Coulee Marsh Trail
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oil pastel on canvas |
24" x 48" |
Daniel Wend
The
great Missoula floods at the end of the last ice age were catastrophic
in their effect and
gargantuan in their scale. The floods were caused by the fracturing
of a glacial ice dam in
present day Montana that released an amount of water equal to Lake
Superior over Eastern
Washington State in a matter of hours and days, contrary to what
most geologists of prior
years had theorized. Enter geologist, J Harlen Bretz who had become
sceptical of such
unusual geologic formations forming over millions of years from
erosion. To Bretz, the
Channeled Scablands, as much of eastern Washington had been referred
to, resulted from
something much more cataclysmic. The features he questioned were
dramatic formations
that he suggested were scoured and cut from the surface by giant
raging floods that left
massive dry gorges that looked to be cut by the force of water,
but there was no water
to be found. Large holes dotted the landscape which he attributed
to the drilling effect of
whirlpools in the torrent. Not until the 1940's, after enduring
criticism and ridicule
did other geologists start to accept his ideas. Only after satellite
imagery became available
in
the 1970's, was
he fully vindicated and later lauded for his groundbreaking work.
This painting depicts what the landscape of the Channeled Scablands
may have looked like
after a fresh scouring from one of the great floods.
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