TITLE:
Yellowstone Region Drainage History as Determined from the 1955 Ashton, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming 1:250,000 Scale Topographic Map, USA
AUTHORS:
Eric Clausen
KEYWORDS:
Continental Divide, Firehole River, Gallatin River, Geomorphology, Madison River, Snake River
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Geology,
Vol.14 No.3,
March
14,
2024
ABSTRACT: The
United States Geological Survey (USGS) 1955 (revised in 1972) Ashton
topographic map (Ashton map) with a 1:250,000 scale and a 200-foot (about
60-meter) contour interval covers almost all of Yellowstone National Park and some adjacent regions to the south and west.
In spite of numerous publications discussing Yellowstone region geologic
history the drainage system and erosional landform evidence on the Ashton map
appears to have been ignored. Drainage divides identifiable on the
Ashton map separate the north-oriented Yellowstone, Gallatin, Madison, and
Jefferson River drainage basins (which are located to the north and east of the
continental divide with their water flowing to the Missouri River and
ultimately the Gulf of Mexico) from the south-oriented Snake River drainage
basin (with its water eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean). The Ashton map
shows water-eroded passes and through valleys which link diverging and
converging valleys which drain in opposite directions from the continental
divide. These diverging and converging valleys suggest large volumes of
south-oriented water once flowed across the Yellowstone region continental
divide and some other Ashton map drainage divides. The accepted geology and
glacial history paradigm (accepted paradigm) cannot satisfactorily explain the
Ashton map drainage system and erosional landform evidence, which may be why
geomorphologists have never addressed the map evidence. A new and fundamentally
different geology and glacial history paradigm requiring the Yellowstone region
to be located on the rim of a continental ice sheet created and occupied deep
“hole” (which was uplifted as immense meltwater floods flowed across it)
explains Ashton map drainage system and erosional landform evidence, but raises
questions about previously published Yellowstone region geologic histories.