Abstract
The landscape of the Rhine River valley between Chur and Ilanz bears the signature of two remarkable events that happened shortly after the end of the Last Glacial Period. Two huge rockslides blocked the river and formed upstream lakes. The Flims rockslide (10 km3) liquefied about 1 km3 of alluvial and lacustrine sediments, and the liquefied slurry flowed down the Vorderrhein Valley, over the older Tamins rockslide barrier, and far up the Hinterrhein Valley. The deposit of this slurry, termed Bonaduz gravel, rafted huge masses of rockslide material (‘tumas’). Soon after these momentous events, the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein rivers cut down through the rockslide deposits and the Bonaduz gravel, while Lake Ilanz, impounded behind the Flims rockslide barrier, drained in a series of huge downstream floods. A legacy of these events is the Rhine gorge, which was cut by the Vorderrhein River where it flowed across the Flims rockslide barrier.
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