ABSTRACT
Geomorphology has been bipolar in its emphasis. One emphasis has been on the operation and functioning of present-day processes. The other has been on long-term landform evolution and landscape chronology. This chapter presents and discusses relatively long-term observations of present-day mass wasting events or material fluxes on mountain slopes in the context of the long-term geomorphic record. The reverse pattern reflects one instance of massive down slope deposition by a snow avalanche in the winter of 1977, a winter noted throughout the Canadian Rocky Mountains for numerous, and destructive full-depth avalanches. All subsequent glacial episodes in the Canadian Rockies were of lesser magnitude, but several are better represented in the stratigraphy. While glacial episodes indicate the major environmental-geomorphic shifts, some non-glacial landforms suggest tempo changes in fluvial and mass-wasting processes in the late-Wisconsin to present-time spectrum. Flood-debris flow activity is a common occurrence in the Canadian Rocky Mountains under contemporary environmental conditions.
