The Topographic Map Mystery:

Eric Clausen

Description

Understanding drainage system and erosional landforms origins is critical if geologists want to properly describe North America’s Cenozoic geology and glacial history and United States Geologic Survey topographic maps provide well-mapped but mostly ignored and unexplained or poorly explained drainage system and erosional landform evidence. The Topographic Map Mystery: Geology’s Unrecognized Paradigm Problem illustrates dozens of examples of unexplained and poorly explained topographic map drainage system and erosional landform features and explores what that mysterious map evidence is patiently waiting to say. Does the topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence support the geology research community’s frequently told Cenozoic geology and glacial history story or will the topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence–when finally understood–force the geology research community to completely rewrite its Cenozoic geology and glacial history?

Sujets

• Astronomie
• Astrophysique
• Science
• Maps
• Astronomy
• Map
• Topography
• Geography
• Sciences et techniques
• Space Science

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 12 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781669859178
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

THE TOPOGRAPHIC MAP MYSTERY:
Geology’s Unrecognized
Paradigm Problem
ERIC CLAUSEN
 

 
Front cover and above: Modified topographic map from the United States Geological Survey National Map website showing a northcentral Colorado mountain pass crossing North America’s east-west continental divide and linking the north-oriented Encampment River and north- and west-oriented North Fork Elk River valleys. Accepted geology and glacial history paradigm rules and assumptions do not permit satisfactory pass origin explanations. The contour interval is 40 feet (12 meters). Top left corner: 400 53’ 21.645” N, 1060 44’ 59.352” W.
Back cover: Modified topographic map from the United States Geological Survey National Map website showing Phelps and Two Ocean Passes crossing the east-west continental divide to the south of Yellowstone National Park. Accepted geology and glacial history paradigm rules and assumptions do not permit satisfactory pass origin explanations. The contour interval is 50 meters. Top left corner: 440 07’ 00.587” N, 1100 17’ 10.687” W.
 
Copyright © 2023 by Eric Clausen. 848982
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
 
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-5918-5

Hardcover
978-1-6698-5919-2

EBook
978-1-6698-5917-8
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023900101
 
 
 
Rev. date:   09/27/2023
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Topographic Map Mystery Begins
Chapter 2: The Barbed Tributary Mystery
Chapter 3: The Large Escarpment-Surrounded Basin Mystery
Chapter 4: The Mountain Passes Along the East-West Continental Divide Mystery
Chapter 5: The Water Gap and Rivers Flowing Across Mountain Ranges Mystery
Chapter 6: The Valleys Eroded across Drainage Divides Mystery
Chapter 7: The Rivers that Change Direction for No Apparent Reason Mystery
Chapter 8: The Poorly Explained Erosional Escarpment Mystery
Chapter 9: A New Paradigm That Explains Topographic Map Drainage System Evidence
Chapter 10: Demonstrating New Paradigm Explanations of Topographic Map Evidence
Chapter 11: Additional New Paradigm Explanations of Topographic Map Evidence
Chapter 12: What Solving the Topographic Map Mystery Could Possibly Mean
Some Final Notes
Accepted Paradigm References Cited in Chapters 1–9 and Chapter 11
References for New Paradigm Demonstration Papers Described in Chapters 9–11
Introduction
In September of 1961, I arrived on the Columbia University campus as a naive freshman student without well-thought-out future plans. My required and elective freshman year classes were not exciting, and one night, I decided to study the college catalog, looking for more interesting classes. The resulting shortlist ended up with a few of what looked like really appealing classes, and two of those classes were graduate-level geology courses, which were only open to undergraduate geology majors and then only with the instructor’s permission. One of those intriguing classes was “Topographic Map Interpretation”. United States Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps fascinated me. My father, who taught botany at Cornell University, used USGS topographic maps when planning his field studies, and as a Boy Scout, I had used topographic maps on hiking and camping trips. The idea of spending an entire semester taking an advanced graduate-level course that taught how to interpret geologic information on the USGS-published topographic maps was alluring and something I wanted to do.
After switching majors and three years later, I was a Columbia College senior majoring in geology and finally able to enroll in Arthur Strahler’s graduate-level topographic map interpretation class. At that time, the class was required for many of the Columbia University Geology Department graduate students, and other than three undergraduate geology majors, including myself, all of my thirty or so classmates were graduate students. I found the class fascinating as we learned how geologic features could be interpreted from topographic map evidence. Soon I was explaining topographic map features to several of my graduate student classmates, which seemed odd because some of those same class members served as teaching assistants in undergraduate geology classes I was still taking. I considered the course to be one of the best Columbia University classes I took; however, many of my classmates appeared (at least to me) to regard the topographic map interpretation class as a waste of their time.
That same academic year, I, along with an almost identical set of classmates, enrolled in Arthur Strahler’s graduate-level geomorphology class, which at that time was another requirement for many of the Columbia University Geology Department graduate students. Strahler used what at that time was the newly published Regional Geomorphology of the United States (1965) by W. D. Thornbury as a textbook. What impressed me most about that class was the large number of unsolved drainage history and erosional landform origin problems found in almost every United States region. It seemed as though both Strahler and the textbook were, directly and indirectly, posing intriguing but yet-to-be-answered questions about many of what I considered to be some of the most obvious large-scale United States erosional landform and drainage system features. I left that class believing those unanswered questions would someday be answered; however, my classmates appeared to be much more interested in completely different types of geologic problems.
Two years after obtaining my undergraduate degree, Arthur Strahler left Columbia University to become a fulltime academic author, and the Geology Department discontinued the topographic map interpretation and geomorphology classes. At that time, I was pursuing graduate studies at the University of Wyoming, where Brainerd Mears Jr.—who in the late 1940s had been one of Strahler’s graduate students—assigned some of Strahler’s published research papers through which I learned for the first time that Strahler had transitioned from being a historical qualitative geomorphologist to being what he called a quantitative-dynamic geomorphologist. By making his transition, Strahler helped to change geomorphology’s direction. I was surprised to learn about Strahler’s transition (see Strahler 1952) after having recently taken courses in which Strahler presented himself as a historical qualitative geomorphologist and had posed numerous unanswered questions that only historical qualitative geomorphology research techniques such as topographic map interpretation could answer.
Also, I learned for the first time that an inability to explain Appalachian region drainage development in his PhD thesis project (see Strahler 1945) led Strahler to transition from historical qualitative geomorphology research to quantitative-dynamic geomorphology and that Strahler’s transition had contributed to historical qualitative geomorphology’s demise. Yet, at no time during the two classes I took from him did Strahler give any indication of having made such a transition. I was puzzled. The unanswered drainage history and erosional landform origin questions Strahler had raised were questions any serious geologist should want to see answered. Information needed to answer those questions was available on the USGS detailed topographic maps, and the topographic map interpretation methods Strahler taught were logical and made sense. Yet, for some reason, the topographic map evidence did not provide satisfactory answers. And to make the situation even more puzzling, Strahler, later in his life, claimed that trying to find answers to those types of research questions was largely a waste of time.
Strahler was a skilled topographic map interpreter, and if anyone had been able to answer the historical qualitative geomorphology drainage system and erosional landform origin questions, it would have been Strahler. Further, unlike geomorphologists who did not have access to large topographic map collections, Strahler could easily access Columbia University’s large USGS topographic map collection. Strahler’s inability to answer the geology research community’s unanswered drainage system and erosional landform questions was not unique.
Early in the twentieth century, historical qualitative geomorphology, in which topographic map interpretation was an important research tool, had been a promising research field, and the United States Geological Survey was engaged in a long-term project to provide detailed topographic map coverage for all United States regions. Geomorphologists at that time expected the then yet-to-be-mapped and published USGS detailed topographic maps to provide the information needed to answer their drainage history and erosional landform origin questions. Yet, by the mid-twentieth-century, in spite of expanding topographic map coverage and improving map quality, almost all geomorphologists had turned away from historical qualitative geomorphology research methods, such as topographic map interpretation and were leaving their drainage system and erosional landform origin questions unanswered. The problem was no matter how hard geomorphologists tried, they could not use their topographic map interpretation methods to satisfactorily an