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<br />No unequivocal evidence of large floods was found in any stream valley <br /> <br />draining into Lake Estes. All of this area is above 7,500 foot <br />(2,300-meter) elevation, and the results are similar to other studies in <br />similar basins in the Colorado Front Range (Jarrett and Costa, 1983). The <br />kind of paleoflood evidence that was collected during the investigation is <br /> <br /> <br />shown in the photograph in Figure 4. This photograph shows the front of a <br /> <br /> <br />recessional glacial moraine in Black Creek Valley at an elevation of about <br /> <br /> <br />10,800 feet (3,300 meters). The moraine is Pinedale (late glacial) in age <br /> <br /> <br />and is described by Richmond (1960). Black Creek flows over this moraine <br /> <br /> <br />in a small, narrow channel that has not disturbed the coarse, bouldery <br /> <br /> <br />material left behind by the glacier. If there had been any floods, greater <br /> <br /> <br />than about 1,000 cubic feet per second (28 cubic meters per second), down <br /> <br /> <br />this valley since the moraine was deposited, the moraine would have been <br /> <br /> <br />breached, a wider channel formed, and many of the large glacial boulders <br />would have been strewn across the valley floor downstream. This was not <br /> <br />observed here, or in any other valley above 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) <br /> <br />investigated in the upper Big Thompson River drainage. <br /> <br />~~--- ---- <br />