Kankakee Torrent

The Kankakee Torrent was a catastrophic flood that occurred about 19,000 calibrated years ago[1] in the Midwestern United States.

It resulted from a breach of moraines forming a large glacial lake fed by the melting of the Late Wisconsin Laurentide Ice Sheet.

[1] Most notable today is a region in north-central Illinois known as Starved Rock; while most of Illinois is located on a low-lying plain with little variation in elevation, Starved Rock State Park features several canyons which were created in the Kankakee Torrent.

[5] When European settlers arrived, one remaining sign of these deposits were sand dunes located along parts of the flood's course.

The Kankakee River State Park encompasses all of the types of features that formed as a result of the catastrophic flood event.

The Illinois State Geological Survey reports that Rock Creek is cutting through the dolomite bedrock to the waterfall point, upstream of its confluence with the Kankakee River, at the rate of 3 inches (76 mm) per year.

In the Morris Basin was Lake Wauponsee, which reached east up the Kankakee Valley into Indiana.

The heavy flow of water transported boulders downstream and moved glacial erratics from the tills.

Upon reaching the LaSalle, Illinois, area, the flood entered the ancestral Mississippi valley, now abandoned.

The area where the old Mississippi valley was joined is called the Big Bend of the Illinois River.