The multiple flood hypothesis was first proposed by R.B. Waitt, Jr. in 1980. Waitt argued for a sequence of 40 or more floods. Waitt's proposal was based mainly on analysis from glacial lake bottom deposits in Ninemile Creek and the flood deposits in Burlingame Canyon. His most compelling argument for separate floods was that the Touchet bed deposits from two successive floods were found to be separated by two layers of volcanic ash (tephra) with the ash separated by a fine layer of windblown dust deposits, located in a thin layer between sediment layers ten rhythmites below the top of the Touchet beds. The two layers of volcanic ash are separated by of airborne nonvolcanic silt. The tephra is Mount St. Helens ash that fell in Eastern Washington. By analogy, since there were 40 layers with comparable characteristics at Burlingame Canyon, Waitt argued they all could be considered to have similar separation in deposition time.