Science is constantly evolving, and even ideas once accepted as fact can eventually be proven wrong. In the 1920s, geologist J Hardlen Bretz challenged one of the dominant ideas of his time. He believed that the landscape of eastern Washington State had been carved by enormous prehistoric floods—not the slow, gradual erosion that most geologists thought was responsible.
The region, known as the Channeled Scablands, is filled with huge dry canyons, exposed basalt, and cliffs that once held enormous waterfalls. When Bretz began exploring the landscape on foot in 1922, he became convinced that ordinary erosion couldn’t explain the land’s distinct features. He returned again and again over seven years, hoping to gather enough evidence to prove his theory that at some point in the past, a vast amount of water rushed through the region.
In 1923, Bretz published his ideas, describing the event as a “debacle which swept the Columbia Plateau.” However, many of his peers rejected his theory, and one critic even called it an “outrageous hypothesis.” It wasn’t until the 1940s that other geologists began to present new evidence supporting Bretz’s flood theory, and by the 1970s, he was proven completely right thanks to satellite imagery.
The breakthrough came with Glacial Lake Missoula, an enormous Ice Age lake in present-day Montana. Giant ripples in the landscape revealed that its ice dam had burst, releasing around 500 cubic miles of water toward the Washington Scablands. Then in 1974, satellite imagery by NASA provided a bird’s-eye view of the landscape, finally proving the extraordinary scale of the prehistoric flooding.
In 1979, the Geological Society of America awarded the then-96-year-old Bretz the Penrose Medal, geology’s highest honor. After decades of defending his controversial theory, he was finally vindicated, albeit a little late. He famously said, “All my enemies are dead, so I have no one to gloat over.”
Bretz’s work ultimately changed how scientists today understand Earth’s history, showing that landscapes can be shaped slowly over millions of years or dramatically transformed in an instant.
Learn more about Bretz in the video below.
In the 1920s, geologist J Harlen Bretz proposed that prehistoric floods shaped Washington State’s landscape, but it wasn’t until 1979 that he was finally proven right.
Source: Bretz, J Harlen (1882-1981)
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