Below the arid surface of southern Oregon’s Alvord Desert are the echoes of a once massive Ice Age Lake, along with the scars of an ancient catastrophic flood that helped to reshape the landscape in ways that can still be seen today.
Evidence of the upheaval that once impacted this region close to 13,000 years ago were recently revealed in new satellite images obtained by Landsat 8, one of several NASA satellites that have been operated by the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) since May 30, 2013.
During the Pleistocene epoch, Alvord Lake had been part of a once sprawling inland body of water that spanned more than 80 miles, with depths in many areas that plunged several hundreds of feet. Near the end of the last Ice Age around 13,000 years ago, a dramatic outburst flood occurred which tore through modern day Big Sand Gap, unleashing torrents of water that scored canyons and bedrock in the region, signatures of which can still be observed today.
In the new satellite imagery from Landsat 8, features left behind by this prehistoric deluge offer insights into the dynamic climate and geology of North America at a time when, 13,000 years ago, the shifting global dynamics of a world in transition between two geological epochs could often produce extreme environmental changes.
Oregon’s Ice Age Prehistory
From roughly 40,000 to 12,000 years ago, Oregon’s Alvord Lake counted among the many vast pluvial lakes—bodies of water that accumulate in basins—throughout midwestern North America. At its peak, Pleistocene-era Alvord, like other large lakes in the region, was susceptible to dangerous “fill-and-spill” events, in which rising waters overtopped natural barriers and flooded downstream valleys.
Often, the results of these rapid flooding events could also be catastrophic.
Geological evidence suggests that around 13,000 years ago Alvord’s waters breached the Big Sand Gap, which sent several cubic miles of water coursing through the adjacent Coyote Lake basin, and even well beyond, ultimately pouring into the nearby Owyhee and Snake River systems.
Along its way, the torrent carved deep canyons, carried massive boulders to heights of as much as 100 feet above modern-day river channels, and even left a trail of erosional features that are comparable to the famous Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington.
Satellite Images Detect Evidence of ancient Flooding
Fast forward to June 29, 2025, as NASA’s Operational Land Imager (OLI) aboard Landsat 8 obtained satellite imagery over the region, revealing natural and false-color views of the modern-day Alvord Desert.
These striking new images showcase the towering summit of Steens Mountain, which rises a mile above the surrounding flat playa, with a dramatic escarpment lining the eastern edge of the basin.
NASA’s false-color imagery obtained using OLI spectral bands 6, 5, and 4 (which detect near infrared and shortwave infrared) suggest that some surface water may have been present in the basin when the new images were taken, which points to a seasonal phenomenon associated with snowmelt runoff from the mountains of sporadic rainfall.
In recent times, the Alvord Desert last held water during a period in the mid 1980s, coinciding with an unusually wet period. However, Alvord Desert still retains many traces of its ancient past, which include salt-crusted mineral deposits and significant volumes of dusty sediments from its original lakebed. Recent imagery of the playa floor as it appears today reveals cracked white crusts rich in salt, contrasting against snowcapped mountains in the distance.
Echoes of Mars and Its “Devilish” Whirlwinds
Another frequent occurrence in the basin are its dust devils, where columns of hot, rising air begin swirling across the desert’s surface. An intriguing phenomenon to scientists who study weather phenomena on Earth, they also serve as a unique analog for the dust devils that are often spotted on the surface of Mars by NASA’s robotic rovers Curiosity and Perseverance.
“In recent years, researchers have sought to better understand dust devils by measuring meteorological conditions in the Alvord Desert,” wrote Lindsey Doermann at NASA’s Earth Observatory website. “The convective vortices are powered by the Sun’s heating of the land surface, but the details of their drivers and inner workings are still somewhat mysterious.”
The unique environment in the Alvord Desert finds it to be an ideal natural laboratory for studying these vortices, which manifest resulting from solar heating of the arid terrain. Understanding the exact mechanisms behind their occurrence might also help scientists studying the Martian environment understand why they appear more frequently there, potentially influencing the planet’s climate by carrying fine particles up into the Red Planet’s atmosphere.
As ongoing studies continue to amass more data about regions like the Alvord Desert, its catastrophic past, and the dynamics of its modern environment, the unique location offers a window not only to Earth’s ancient past, but also a guide to help scientists better understand phenomena occurring on other worlds.
Additional information on the recent satellite images can be found at the official website of NASA’s Earth Observatory.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.
