Quake Lake

We've got a really cool house in Island Park, Idaho, and short little drive to the upper Madison.

So it's one of my favorite places to fish, right above Quake Lake.

There's an awful lot over there.

Yeah.

Aftermath.

among the cataclysms of nature none is more terrifying than an earthquake and huge slides like the one triggered by the madison canyon earthquake are perhaps the most dramatic type of geological change in one sudden spectacular moment changes take place that make us think of the tremendous energy released by atomic fission the earth's mass moves in a volume that rocks the imagination and its effect on the people who are near or in the path of nature's huge impulsive seeming change helps us to realize how infinitesimal we are before the forces and laws of nature in nineteen o three a forty million cubic yard rock slide crashed down from the crest of turtle mountain on to the coal mining town of frank alberta killing seventy people but the consequences of such huge slides aren't completed when the cliff toppling cease take the case of the famous june twenty three nineteen twenty five go slide in northwestern wyoming forty miles south of yellowstone park an estimated fifty million cubic yards of rock and debris plunged down the steep canyon wall shot across the valley floor and rushed some three hundred and fifty feet up the opposite wall of the canyon before it settled back like water sloshing in a huge bowl nobody was killed when this slide choked the gros ventre river it covered parts of two ranches and buried six head of cattle but two years later in may nineteen twenty seven the water dammed by the slide pushed out a big section of the slide and the sudden wave of water and debris washed away the town of kelly wyoming killing seven people this kind of possibility was in the mind of army corps of engineers missouri river chief keith r barney as he and lieutenant colonel walter h holgrief of the corps district offices at garrison dam in north dakota discussed the montana earthquake's action the slide represented a double threat to people in the madison valley below as an immediate effect of the slide the water flowing over hebken dam was stopped by the slide the formation of a lake behind the slide began the moment of the slide when it filled this two hundred and forty foot deep impoundment called earthquake or quake lake would exert an enormous pressure on the slide if the slide was composed of unstable material its collapse could in a repeat of the grovantra tragedy bring death and destruction to the valley towns of ennis three forks and trident below the second and greater threat was the discovery that when quake lake filled its impounded water would lap at the foundations of hebgen dam and quite possibly undermine it releasing a volume of water seven times that of the earthquake caused reservoirs which could also sweep part of the slide along in its mad rush like the threat of a time bomb the rising level of quake lake and the increasing pressure of the water against the slide augmented by rumor kept the downstream towns in constant anxiety the army corps of engineers rushed into emergency action they flew in a fifty-man staff and set up headquarters in the stagecoach inn at west yellowstone the mines in butte were on strike and huge earth moving equipment from the open pit operations along with rigs from other contractors worked around the clock to cut a two hundred and fifty foot wide and fourteen foot deep channel across the mile and a half long slide and armor it with rock so that the water couldn't cause sudden erosion of the rest of the slide before the water topped the huge natural dam on september tenth water licked over the new spillway running into the river bed just below which had been dry since the quake to the corps great surprise severe erosion tore the downstream face of the slide to remedy this they launched another crash program to cut a fifty-foot deep channel across the top of the slide it was completed october twenty ninth the corps operations on the slide took a total of close to one million seven hundred thousand dollars of funds set up for such emergencies as a result the towns below the slide are safe from the flood threat the slide might represent end of part four part five of the night the mountain fell the story of the montana yellowstone earthquake by edmund christopherson this librivox recording is in the public domain part five living geology just how common are mass earth shake-ups like the montana yellowstone earthquake anyhow geologists tell us they're frequent with a dozen or more major quakes and thousands of minor tremors happening each year earthquakes are the natural outcome of the fact that the earth while seeming substantial and changeless is constantly if most gradually in the process of change mountains are thrust up glaciers carve them down volcanoes pour out their molten rock rivers and floods scour their erosive paths sediments slide and settle the enormous masses which great internal earth forces have raised up to mountain height create counter stresses these forces build up for years sometimes for centuries or longer eventually something has to give when this happens on a grand or spectacular scale we call it an earthquake whether you're a connoisseur expert or not the spectacular nineteen fifty nine montana yellowstone earthquake was a beaut geologists call it a textbook earthquake because it included nearly all of the classic actions or results which quakes are likely to cause it ranked right along with san francisco's nineteen o six shakedown as among the severest earthquakes on the north american continent in seismic measurements it rated seven point eight on the richter scale as compared with san francisco's eight point two it set up so-called tidal waves or seiches on hebgen lake there were at least three of these huge waves twenty foot high which overtopped the entire seven hundred and twenty one foot length of the dam by four feet eyewitness's statements relate that the velocity of the tidal wave was so great that it caused the water literally to leap over the top of the dam it filled the small generating plant with two to four feet deep layer of rocks although the dam stood the quake caused several fractures in the core wall one of which showed a three to four inch separation and shattered the dam's concrete spillway the earthquake created three major faults with displacement on the red canyon fault running as much as twenty feet which stacks up impressively alongside the twenty six foot maximum displacement resulting from san francisco's quake these two earthquakes differed however in that the montana displacement was vertical while the san francisco's was horizontal according to the society of military engineers surveys from benchmarks outside the earthquake affected areas show that the earth in the hebgen dam quake area near hebgen dam has settled between eighteen and nineteen feet from its level before the quake it wasn't uniform though the quake caused tilting which showed up in the way the north side of hebkin lake had sunk eight feet while the south side of the lake docks boats etc were sticking eight feet out of the water the quake also caused many sink or more properly blow holes these phenomena are also known as sand spouts water compressed and forced up and out by quake action washes out layers of sand substrata the overhead surface areas naturally drop into the hole leaving a puzzling hunk of slumped ground separate from the normal scarps as big as fifteen by fifty feet in area the montana yellowstone quake sent seismographs jiggling as far away as new zealand it caused fluctuation of water level in wells as much as ten feet in nearby idaho a tenth of a foot in hawaii three thousand two hundred miles away and point zero one feet in puerto rico the huge concrete hungry horse dam near columbia falls montana two hundred and fifty miles northwest of the quake area showed measurable displacement as a result of the quake in remote seattle the diminished tremors were still strong enough to break loose the floating amphitheater in lake washington but by far the most spectacular effect of montana's earthquake was the huge landslide at the mouth of the madison canyon at the side of the slide a relatively strong and nearly vertical layer of dolomite rock supported a huge bank or mountain of comparatively unstable schist and kept it from sliding into the valley in the same way that a retaining wall keeps a hillside terrace from slipping downhill the tremendous shock waves of the earthquake fractured this dolomite buttress and some forty three million cubic yards or eighty million tons of rock timber and other mountainside debris cascaded off the slope, hurtled into the canyon, and surged up the opposite side, carrying huge trees and house-sized boulders as if they were weightless hollow toys.

When this huge mass whomped down onto the riverbed, it forced out the water and air trapped underneath at hurricane velocity.

The huge slide spurted mud, air, and water with such force as to send two-ton cars sailing through the air and to grind others to suitcase thickness against the rocks.

Now you can see.

It's unusual when an event so spectacular as the Montana Yellowstone earthquake doesn't produce some exploitable possibilities, and this one did.

The month after this August 17, 1959 series of quakes, the U.S. Forest Service, which is a proprietor of the vast and tumultuous real estate on which the major portion of the immediate quake action happened announced that it was under way with plans to set up a geological area to help visitors get to earthquake interest points and to understand the tremendous earth forces which operated there they held the inaugural of the madison river canyon earthquake area the first of its kind anywhere on august seventeenth nineteen sixty the first anniversary of the quake relatives of the twenty-eight quake victims sat on the gigantic slide as they unveiled the bronze memorial plaque mounted on the huge dolomite boulder which had floated across the valley atop the surging debris this awesome and fascinating earthquake area quickly became one of the region's top tourist attractions with close to half a million visitors in attendance during each of the first two post-quake summers in spite of miserable to nearly impassable access roads this popularity is especially fitting because the quake that's on display here was essentially a tourist earthquake it happened in the scenic mountain area which draws a brisk vacation traffic from all over the u s and canada during the height of the tourist season and those who went through the adventure the thrills the terror the heroes and the helped the survivors and the casualties could nearly all be classed as tourists superb trout fishing has always been one of the area's most important features and understandably there was much post-quake concern as to how this would be effected when hebgen lake was drained to repair the quake damaged hebgen dam montana's fish and game department poisoned the trash fish and stocked the refilled lake with millions of rainbow trout running in size from fingerlings to nine inches to-day both hebgen and quake lake formed by the damming action of the slide at the mouth of madison canyon afford top fishing either from shore or from boat quake lake has a made-to-order launching ramp at cabin creek where the flooded out road runs right into the lake in spite of the concern by fish biologists that silting from the slide would take the edge off fishing in the madison below the slide area it kept right on providing fishermen the top-notch action that had long earned its reputation as a blue ribbon trout stream that compares with fishing anywhere in the world today there are excellent roads to and through the earthquake area route two eighty seven south from ennis leads directly to the huge slide at the mouth of madison canyon here the forest service has built a surfaced road up onto the slide on top is the best advantage point to view the whole panorama of the mountain fall where it dropped from how in a matter of seconds eighty million tons of rock cut off the valley the sparkling blue lake it created and the open stretch of the madison below the canyon besides on the slide there are interpretative exhibits and the huge monolith bearing the plaque to the quake dead twenty-one of whom still lie somewhere beneath the mammoth pile of rock The relocated route runs eastward down the slide along Quake Lake and through Madison Canyon.

Several Forest Service people staff the formerly designated Earthquake Area during the summer season to help explain and interpret what happened here.

See that water.

Um, Really, the entrance to Quake Lake where it opens up and there's all the flooded timber, it's so cool.

And it just makes you...

I don't get to...

It's clear.

It's going into Quake Lake, and there's just big fish just mowing everywhere, going over each other.

It was cool footage.

Why didn't he catch

you know i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you a little story really quick about oh gosh it's been about 14 years ago I was outside of Yellowstone fishing on a river right above.

It's called Quake Lake.

It's in Idaho.

And I was fly fishing and there was some rustling in the brush across from me.