Abstract
Plains riverine ecosystems have evolved through the intervention of very extreme climatic, geologic, and biotic events. The Pleistocene Epoch played a pivotal role in creating the present day Missouri River. Northeasterly flowing Plains streams such as the Musselshell, Yellowstone, and Cheyenne were dammed by the advancing glacial ice, and flows were diverted southeasterly along the glacial front, forming the present day upper Missouri River (Flint 1957). Plains river systems were further affected by the mid-Holocene warm and dry period (6,000 to 4,000 B.P.), and throughout postglacial time by shorter, but periodic, dry and wet periods. Extremely large floods, exceeding those of this century, occurred on the Missouri River in 1844 and 1881, before most Euro-American settlement. The severe drought of the 1930s, in conjunction with the Great Depression, led to economic and social instability in the Great Plains, creating a setting for the New Deal of the Roosevelt Administration.
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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Becker, D.A., Gorton, R.D. (1995). The Missouri River: A Formula for Ecosystem Change. In: Johnson, S.R., Bouzaher, A. (eds) Conservation of Great Plains Ecosystems: Current Science, Future Options. Ecology, Economy & Environment, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0439-5_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0439-5_18
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