Cataclysms on the Columbia The Great Missoula Floods

Cataclysms on the Columbia tells two stories. One follows geological research that challenged the scientific paradigm of the early 20th century, and the other chronicles the result of that research: the discovery of powerful prehistoric floods that shaped the Pacific Northwest. The cataclysms at the end of the last Ice Age left a scabland of buttes, dry falls, and rocky gorges, but it took the detective work of geologist J Harlen Bretz to prove it to the world. His lifetime of research and unshakeable belief changed geology forever.

John Eliot Allen coauthored the first edition of Cataclysms on the Columbia with Marjorie Burns. He was Professor Emeritus of Geology at Portland State University, a lifelong student of the Columbia Gorge, and author of The Magnificent Gateway, a detailed guide to its geology. He passed away on December 17, 1996, at the age of 88 following an illustrious career as a field geologist, professor, and writer. All three of the authors are native Oregonians.

Marjorie Burns is an author, traveler, and lover of minor adventures, as well as Professor Emeritus at Portland State University. Her main area of expertise is nineteenth-century British literature, though she has also published extensively on J. R. R. Tolkien’s fiction and scholarship. She lives with her husband in Washington State at the base of a Cascade volcano and rock climbs, cycles, or kayaks when she’s freed from writing and work.

Scott Burns is a professor of geology at Portland State University with research interests that include engineering geology, environmental geology, soils, landslides, geomorphology, and Quaternary geology. When not teaching, he serves on various geological committees and has written numerous articles, chapter contributions, and books. He has taught in Switzerland, New Zealand, Washington, Colorado, and Louisiana before coming home to Oregon. His first book was Environmental, Groundwater, and Engineering Geology: Applications from Oregon (1998). At PSU he has received the Distinguished Faculty Award and the George C. Hoffman Award.

Acknowledgments to the First Edition

Acknowledgments to the Second Edition

Preface

Part I: The World of Geology

Chapter 1: The Living, Changing Earth

Chapter 2: Detecting the Clues to the Past

Part II: The Bretz Saga

3: Early Days

4: Too Many Clues?

5: Scars with a Difference: The Channeled Scablands and Gigantic Gravel Bars

6: The Unthinkable Heresy: Catastrophism vs. Uniformitarianism

7: Solving the Jigsaw Puzzle

8: The Great Controversy

9: The Revisionists: Allison, Hodge, and Flint

10: “Unusual Currents”: Pardee Breaks the Silence

11: Vindication

Part III: The Rest of the Story

12: Major Researchers Since Bretz

Part IV: The Landscape Before and After the Missoula floods

13: Setting the Stage for the Floods: Geology, Life, and Witnessing the Floods

14: During the Cataclysms and Immediately Afterward

15: After the Missoula Floods

Part V: Following the Floods from Source to Sea

16: Glacial Lake Missoula and the Purcell Trench Ice-Dam: From Missoula, Montana, to Spokane, Washington

17: Rathdrum Prairie and Glacial Lake Columbia: Gateway to the Scablands: From Pend Oreille to Spokane

18: The Channeled Scablands: Grand Coulee and Moses Coulee

19: The Heart of the Channeled Scablands

20: Lake Lewis Basins

21: Wallula Gap to The Dalles: Lake Condon

22: The Dalles to Portland: The Columbia Gorge

23: The Portland-Vancouver Basin: A Story of Erosion and Deposition from Incoming and Outgoing Flood Waters

24: The Willamette Valley South of Portland and the Tualatin Valley West of Portland

25: Portland to the Pacific Ocean

Part VI: Floods from an Even More Distant Past

26: Ancient Cataclysmic Floods

Part VII: The Conclusion and the Future

27: The Conclusion But Not the End

Appendices and Resources

Index

About the Authors

Ooligan Press Acknowledgements