Missoula Flood Dynamics and Magnitudes Inferred from Sedimentology of Slack-Water Deposits on the Columbia Plateau, Washington
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Missoula flood dynamics and magnitudes inferred from sedimentology of slack-water deposits on the Columbia Plateau, Washington GARY A. SMITH Department of Geology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 ABSTRACT flood-water tracts. These deposits, which exceed 30-m thickness in many places, consist of repetitive graded beds (rhythmites), Sedimentological study of late Wisconsin, Missoula-flood slack- ranging in thickness from 0.1 m to 1.0 m. Continuity of these water sediments deposited along the Columbia and Tucannon Rivers in terraces with flood-constructed eddy bars at the mouths of the southern Washington reveals important aspects of flood dynamics. Most valleys and the prominence of upstream-directed ripple cross- floodfades were deposited by energetic flood surges (velocities > 6 m/sec) laminations clearly relate the fine-grained "slack-water" sedi- entering protected areas along the flood tract, or flowing up and then ments to the scabland floods. directly out of tributary valleys. True still-water fades are less volumi- Bretz (1969) recognized the importance of understanding the nous and restricted to elevations below 230 m. High flood stages attended origin of the slack-water deposits for resolving flood dynamics and the initial arrival of the flood wave and were not associated with sub- chronology. Significant advances in the understanding of the stratig- sequent hydraulic ponding upslope from channel constrictions. Among raphy of these deposits have taken place (for example, Waitt, 1980), 186 flood beds studied in 12 sections, 57% have bioturbated tops, and and mechanisms of slack-water deposition have been proposed (Ba- about half of these bioturbated beds are separated from overlying flood ker, 1973; Waitt, 1980, 1985a). The physical sedimentological study beds by nonflood sediments. A single graded flood bed was deposited at reported on here was undertaken to resolve the origin of the slack- most sites during most floods. Sequences in which 2-9 graded beds were water deposits, the number of rhythmites deposited in each flood, and deposited during a single flood are restricted to low elevations. These the relationship of rhythmite-depositing floods to the dramatic ero- sequences imply complex, multi-peaked hydrographs in which the first sional and depositional features of the scabland. flood surge was generally the largest, and subsequent surges were at- Controversy over interpretation of the slack-water beds was her- tenuated by water already present in slack-water areas. Slack-water- alded by Bretz (1969, p. 533): "There are altogether too many in one sediment stratigraphy suggests a wide range of flood discharges and section, and they are too thin to assign each [bed] to a separate flood volumes. Of >40 documented late Wisconsin floods that inundated the influx. Thicknesses of the total deposit seem too great, however, to Pasco Basin, only about 20 crossed the Palouse-Snake divide. Floods assign to one flood." Although evidence for more than one cataclys- younger than the set-S tephras from Mount St. Helens were generally mic flood had been recorded (Bretz and others, 1956; Bretz, 1969), smaller than earlier floods of late Wisconsin age, although most still most subsequent workers adopted the early view of Bretz (1929, p. crossed the Palouse-Snake divide. These late floods primarily traversed 529) that apparently conformable sequences of as many as 40 to 62 the Cheney-Palouse scabland because stratigraphy of slack-water sed- graded beds could possibly record a complex, pulsating hydrograph iment along the Columbia River implies that the largest flood volumes for a single great flood (Baker, 1973; Patton and others, 1979; Carson did not enter the Pasco Basin by way of the Columbia River. and others, 1978; Bjornstad, 1980). The observation that tephra layers within the sequence of graded beds accumulated with eolian sedi- INTRODUCTION ments (Bunker, 1980; Waitt, 1980) led to recognition of breaks within the depositional history. Waitt (1980) also interpreted brief ("de- Most geologists know about the legacy of the great outburst cades") subaerial hiatuses at other stratigraphic levels within the floods from glacial Lake Missoula in western Montana, the resulting slack-water sequence and, because of gross similarity of all beds, spectacular landforms of Washington's Channeled Scabland, and the argued that each bed was the record of a single flood. tireless efforts of J Harlan Bretz to convince skeptics of the cataclys- This stimulating but controversial hypothesis, requiring tens of mic scale required for the floods (see Baker, 1978, and Baker and floods from a self-dumping glacier-dammed lake (Waitt, 1980,1985a; Bunker, 1985, for a review). Bretz (1925,1928,1929,1930,1959,1969; Baker and Bunker, 1985), was the topic of subsequent spirited debate Bretz and others, 1956) focused his efforts on descriptions of large (for example, Baker and Bunker, 1985; Waitt, 1985a). Evidence fa- erosional channels; huge, now-dry cataracts; and gigantic, megarip- voring Waitt's (1980) hypothesis was subsequently found in the de- pled gravel bars that dominate the landscape of the Channeled Scab- posits of glacial lakes north of the Channeled Scabland (Fig. 1), where land, within a 30,000 km2 area of loess-mantled basalt in eastern as many as 89 flood beds of interpreted Missoula-flood origin are Washington. Baker's (1973) thorough study of the scabland channels interbedded with varved lacustrine silt and clay (Rigby, 1982; Atwater, and the coarse gravel deposits associated with them led to elegant 1984, 1986; Waitt, 1984, 1985a). Bed-for-bed correlations between paleohydraulic interpretations of the cataclysmic floods. these glacial-lake sections and the slack-water sediments of southern Until the 1980s, little attention was given to sand and silt Washington remained contested, however, and the alternative hy- forming conspicuous terraces in valleys adjacent to the main pothesis that multiple slack-water rhythmites could be generated in the Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 105, p. 77-100, 17 figs., 2 tables, January 1993. 77 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/105/1/77/3381691/i0016-7606-105-1-77.pdf by guest on 23 September 2021 G. A. SMITH Figure 1. Map of the Pacific Northwest showing maximum late Wisconsin extent of the Cordilleran ice sheet, major glacier-dammed lakes (shown at maximum stage), the Channeled Scabland, and area inundated by Missoula floods. Channeled Scabland by each flood was rejuvenated (Baker and Bun- responsible for hydraulic ponding of flood waters to depths possibly ker, 1985; Kiver and Stradling, 1985). exceeding 200 m in the Pasco Basin (Fig. 2A; Baker, 1973;Craig, 1987; The problem has been further complicated by the stratigraphic O'Connor and Baker, 1992). The Tucannon River joins the Snake River evidence of several flood episodes, each consisting of one or more 125 km upstream of the Snake-Columbia confluence in the Pasco outburst floods over periods of several thousand years at each glacial Basin. Because slack-water sediment in these valleys was presumed maximum (McDonald and Busacca, 1988; Moody, 1987; Bjornstad to be related to backflooding by hydraulic ponding in the Pasco Basin, and others, 1991). McDonald and Busacca (1988) recognized at least Bretz (1969) referred to them as "backflood deposits," a term also six such episodes, increasing the uncertainty in correlating erosional adopted by Waitt (1980). The term is not generally applicable to flood- and depositional products of individual floods or even flood episodes. deposited, rhythmically bedded sand and silt, however, because these The late Wisconsin flood episode occurred between about 15 ka and deposits also occur at seldom-noted sites along the major flood routes, 12 ka, and its depositional products are associated with as many as including the Columbia River. The term "slack water" is used here, three volcanic ashes correlated with set-S tephra erupted from Mount although it is also not perfectly suited for describing these sediments, St. Helens at about 13 ka (Mullineaux and others, 1978). The next because several existing definitions include the provision that slack- oldest episode occurred before —36 ka, and its deposits overlie set-C water sediments are deposited from suspension (Baker and others, tephras from Mount St. Helens (McDonald and Busacca, 1988; 1983; Kochel and Baker, 1988; Baker, 1989). The dominance of cross- Moody, 1987). Busacca and others (1989) infer that this older Wis- stratification within the deposits negates suspension deposition alone. consin phase produced the greatest cataclysmic flows. A general upward progression from massive or plane-bedded coarse sand, to ripple cross-laminated fine sand, and finally to massive SLACK-WATER SEDIMENTS: GENERAL FEATURES AND or laminated, very fine sands and silt, has led to comparison of the PREVIOUS INTERPRETATIONS slack-water deposits to the Bouma sequence of sedimentary struc- tures in turbidites (Baker, 1973; Bjornstad, 1980; Bunker, 1980; Waitt, Missoula-flood slack-water sediments are best known from ex- 1980). The principal distinction from a typical turbidite is the occur- posures in the Walla Walla Valley (Bjornstad, 1980; Waitt, 1980), rence of poly directional, usually bidirectional, cross-laminations in lower Yakima Valley and Badger Coulee (Bunker, 1980; Waitt, 1980), the rippled interval of the slack-water deposits that, in backflooded and the Tucannon Valley (Baker, 1973; Patton and