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<br />lava falls, by mass.,wasting, or simply by high flood levels. Cooley <br />(1969:personal communication) estimated that in the absence of a damming <br />effect, a free.,flowing Colorado river would have needed a discharge ~f <br />about 10 mi 11i on cfs to have empl aced the log 44 m (144 feet) above <br />stream level. However, if the Colorado River bed had been flowing at <br />one of the Pleistocene terrace levels some 20 or even 44 m (65 or <br />144 feet) above the present stream level at the time the dri ftwood was <br />deposi ted, di scharge 1 evel s woul d not have had to be so inordinately <br />high. <br /> <br />i <br />..j <br /> <br />Pleistocene Terraces in the Little Colorado River Valley <br />A number of workers have noted that the L ittl e Colorado Ri ver <br />appears to be the broadest and most mature valley in the entire Colorado <br />Plateau (Childs 1948). A whole flight of Pleistocene terraces and <br />Pl iocene and Mi ocene erosi on surfaces have been identi fi ed here. K.,Ar <br />dating of basalt flows ,which overlie these surfaces (Damon, Shafiquallah <br />and Leventhal 1974) provides dating control on a number of these <br />surfaces. In general, Cooley, Harshbarger, Akers, and Hardt (1969) <br />recogni ze three 1 ate Pl ei stocene all uvi al terraces at about 9, 15, and <br />23 to 30 m (30, 50, and 75 to 100 feet) above average stream level in <br />the Cameron.,Winslow area. These "Late Wupatki II terraces are overl ain by <br />coarse alluvial gravels that fonna distinct desert pavement and are <br />coated by a black patina of desert varnish. Cooley correlates these <br />terraces wi th three gl ae; al events that occurred on the San Franci sco <br />Peaks and thatpost.,date 212,000 years B.P. (Pewe and Updike 1976). <br />Two IIEarly Wupatki II terraces occur at about 40 to 60+, and 60 to <br />90 m (150 to 100, and 200 to 300 feet) above stream level. The lower of <br />these underlies the Tappan flow which K...Ar dates at about 0.5 million <br />years B. P. (Damon and others 19741. The 01 der "B1 ack Point" erosi on <br />surfaces occur at about 120 to 150 m (400 to 500 feet) and 183 to 240 m <br />(600 to 800 feet) above stream 1 evel. The upper surface underl i es the <br />Black Point flow which dates at about 2.4 million years B.P. Based on <br />these dates, the Little Colorado River has been downcutting at an <br />average rate of 90 to 100 m/million years for the last 2.4 million years <br />(Damon and others 1974). Cooley and others (1969) estimate that while <br />the Little Colorado River cut only about 240 m during the Black Point <br /> <br />'" <br /> <br />~- <br /> <br />f "'\ <br />, i <br />t-'"l <br />LcJ <br /> <br />21 <br />