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Green Monarch Ridge - Clark Fork ice dam complex and viewpoint

View on map:47.942477°N 116.550089°W

Comments

The viewpoint here on the ridge shows where the major dams occurred.  The ice sheet that formed Lake Missoula was prominent at Lake Pend Oreille. It is estimated that the wall of ice was 2000 feet high. The basin where the lake sits was probably carved out by advances of glaciation and repeated flooding.  The lake is dammed by not only glacial deposits but deposits from the catastrophic floods. The furthest extent of glaciation was near the end of the lake in this region.

Description


Missoula floods

The Missoula floods (also known as the Spokane floods or 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. These events have been researched since the 1920s. These were the result of periodic sudden ruptures of the ice dam on the Clark Fork River that created Glacial Lake Missoula. After each ice dam rupture, the waters of the lake would rush down the Clark Fork and the Columbia River, flooding much of eastern Washington and the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. After the rupture, the ice would reform, creating Glacial Lake Missoula again.

References

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