Abstract. Salmon habitat is enhanced by the wide valleys and channel heterogeneity created by landslides. Earthflows, which are slow moving and fine-grained mass movements, can further potentially alter habitat by constricting valleys and sustaining delivery of debris and fine sediment. Here, we examine the influence of earthflows on salmon habitat in the Teanaway River basin, central Cascade Range, Washington. We mapped earthflows based on morphologic characteristics and relatively dated earthflow activity using a flow directional surface roughness metric called MADstd. The relative MADstd ages are supported by six radiocarbon ages, three lake sedimentation ages, and 20 cross-cutting relationships, indicating that MADstd is a useful tool to identify and relatively date earthflows, especially in heavily vegetated regions. Our age and MADstd distributions reflect a period of earthflow activity in the mid-Holocene and some sustained movement through the late Holocene that is primed by regolith production in the Pleistocene and early Holocene and triggered by a warm and wet climate during the mid-Holocene. The timing of earthflows is coincident with stabilization of salmon habitat and abundant salmon populations, indicating the fine sediment from earthflows did not negatively impact habitat. Wide valleys formed upstream of valley-constricting earthflows have added habitat zones, which may be of increased importance as climate change causes lower flows and higher temperatures in the Teanaway basin over the next century.

Abstract. Earthflows create landscape heterogeneity, increase local erosion rates, and heighten sediment loads in streams. These slow moving and fine-grained mass movements make up much of the Holocene erosion in the Teanaway River basin, central Cascade Range, Washington State, yet controls on earthflow activity and the resulting topographic impacts are unquantified. We mapped earthflows based on morphologic characteristics and relatively dated earthflow activity using a flow directional surface roughness metric called MADstd. The relative MADstd activity is supported by six radiocarbon ages, three lake sedimentation ages, and 16 cross-cutting relationships, indicating that MADstd is a useful tool to identify and relatively date earthflow activity, especially in heavily vegetated regions. Nearly all of the mapped earthflows are in the Teanaway and lower Roslyn formations, which comprise just 32.7 % of the study area. Earthflow aspect follows bedding planes in these units, demonstrating a strong lithologic control on earthflow location. Based on absolute ages and MADstd distributions, a quarter of the earthflows in the Teanaway Basin were active in the last few hundred years; the timing coincides with deforestation and increased land use in the Teanaway. Major tributaries initiate in earthflows and valley width is altered by earthflows that create wide valleys upstream and narrow constrictions within the earthflow zone. Although direct sediment delivery from earthflows brings fine sediment to the channel, stream power is sufficient to readily transport fines downstream. Based on our findings, over the Holocene – and particularly in the last few hundred years – lithologic-controlled earthflow erosion in the Teanaway basin has altered valley bottom connectivity and increased delivery of fine sediments to tributary channels.