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J Harlen Bretz
J Harlen Bretz (2 September 1882 – 3 February 1981) was an American geologist, best known for his research that led to the acceptance of the Missoula Floods and for his work on caves. Early life and education Bretz was born on 2 September 1882, in the small town of Saranac in Ionia County, Michigan. He was the first of Oliver Joseph Bretz and Rhoda Maria Howlett's five children. His father was a farmer, and proud descendant of early German settler in Ohio, John Bretz. The county's birth registry recorded his name as "Harlan J Bretz" at birth, but he was listed as "Harland J Bretz" on the 1900 United States Census. When he entered college in 1901, he applied as "J Harlen Bretz". At around the time he completed his graduate studies in 1913, he stopped using a point after the initial at "J". According to his two children, his given name was actually "Harley". Bretz's daughter Rhoda Bretz Riley went on to explain that "he invented the Harlen thing, just as he had invented the J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saranac, Michigan
Saranac is a village in Boston Twp, Ionia County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,325 at the 2010 census. Today, Saranac serves as a retail and services hub for agricultural areas surrounding the village. History Saranac had its roots in 1836, when a Grand Rapids judge by the name of Jefferson Morrison purchased the land where Lake Creek meets the Grand River. Soon after, he sold parts of the land to Dwight & Hutchinson from Detroit, and together, they founded the village. Proceeding quickly, the proprietors named it Saranac and held a public sale in Detroit. There they sold off many Saranac lots without doing much to ensure the integrity of their original records. Soon after, Dwight & Hutchinson became concerned over the lack of development of the village by the lot-purchasers and gave Cyprian S. Hooker land on which to build a saw mill. Construction began in 1837, but didn't see completion until 1841. Partnering with a furniture maker named Jerry Stocking, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spokane 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 floods 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 lake drained, the ice would reform, creating Glacial Lake Missoula again. These floods have been researched since the 1920s. During the last deglaciation that followed the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, geologists estimate that a cycle of flooding and reformation of the lake lasted an average of 55 years and that the floods occurred several times over the 2,000-year period between 15,000 and 13,000 ye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert
A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location. Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks, which consequently break in pieces. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter, and the resulting fragments and rubble strewn over the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Channelled Scablands
The Channeled Scablands are a relatively barren and soil-free region of interconnected relict and dry flood channels, coulees and cataracts eroded into Palouse loess and the typically flat-lying basalt flows that remain after cataclysmic floods within the southeastern part of Washington.Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A. Jackson, eds. (2005) ''Glossary of Geology'' (5th ed.). Alexandria, Virginia, American Geological Institute. 779 pp. The Channeled Scablands were scoured by more than 40 cataclysmic floods during the Last Glacial Maximum and innumerable older cataclysmic floods over the last two million years. These floods were periodically unleashed whenever a large glacial lake broke through its ice dam and swept across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Plateau during the Pleistocene epoch. The last of the cataclysmic floods occurred between 18,200 and 14,000 years ago.Balbas, A.M., Barth, A.M., Clark, P.U., Clark, J., Caffee, M., O'Connor, J., Baker, V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topographic
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary science and is concerned with local detail in general, including not only relief, but also natural, artificial, and cultural features such as roads, land boundaries, and buildings. In the United States, topography often means specifically ''relief'', even though the USGS topographic maps record not just elevation contours, but also roads, populated places, structures, land boundaries, and so on. Topography in a narrow sense involves the recording of relief or terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface, and the identification of specific landforms; this is also known as geomorphometry. In modern usage, this involves generation of elevation data in digital form (DEM). It is often considered to include the graphic representation of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distinct from weathering which involves no movement. Removal of rock or soil as clastic sediment is referred to as ''physical'' or ''mechanical'' erosion; this contrasts with ''chemical'' erosion, where soil or rock material is removed from an area by dissolution. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, or for thousands of kilometres. Agents of erosion include rainfall; bedrock wear in rivers; coastal erosion by the sea and waves; glacial plucking, abrasion, and scour; areal flooding; wind abrasion; groundwater processes; and mass movement processes in steep landscapes like landslides and debris flows. The rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Typically, physical erosion procee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbia River Plateau
The Columbia Plateau is a geologic and geographic region that lies across parts of the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It is a wide flood basalt plateau between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, cut through by the Columbia River. Geology During late Miocene and early Pliocene times, a flood basalt engulfed about of the Pacific Northwest, forming a large igneous province. Over a period of perhaps 10 to 15 million years, lava flow after lava flow poured out, ultimately accumulating to a thickness of more than 6,000 feet (1.8 km). As the molten rock came to the surface, the Earth's crust gradually sank into the space left by the rising lava. The Columbia River Basalt Group consists of seven formations: The Steens Basalt, Imnaha Basalt, Grande Ronde Basalt, Picture Gorge Basalt, Prineville Basalt, Wanapum Basalt, and Saddle Mountains Basalt. Many of these formations are subdivided into formal and informal members and flows. The subsidence of the crus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Seattle Times
''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (state), Washington state and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Times Company, which is owned by the Blethen family, holds 50.5% of the paper. McClatchy company owns 49.5% of the paper. ''The Seattle Times'' had a longstanding rivalry with the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' newspaper until the latter ceased publication in 2009. Copies are sold at $2 daily in King & adjacent counties (except Island, Thurston & other WA counties, $2.5) or $3 Sundays/Thanksgiving Day (except Island, Thurston & other WA counties, $4). Prices are higher outside Washington state. History ''The Seattle Times'' originated as the ''Seattle Press-Times'', a four-page newspaper founded in 1891 with a daily Newspaper circulation, circulation of 3,500, which M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Coulee
Grand Coulee is an ancient river bed in the U.S. state of Washington. This National Natural Landmark stretches for about 60 miles (100 km) southwest from Grand Coulee Dam to Soap Lake, being bisected by Dry Falls into the Upper and Lower Grand Coulee. Geological history Grand Coulee is a large coulee on the Columbia River Plateau. This area has underlying granite bedrock, formed deep in the Earth's crust 40 to 60 million years ago. The land periodically uplifted and subsided over millions of years giving rise to some small mountains and, eventually, an inland sea. From about 10 to 18 million years ago, a series of volcanic eruptions from the Grand Ronde Rift near the Idaho/Oregon/Washington/Montana border began to fill the inland sea with lava. In some places the volcanic basalt is thick. In other areas granite from the earlier mountains is still exposed. Starting about two million years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch, glaciation took place in the area. Large parts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puget Sound
Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and two minor connections to the open Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Juan de Fuca—Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and Deception Pass and Swinomish Channel being the minor. Water flow through Deception Pass is approximately equal to 2% of the total tidal exchange between Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Puget Sound extends approximately from Deception Pass in the north to Olympia in the south. Its average depth is and its maximum depth, off Jefferson Point between Indianola and Kingston, is . The depth of the main basin, between the southern tip of Whidbey Island and Tacoma, is approximately . In 2009, the term Salish Sea was established by the United States Board o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as Crevasse, crevasses and Serac, seracs, as it slowly flows and deforms under stresses induced by its weight. As it moves, it abrades rock and debris from its substrate to create landforms such as cirques, moraines, or fjords. Although a glacier may flow into a body of water, it forms only on land and is distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water. On Earth, 99% of glacial ice is contained within vast ice sheets (also known as "continental glaciers") in the polar regions, but glaciers may be found in mountain ranges on every continent other than the Australian mainland, including Oceania's high-latitude oceanic island countries such as New Zealand. Between lati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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