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The land bridge across the Columbia river at Cascade Locks was caused by a massive landslide from the N. side of the river.  The lumpy debris field is still very evident today.  The Missoula floods eroded and undermined the ground in the gorge, which eventually led to the landslide at that location.

The land bridge was not destroyed by the Missoula floods, but simply by the river filling up the impoundment, overtopping the bridge, and washing it away.  Strawberry island by North Bonneville is a big eddy bar formed by the land bridge washout.

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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I5 between Tualatin and Wilsonville is in one of the major flood channels in the Tonquin scablands.

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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I think Dr. Burns mentioned at the Science Pub that there's no indication of any Native Oral tradition suggesting a cultural memory of the Columbia Floods-- unlike Crater Lake, where the Kalamath culture have vivid stories of Llao having a very major hissy fit!

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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We live near the Lake Allison shoreline in the east valley, about 400' elevation south of Molalla.  Unfortunatly, the floods left us with a whole lotta sticky clay.

Other than that, I love telling out of towners how the Columbia Floods are one of the three geologic phenomena that most significantly shaped our region (at least in my opinion).  Anybody wanna guess what the other two might be?

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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Don't think there's much need to rewrite the texts.  The processes that have formed our planet are both unbearably slow (Grand Canyon, for example), or unbelievably instant (KT impact 60 mybp), or a combination of both (Columbia Basalt flood episodes starting 17 mybp).

One flood event that surely shaped our corner of the world 17 kypb doesn't isn't likely going to rewrite the book on Geology.

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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