Title: Bretz's flood
Description: Bretz's Flood explores the life of geologist J Harlen Bretz, who developed a theory in the 1920s that the dry, rocky and channeled scabland terrain of eastern Washington must have been caused by a cataclysmic flood. The geologic profession loudly rejected his hypothesis, which ran counter to the geologic principle of uniformitarianism and sounded way too Biblical for the profession's elders. But Bretz persisted in promoting and providing facts to support his theory, which was eventually proven correct based on phenomena such as giant ripple marks, and satellite photography that revealed Bretz's flood channels in all their spectacular glory.
Subjects: Geology, Glacial landforms, uniformitarianism, Geologists, flood, geologist, scabland, Erosion, Biography, Géologues, Biographies, Érosion, Géomorphologie glaciaire, Géologie
Places: Columbia Plateau, United States, eastern Washington state
People: J. Harlen Bretz (1882-1981)
Time periods: 1920s