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On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods: A Geological Field Guide to the Mid-Columbia Basin
Steve Reidel, Tri-City Herald, May 7, 2006 Bjornstad has captured all the important features that were crucial to Bretz's hypothesis and the great debate. William D. Layman, Author of Native River and River of Memory: The Everlasting Columbia, March 2006 Rich in detail, this book is at once accessible, easy to use and extremely well written. Reader Reviews When you fly from the Northeast or MidWest to Portland, Seattle or Spokaneand passed the Rocky Mountains, you may have looked down at what appears to be an almost lunar landscape. These are the scablands. Desolate landscape with deep coolees, buttes seemingly rising up from the middle of nowhere, what appear to be evenly space rolling ridges rising from the land. In large part, this eery landscape is the result of single flood that took place about 13,000 - 15,000 years ago. Glacial Lake Missoula covered 3,000 square miles of present day Montana and was up to 2,000 feet deep. On occasion, the lake was dammed by glacier ice. And more than once, the waters of the lake overcame the ice and flooded into what is now called the Mid-Columbia Basin, creating the Channeled Scablands. What floods these were. A wall of water hundreds of feet high. It is estimated that you could hear the flood waters thirty minutes away . . . that's a noise so loud and powerful that it could travel 350 miles in advance of the event. Water is estimated to have flowed at 1.7 million cubic meters per second or about ten times the flow of all the rivers in the world combined. Owing to the unique geography of eastern Washington and Oregon, deep channels were plowed in a matter of hours or days. Islands of basalt (volcanic rock) might remain standing. Boulders weighing hundreds of tons were swept along by the force of the water and deposited hundreds of miles from their origins. Bruce Bjornstad is an excellent guide to this country. The first part of the book is about the history of the floods and its artifacts. The second half is a series of walking, bicycle, horse and auto tours of the region. He even includes one suggested aerial tour. Bjornstad obviously loves this country and his narrative is very well informed, but never condescending or overly-technical. The book is well-illustrated, though color photos would have been a welcome addition. For the tourist, this book is invaluable. Bjornstad's suggested tours make sure you will see every kind of different feature left behind by these floods. For the scientist, I suspect it will be useful. The general student of nature and the armchair will also find this book thoroughly enjoyable. Jerry Comment | | (Report this)
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