at Perma, Montana. Both the prairie and basin are surrounded by north-south trending mountain ranges except where Camas Creek drains into the Flathead River. The basin is about in dimensions with an area of about . The center of this relatively flat basin lies at elevations just below . The basin is bordered by the Salish Mountains on its eastern side and northern end and bordered by the Cabinet Mountains on its western side. These mountains rise above elevations of . The Camas Prairie region is sparsely populated and lies within the Flathead Indian Reservation. The two main populated places within this region are Camas (Ktunaxa: ya·qa·kmumaǂki) and Perma (Ktunaxa: kxunamaʔnam) Bedrock Geology The basin in which the Camas Prairie lies is a low-relief valley surrounded by mountains composed of metasedimentary strata that belong to the Prichard Formation of the Belt Supergroup. These strata are intensively folded and thrust faulted. The basin is filled with undifferentiated Cenozoic red, greenish, and bluish siltstone and mudstone and volcanic rock. A few sandy and gravelly beds are also present. These strata outcrop at the surface around the perimeter of the basin. Within the basin, they are cover by of Quaternary deposits that accumulated within glacial Lake Missoula. Quaternary Geology The Camas Prairie is well-known for the large fields of Late Pleistocene giant current ripples that cover a substantial part of its surface. They were created during one of the many times when glacial Lake Missoula drained when its ice dam failed. From the northern edge of the Camas Basin, the fields of giant current ripples extend south (downcurrent) from four mountain passes that were once submerge inlets into the flooded Camas Basin. Southward, these fields of giant current ripples spread out and merge on the basin floor. These sedimentary bedforms are best seen in aerial images and at low sun angles. These giant current ripples are large-to-very-large, subaqueous gravel dunes and antidunes. Although they once covered a significantly larger area, they cover about of the Camas Prairie basin. The wavelength of these dunes and antidunes ranges from and their height ranges from . They are all two-dimensional, flow transverse, sinuous, sedimentary bedforms. The wavelength and height of these giant current ripples decrease away (downcurrent) from the former inlets. Correspondingly, the size of the gravels comprising them decreases south (downcurrent) from boulder and cobble gravels to pebble gravels. Their foreset bedding is poorly defined