Flood Surge on the Rubicon River, California - Hydrology, Hydraulics and Boulder Transport

Prepared in cooperation with the California Department of Water Resources. The failure of the partly completed Hell Hole Dam December 23, 1964, released a surge with discharge greatly in excess of any recorded flow on the nipper part of the Rubicon River, a westward-drainage of the Sierra Nevada. Extensive erosion of glacial-outwash terraces along the steep, bedrock course of the stream indicates that the surge was probably greater than any post-Pleistocene discharge. Such a unique event, during which more than 700,000 culblc yards of rockflll from the breached dam embankment was washed downstream, permits documentation of the sedimentologic and geomorphic effects of a single catastrophic flow.