J Harlen Bretz
Harlen Bretz Jerry ( born September 2, 1882 in Saranac, Michigan, † February 3, 1981 in Homewood, Illinois ), better known under the name of J Harlen Bretz was an American geologist who became famous for his research in the Channeled Scablands. His research eventually led to the recognition of the theory of large flood events in Northwest America, the Missoula Floods at the end of the last ice age. He also wrote an important work on the shape and origin of karst caves and wrote The Caves of Missouri, a detailed description of the caves of Missouri.
Early Career
Bretz was born as the eldest child of Oliver Joseph Bretz and Rhoda Maria Howlett, a farmer couple from Saranac Michigan. The studies at Albion College in Albion, Michigan, he graduated in 1906 with a degree in Biology from. At college, he made the acquaintance of his future wife Fanny Chalis. After his studies he became interested in the geology of Eastern Washington.
First, he began his academic career as a biology teacher at a high school in Seattle. During this time Bretz dealt with the glacial geology in the vicinity of Puget Sound and eventually found a job at the University of Chicago, where he in 1913 his Ph.D. took off in geology. He became an assistant professor of geology, first at the University of Washington and then at the University of Chicago.
The outrageous hypothesis
In the summer of 1922 and also in the subsequent seven years Bretz led by field work in the area of the Columbia River Plateau. He had developed an interest in the unusual erosional features of this area after 1910 had seen a topographic map of the area around the Potholes Cataracts. After he had examined the area surrounding the Grand Coulee, where massive erosion had cut deep by the mighty basalts of the Columbia Plateau basalt, he created in 1923 the concept of " Channeled Scablands " (such as: " of canals criss-crossed wasteland "). The area was a desert, but Bretz ' for its time, daring theory had great quantities of water, which should have caused the found landforms. These prehistoric floods Bretz called in a publication of 1925, the " Spokane Floods " because he assumed that they had been caused by melt water from the area of Spokane.
Bretz 's theory was rejected by his fellow scientists, as they violated inter alia, as a katastrophistische theory against the prevailing uniformitarianism. In addition, many of his fellow geologists were not familiar with conditions in the remote north-west America, where Bretz had made his geological researches, and he himself had for his still young age no reputation among peers.
The Geological Society of America invited Bretz to a presentation of his findings on 12 January 1927. We invited several other geologists who had a different opinion as to the cause of Bretz landforms in Washington and his theory rejected. Despite the preponderance of older men Bretz defended his theory brave. The discussion drew a long and sharp ausgefochtene controversy by itself. The weightiest argument against his theory was that he could initially provide no convincing explanation for the origin of the floods. Only in the 1930s drew Bretz the existence of Lake Missoula as the cause of the flooding into consideration. However, he was not even sure if this theory was correct. Bretz and his colleague J. T. Pardee investigated until the 1950s in the field of Scablands.
More than thirty years after the first publication of the theory eventually became generally accepted in the light of the knowledge of the dynamics of glaciers, ice sheets and Eisstauseen. These studies could prove that the flooding - there were several - from the previously existing stemmed Lake Missoula and neighboring lakes.
Awards and Honors
Bretz was honored in 1979 at the age of 96 years with the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America. After the medal ceremony, he said to his son: "All my enemies are dead, now I can show off before no more. "
Each year, the Albion College the " J Harlen Bretz Award" for the best geologists of the faculty.