Hydraulic modeling of megaflooding using terrestrial and Martian DEMs
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Abstract
Megaflooding generated from Glacial Lake Missoula (GLM) during the late Pleistocene, swept across the Columbia Plateau and Columbia Basin regions of the northwestern U.S., producing the Channeled Scabland, an assemblage of landforms comprising a regional anastomosing complex of overfit stream channels scoured into basalt bedrock. This region provides the best-studied example of a landscape created by catastrophic flooding. Using DEM data and the HEC-RAS 2-D hydraulic model, we analyzed the GLM flood propagation from the Clark Fork in northern Idaho to the eastern Pacific Ocean, and the GLM flood simulation generally covers the tracts of the Channeled Scabland and captures the paleohydraulic conditions that have been inferred in the field and documented by previous hydraulic studies. A test simulation on the Columbia Gorge suggest the other sources of water besides Lake Missoula may have been involved in producing the megaflooding. Initial hydraulic analyses for the megafloods and their relations to the field evidence provide important insights into cataclysmic flood processes and associated landforms.
Cite this as
2018. Hydraulic modeling of megaflooding using terrestrial and Martian DEMs. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27107v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27107v1Author comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.
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Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Tao Liu conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Victor R Baker conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
Funding
The authors received no funding for this work.
