dozen Lakes 25

7 Setting the Stage for the Big Spectacle: The Little Bitterroot Valley 33

8 A Question of Scale: The Giant Ripples of Camas Prairie 37

9 A Most Extraordinary Basin: Rainbow Lake 41

10 Ice, Water, and a River: The Mission Valley, the Jocko Valley, and the Flathead River 49

11 The Unscathed Valleys: The Bitterroot and Missoula Valleys 59

12 The Tightest Squeeze: Hellgate Canyon and the Saddle North of Mount Jumbo 65

13 The Water Route to Paradise: Down the Clark Fork River to the Flathead River 73

14 Taking the Measure of the Drainage Currents: The Clark Fork River between Paradise and Sandpoint 81

15 Gateway to the Scablands: Rathdrum Prairie 87

16 Floods of Basalt: Lava Flows and Crustal Arches 95

17 Moses Coulee: Okanogan Ice and Glacial Lake Columbia 99

18 The Grandaddy Scablands: The Cheney-Palouse and Telford

Crab Creek Floodways 109

19 Regulating Glacial Lake Columbia: Grand Coulee 115

20 The Shortcut to the Snake River: The Palouse River, Palouse Falls, and Washtucna Coulee 123

21 The Gathering of the Waters: Beyond the Cheney-Palouse Scabland 129

22 The Grand Emptying: Floodwater Exits the Quincy Basin 133

23 A Patchwork of Valleys: Lake Lewis 143

24 The Archives of the Floods: The Touchet Formation 147

25 The Way West: Through Wallula Gap and into Lake Condon 151

26 Another Tight Squeeze: The Columbia Gorge 159

27 A Sudden Rush of Water: Scouring through Portland 167

28 The Inland Bay: Floods in the Willamette Valley 171

29 The Last Lap: On to the Pacific Ocean 177

30 Dusting Off the Crystal Ball: Could It Happen Again? 179.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-191) and index.

ISBN:

0878424156

OCLC:

46565226