Origin of Little Missouri River - South Fork Grand River and nearby Drainage Divides in Harding County, South Dakota and Adjacent Eastern Montana, USA

2018

JGG

Self Cite

The dearth of scientific literature in which specific erosional landform origins are determined is an example of what Thomas Kuhn considered a scientific crisis. Scientific crises arise when scientists following their discipline’s established paradigm’s rules, or doing what Kuhn calls normal science, cannot explain observed evidence. Scientific crises are resolved in one of three ways. Normal science may eventually explain the evidence and normal science returns, the unsolved problems may be identified and labeled and left for future scientists to solve, or a new paradigm may emerge with an ensuing battle over its acceptance. To succeed any new paradigm must demonstrate its ability to explain the previously unexplained evidence and also open up new research opportunities. During the 20th century’s first half regional geomorphologists abiding by their discipline’s paradigm rules unsuccessfully tried to explain origins of numerous erosional landforms, such as drainage divides and erosional escarpments. Their failures eventually caused the regional geomorphology discipline, at least that part of the discipline concerned with determining specific erosional landform origins, to almost completely disappear. A new and fundamentally different geomorphology paradigm that requires massive southeast-oriented continental ice sheet melt-water floods to have flowed across the Powder River Basin has the ability to explain specific erosional landform origins and is demonstrated here by using detailed topographic map evidence to show how large southeast-oriented floods eroded the Powder River Basin’s Belle Fourche River-Cheyenne River drainage divide segment, eroded through valleys now crossing that drainage divide segment, eroded the Powder River Basin’s Belle Fourche River valley, established Belle Fourche and Cheyenne River Powder River Basin tributary valley orientations, and eroded the north-facing Pine Ridge Escarpment. The success of this and other similar new paradigm demonstrations suggest many if not all specific erosional landform origins can be determined.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Belle Fourche River-Cheyenne River Drainage Divide Area in the Wyoming Powder River Basin Analyzed by Topographic Map Interpretation Methods, USA

2018

JGG

Self Cite

“…In addition such ice sheets might have created and occupied a deep "hole" in the North American continent by depressing the continental crust beneath them, deeply eroding the underlying bedrock underneath them, and by warping the continental crust elsewhere. While the concept of deep erosion by continental ice sheets has been rejected by much of the geologic research community the concept has been proposed (see references by White [24] [25]) and Clausen [26] and [27] has recently described western South Dakota and southeastern Montana evidence for headward erosion of deep north-and northeast-oriented valleys (perhaps eroding headward from space in an ice sheet created and occupied deep "hole" that was being opened up as a large continental ice sheet melted). The north-oriented South Dakota and southeastern Montana valleys eroded headward across what may have been large and southeast-oriented ice marginal melt water floods.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Mountains Passes along the East-West Continental Divide and Other Drainage Divides Surrounding the Boulder River Drainage Basin, Jefferson County, Montana, USA

2017

OJG

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Detailed topographic maps of drainage divides surrounding the Jefferson County, Montana, Boulder River drainage basin were analyzed to determine the nature of drainage systems that preceded today's Boulder River drainage system and how the Boulder River drainage system evolved from those earlier drainage systems. The Boulder River studied here drains in a north, east, and south direction to the Jefferson River, which at Three Forks, Montana joins the north-oriented Madison and Gallatin Rivers to form the north-oriented Missouri River. The North American east-west Continental Divide surrounds the Boulder River drainage basin western half and mountainous drainage divides with the Jefferson and Missouri Rivers surround the drainage basin's eastern half. More than 25 deep mountain passes are notched into these drainage divides and provide evidence of the regional drainage system that preceded the present day Boulder River drainage system. Analysis of pass elevations and of orientations of valleys leading in opposite directions from those mountain passes shows that prior to Boulder River drainage system development immense volumes of south-oriented water moving in anastomosing complexes of diverging and converging channels flowed across the Boulder River drainage basin area and that the Boulder River drainage system evolved as deeper channels progressively captured flow from shallower channels. While not documented in detail crustal warping probably raised Boulder River drainage basin areas relative to adjacent valleys and basins as capture events took place. A water source was not determined, but may have been from a large North American continental ice sheet, although Boulder River

“…The valleys are considered to have eroded headward from space being opened up at the southern end of a deep "hole" that a decaying continental ice sheet had previously created and occupied. Another paper (Clausen, 2017b) More recently in a fifth paper (Clausen, 2018b) illustrates how massive southeast-oriented floods eroded at least 152 m of bedrock from the Powder River-Little Missouri River drainage divide area near Chalk Buttes in Carter County, Montana prior to headward erosion of the 244 m deep north-oriented Powder River valley, which occurred after headward erosion of the north-oriented Little Missouri River valley. A sixth recent paper (Clausen 2018c) describes how a melt-water river emerging from the mouth of a large south-oriented ice-walled and bedrock-floored canyon converged with immense southeast-oriented ice-marginal melt-water floods to erode unusual northeast Nebraska drainage routes.…”

Section: Explaining Northern Great Plains Landformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep Erosion by Continental Ice Sheets: A Northern Missouri River Drainage Basin Perspective: North America

Current Research in Geoscience

2018

Self Cite

While accepting some erosion by continental ice sheets most geologists reject a previously proposed deep erosion by continental ice sheets hypothesis, yet common sense logic suggests continental ice sheets should have eroded much more than they are usually given credit for. Such situations arise in scientific communities when an accepted paradigm cannot adequately explain significant observable evidence. A new and fundamentally different paradigm, constructed from detailed topographic map evidence, illustrates how deep erosion (and crustal warping) by at least one continental ice sheet explains previously unexplained northern Missouri River drainage basin erosional landform origins. The new paradigm requires at least one North American continental ice sheet to have created (by deep erosion and by ice sheet related crustal warping) a deep "hole" in which the ice sheet was located. Late during that ice sheet's melt history north-and northeast-oriented valleys eroded headward from that deep "hole's" southern end to capture immense southeast-oriented icemarginal melt-water floods and to create what are today north-and northeast-oriented Missouri River headwaters and tributary drainage routes. While successfully explaining numerous previously unexplained erosional landforms the new paradigm challenges a number of commonly accepted middle and late Cenozoic geologic and glacial history interpretations.