earth science

Red Rock Pass

Red Rock Pass is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Red Rock Pass rather than just read about it. In short: Red Rock Pass is a low mountain pass in the Western United States in southeastern Idaho, located in southern Bannock County, south of Downey. It is geologically significant as the spillway of ancient Lake Bonneville.

Key takeaways

Red Rock Pass belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Red Rock Pass to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Red Rock Pass from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Red Rock Pass is a low mountain pass in the Western United States in southeastern Idaho, located in southern Bannock County, south of Downey. It is geologically significant as the spillway of ancient Lake Bonneville. It is traversed by U.S. Route 91 at an elevation of 4,785 feet (1,458 m) above sea level, bounded by two mountain ranges; the Portneuf to the east and the Bannock to the west. The pass was cut through resistant Paleozoic shale, limestone, and dolomite, and forms a narrow gap two miles (3 km) in length. At one time the pass was 300 feet (90 m) higher, where the shoreline of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville stood. The pass takes its name from the red limestone cliffs which border it. Red Rock Pass has a surface deposit of calcareous silty alluvium with topsoil of dark grayish brown silt loam.

Bonneville flood

It is believed that during the last ice age lava flows in the vicinity of Pocatello began to divert the Bear River through Lake Thatcher and then into Lake Bonneville. This sudden influx caused Bonneville to overflow at Red Rock about 14,500 years ago. This overflow caused a sudden erosion of unconsolidated material on the northern shoreline near Red Rock Pass. As the material gave way, Marsh Creek Valley, immediately downstream, was flooded from wall to wall, and the rapid discharge eroded the pass to its present level. The flood then flowed into the Snake River Plain, generally following the path of the present-day Snake River to its outlet in the Pacific Northwest. The Bonneville flood, as it is known, was a catastrophic event. The maximum discharge was about 15 million cubic feet per second (420,000 m³/s), or about three times the average flow of the Amazon River, the world's largest river, and almost 180 times the average flow rate of Niagara Falls (85,000 cfs). The speed of flow was approximately 16 miles per hour (7.2 m/s), and though peak flow lasted only a few days, voluminous discharges may have continued for at least a year.

References

External links

Huge Floods.com – Bonneville Idaho State Univ. – Digital Geology of Idaho Archived 2009-03-03 at the Wayback Machine – Lake Bonneville

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Red Rock Pass

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Red Rock Pass claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Red Rock Pass before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Red Rock Pass ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Red Rock Pass

In research: Red Rock Pass appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Red Rock Pass in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Red Rock Pass is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Geology of Idaho, Historical geology, Landforms of Bannock County, Idaho, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Red Rock Pass outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Red Rock Pass in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Red Rock Pass means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Red Rock Pass out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Red Rock Pass in simple terms?

Why does Red Rock Pass matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Red Rock Pass?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Red Rock Pass.