Floods occur when the stage of water flow exceeds some level, commonly marked by the banks of the stream or river that usually confine the level of flow. What one considers to be a flood is a notion very much limited by human experience, in which observations occur over days, months, or some rather short period of years. In contrast, the timescales of the natural world operate over centuries, millennia, and much longer time periods. When the time scale is enlarged, then the rare occurrence of an extreme flood event can yield magnitudes that seem bizarre relative to the observations made on shorter timescales. The concern of this article will be with those floods that are both rare and of great magnitude. Smaller, common floods are usually considered to be a part of the average process regime of rivers, though lying on the upper tail of the frequency distribution for flow events.
Extreme flood phenomena defy direct measurement in the field. Their recurrence intervals can greatly exceed...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Aksu, A.E., Hiscott, R.N., Mudie, P.J., Rochon, A., Kaminski, M.A., Abrajano, T., and Yasar, D., 2002. Persistent holocene outflow from the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean contradicts Noah’s flood hypothesis. GSA Today, 12 (5): 4–10.
Albritton, C.C., 1989. Catastrophic Episodes in Earth History. New York: Chapman and Hall.
Baker, V.R., 1973. Paleohydrology and Sedimentology of Lake Missoula Flooding in Eastern Washington. Geological Society of America Special Paper, 144
Baker, V.R., 1978. The spokane flood controversy and the Martian outflow channels. Science, 202: 1249–1256.
Baker, V.R. (ed.), 1981. Catastrophic Flooding: The Origin of the Channeled Scabland. Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hitchinson and Ross.
Baker, V.R., 1982. The Channels of Mars. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Baker, V.R., 1987. Paleoflood hydrology and extraordinary flood events. Journal of Hydrology, 96: 79–99.
Baker, V.R., 1997. Megafloods and glaciation. In Martini, I.P. (ed.), Late Glacial and Postglacial Environmental Changes. Oxford University Press, pp. 98–108.
Baker, V.R., 1998. Catastrophism and uniformitarianism: logical roots and current relevance in geology. In Blundell, D.J., and Scott, A.C. (eds.), Lyell: The Past is the Key to the Present. London: Geological Society, Special Publication, 143, pp. 171–182.
Baker, V.R., 2001. Water and the martian landscape. Nature, 412: 228–336.
Baker, V.R., 2002. High-energy megafloods: planetary settings and sedimentary dynamics. In Martini, I.P., Baker, V.R., and Garzon, G. (eds.), Flood and Megaflood Processes and Deposits: Recent and Ancient Examples. International Association of Sedimentologists Special Publication, 32, pp. 3–15.
Baker, V.R., and Pickup, G., 1987. Flood geomorphology of the Katherine Gorge, Northern Territory, Australia. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 98: 635–646.
Benn, D.I., and Evans, D.J.A., 1998. Glaciers and Glaciation. London: Arnold.
Bretz, J.H., 1923. The channeled Scabland of the Columbia Plateau. Journal of Geology, 31: 617–649.
Bryant, E., 2001. Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carling, P.A., 1996. Morphology, sedimentology, and paleohydraulic significance of large gravel dunes: Altai Mountains, Siberia. Sedimentology, 43: 647–664.
Costa, J.E., 1983. Paleohydraulic reconstruction of flash flood peaks from boulder deposits in the Colorado front range. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 94: 986–1004.
Grosswald, M., 1999. Cataclysmic Megafloods in Eurasia and the Polar Ice Sheets. Moscow: Scientific World (in Russian).
House, P.K., Webb, R.H., Baker, V.R., and Levish, D.R. (eds.), 2002. Ancient Floods, Modern Hazards: Principles and Applications of Paleoflood Hydrology. American Geophysical Union Water Science and Application, No. 5.
Kochel, R.C., and Baker, V.R., 1982. Paleoflood hydrology. Science, 215: 353–361.
Komar, P.D., 1980. Modes of sediment transport in channelized water flows with ramifications for the erosion of the Martian outflow channels. Icarus, 42: 317–329.
Lacasse, C., Carey, S., and Sigurdsson, H., 1998. Volcanogenic sedimentation in the Iceland Basin: influence of subaerial and subglacial eruptions. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 83: 47–73.
Mutti, E., Davoli, G., Tinterri, R., and Zavala, C., 1996. The importance of ancient fluvio-deltaic systems dominated by catastrophic flooding in tectonically active basins. Mem. Sci. Geol. 48: 233–291.
O'Connor, J.E., 1993. Hydrology, Hydraulics and Sediment Transport of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville Flooding on the Snake River, Idaho. Geological Society of America Special Paper, 274.
O'Connor, J.E., and Baker, V.R., 1992. Magnitudes and implications of peak discharges from Glacial Lake Missoula. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 104: 267–279.
Rudoy, A.N., and Baker, V.R., 1993. Sedimentary effects of cataclysmic late Pleistocene glacial outburst flooding, Altay Mountains, Russia. Sedimentary Geology, 85: 53–62.
Ryan, W.B.F., Pittman, III W.C., Major, C.O., Shimkus, K., Maskalenko, V., Jones, G.A., Dimitrov, P., Gorur, N., Sakinc, M., and Yuce, H., 1997. Abrupt drowning of the Black Sea shelf. Marine Geology, 138: 119–126.
Shaw, J., 1996. A meltwater model for Laurentide subglacial landscapes. In McCann, S.B., and Ford, D.C. (eds.), Geomorphology sans Frontiere. Wiley, pp. 182–226.
Smith, G.A., 1993. Missoula flood dynamics and magnitudes inferred from sedimentology of slack-water deposits on the Columbia Plateau, Washington. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 105: 77–100.
Zuffa, G.G., Normack, W.R., Serra, F., and Brumer, C.A., 2000. Turbidite megabeds in an oceanic rift valley recording jokulhlaups of Late Pleistocene Glacial Lakes of the Western United States. Journal of Geology, 108: 253–274.
Cross-references
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1978 Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Inc.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Baker, V.R. (1978). Floods and other catastrophic events. In: Sedimentology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31079-7_89
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31079-7_89
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-0-87933-152-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31079-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive