SEDIMENTARY EFFECTS OF CATACLYSMIC LATE PLEISTOCENE GLACIAL OUTBURST FLOODING, ALTAY MOUNTAINS, SIBERIA

Pleistocene glacial outburst floods were released from ice-dammed lakes of the Altay Mountains, south-central Siberia. The Kuray-Chuja lake system yielded peak floods in excess of 1 X 10(6) m3 s-1 and as great as 18 x 10(6) m3 s-1. The phenomenally high bed shear stresses and stream powers generated in these flows produced a main-channel, coarse-grained facies of coarse gravel in (1) foreset-bedded bars as much as 200 m high and several kilometers long, and (2) degradational, boulder-capped river terraces. Giant current ripples, 50 to 150 m in spacing, composed of pebble and cobble gravel, are locally abundant. The whole sedimentary assemblage is very similar to that of the Channeled Scabland, produced by the Pleistocene Missoula Floods of western North America.