Geomorphic effect and hydraulics of the Late Pleistocene jokulhlaups of ice-dammed lakes in the Altai

Abstract

Catastrophic floods released from enormous Pleistocene glacial lakes transformed essentially the former topography and created an assemblage of erosional and depositional landforms, a kind of alpine scablands, not unlike to the Channeled Scabland of North America. At their peak discharge, the glacial foods due to outbursts of the Chuya-Kurai system of the ice-dammed lakes were about 1 to 18 mln. cub. m per second. Those were the greatest fresh water flows known on the Earth.