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The Missoula floods (also known as the Spokane floods, the Bretz floods, or Bretz's floods) were cataclysmic glacial lake outburst floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age.
Lake Missoula was a prehistoric proglacial lake in western Montana that existed periodically at the end of the last ice age between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. The lake measured about 7,770 square kilometres (3,000 sq mi) and contained about 2,100 cubic kilometres (500 cu mi) of water, half the volume of Lake Michigan .
The Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail is a network of routes connecting natural sites and facilities that provide interpretation of the geological consequences of the Glacial Lake Missoula floods of the last glacial period that occurred about 18,000 to 15,000 years ago. It includes sites in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
Giant current ripples are an important feature of the Channeled Scablands in Washington state, U.S., which formed during the Last Glacial Maximum as a result of at least 39 glacial lake bursts, called the Missoula floods, which originated from glacial lakes Columbia in Washington and Missoula in Montana. [10] [11] [12] [13]
Pardee continued his research over the next 30 years, collecting and analyzing evidence that eventually identified Lake Missoula as the source of the floods (now the Missoula floods) and creator of the Channeled Scablands. Pardee's and Bretz's theories were accepted only after decades of painstaking work and fierce scientific debate.
The time to recharge Lake Missoula depends upon the level at which the dam is breached releasing the flood as well as upon the adjusted precipitation rate in the drainages flowing into Lake Missoula. For the volumes which correspond to calculated maximum flow rates, this is estimated to take from 20 to 80 years. [4]
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Lake Columbia's overflow – the diverted Columbia River – drained first through Moses Coulee and as the ice dam grew, later through the Grand Coulee. Eventually, water in Lake Missoula rose high enough to float the ice dam until it gave way, and a portion of this cataclysmic flood spilled into Glacial Lake Columbia, and then down the Grand ...