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Megafloods downsized

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A fresh look at the Channeled Scablands of North America shows that the ancient floods that scarred that landscape were smaller than is commonly assumed. This result could revise estimates of similar floods on Mars. See Letter p.229

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Figure 1: Competing models of canyon erosion by floods.
Figure 2: Moses Coulee.

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Correspondence to J. Taylor Perron or Jeremy G. Venditti.

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Perron, J., Venditti, J. Megafloods downsized. Nature 538, 174–175 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/538174a

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