and Transportation Along the Clark Fork
During the last ice age about 15,000 years ago, an enormous glacier pushed down from British Columbia and blocked the Clark Fork River in northern Idaho. The glacier functioned as an ice dam creating the largest glacial lake known to have existed, Glacial Lake Missoula. The lake's waters backed up into the river's drainage in western Montana, creating a body of water comparable to today's Lake Ontario. As the lake filled and water at the ice dam deepened, it caused the lighter glacial ice to float and eventually break up, triggering floods of epic proportions. The water flushed through the Clark Fork drainage west of here enroute to the Pacific Ocean. The torrent scarred the landscape of eastern Washington, creating scablands that still define the landscape. The geologic record indicates that Glacial Lake Missoula filled and emptied on a cyclical basis over a period of about two thousand years. Indeed, the large road cut where the Interstate 90 bridge crosses the Clark Fork River at Nine Mile, ten miles east of here, preserves the record of at least 36 separate fillings of the lake. Other evidence of the glacial floods include ancient ice age shorelines on the mountains around Missoula.HM Number | HM2B7V |
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Tags | |
Placed By | Montana Department of Transportation |
Marker Condition | No reports yet |
Date Added | Friday, September 7th, 2018 at 5:01pm PDT -07:00 |
UTM (WGS84 Datum) | 11T E 688443 N 5210467 |
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Decimal Degrees | 47.02086667, -114.52030000 |
Degrees and Decimal Minutes | N 47° 1.252', W 114° 31.218' |
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds | 47° 1' 15.12" N, 114° 31' 13.08" W |
Driving Directions | Google Maps |
Area Code(s) | 406 |
Which side of the road? | Marker is on the right when traveling West |
Closest Postal Address | At or near 24 Mountain Dr, Alberton MT 59820, US |
Alternative Maps | Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap |
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