An ancient bathtub ring of mammoth fossils

PhysOrg.com ^ | May 7, 2007 | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

[SunkenCiv]

The fossils, in some cases whole skeletons of Mammathus columbi, the Columbian mammoth, were deposited in the hillsides of what are now the Yakima, Columbia and Walla Walla valleys in southeastern Washington, where the elephantine corpses came to rest as water receded from the temporary but repeatedly formed ancient Lake Lewis. PNNL geologists are plotting the deposits to reconstruct the high-water marks of many of the floods, the last of which occurred as recently as 12,000 to 15,000 years ago... Geologists suspect that most of the Ice Age floods in eastern Washington originated from glacial Lake Missoula. The lake formed behind ice that dammed the Clark Fork River. Sometimes the ice dam broke, releasing huge volumes -- up to 500 cubic miles -- of water in an instant. The dam would slowly reform creating a new Lake Missoula, and the cycle would repeat... Preliminary results place most mammoth finds in the Lake Lewis area at elevations of 600 to 1,000 feet, which echoes the distribution of boulders that originated from far away -- so-called erratics -- and rafted in on icebergs. The evidence suggests that these elevations mirror the typical water depths when Lake Lewis and that larger floods and deeper waters, up to 1,200 feet, were exceptions rather than the rule. Full skeletons found at lower elevations were likely buried soon after death-by-torrent, a hard to imagine wall of water a half-mile high spanning the doomed creature’s entire field of vision and approaching as fast as 60 miles an hour. Some fragments may have come from full skeletons churned up and redistributed by later floods, while others may actually have ice-rafted in with erratics.

[Fred Nerks]

thanks!

...and I found this:

http://bell.lib.umn.edu/olaus/index.html

Olaus Magnus Map of Scandinavia

click on the map to enlarge any section.

[SunkenCiv]

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the rest of the Lake Missoula keyword:

• Sky-High Icebergs Carried Boulders From The Rockies To In South-Central Washington [11/05/2003 6:29:54 AM PST]
• Catastrophic Flooding From Ancient Lake May Have Triggered Cold Period [12/18/2004 11:51:06 AM PST]
• NOVA | Mystery of the Megaflood | PBS [05/13/2006 5:26:15 PM PDT]
• Research shows part of Alaska inundated by ancient megafloods [04/28/2010 12:23:15 PM PDT]
• Formed by Megafloods, This Place Fooled Scientists for Decades [03/09/2017 8:41:09 AM PST]
• Fingerprint of ancient abrupt climate change found in Arctic [Younger Dryas] [07/15/2018 11:22:34 PM PDT]