The Topographic Map Mystery: Geology’s Unrecognized Paradigm Problem: Revised Edition

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  • Eric Clausen Website: http://geomorphology… At present I am a professor emeritus having taught geology at Minot State University (North Dakota, USA) from 1968 until 1997. I was trained in geology at Columbia University and the University of Wyoming where my studies emphasized regional geomorphology. For many years I have pursued a research interest that developed when as result of geologic field work and interpretation of large mosaics of detailed North American topographic maps I discovered significant evidence previous investigators had ignored. Over a period of many years, after studying such anomalous evidence, I was forced to develop a fundamentally different interpretation of North American geomorphic history than that which is generally accepted. Geomorphology is the study of landforms and my interest as a geomorphology researcher is in determining the origin of large drainage systems, such as the Missouri River drainage basin in North America. The Missouri River drainage basin consists of thousands of smaller drainage basins, each of which has a history my essays (website posts) are trying to unravel. What I try to do is reconstruct the landscape the way it looked prior to the present day drainage system. I then try to determine how the present day drainage system evolved. While conducting my Missouri River drainage basin landform origins study I also developed an interest in scientific paradigms, especially in how scientific paradigms develop and how they are replaced. The Missouri River drainage basin landform origins project at geomorphologyresearch.com has been completed and I am currently creating a catalog of Philadelphia, PA area erosional landforms, which can be found at phillylandforms.info For off site questions and discussions about either project I can be contacted at eric2clausen@gmail.com

A newly published book titled “The Topographic Map Mystery:Geology’s Unrecognized Paradigm Problem: Revised Edition” discusses in considerable detail the problems geomorphologists have encountered when trying to explain topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence (such as is discussed on this website) and describes a new and fundamentally different Cenozoic geology and glacial history paradigm which is able to explain the topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence (and which was developed from the evidence this website describes). The book is available from a variety of on-line booksellers including Barnes and Noble at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-topographic-map-mystery-eric-clausen/1142942193 in softcover, and hardcover editions. The following is a short excerpt from the book’s back cover.

“Most drainage systems and erosional landform features as mapped on United States Geological Survey topographic maps represent anomalous evidence which the accepted Cenozoic geology and glacial history paradigm has never satisfactorily explained and which the geology research community has almost always ignored. These feature blanket most continental land areas and include river and stream valleys, drainage divides, mountain passes, through valleys (valleys crossing drainage divides), canyons cut across mountain ranges, water gaps, wind gaps, abrupt river and stream direction changes, barbed tributaries, erosional escarpments and many other similar features. How can the geology research community claim to understand Cenozoic geology and glacial history when gelogists have never determined what the well-mapped topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence has to say?”

Understanding United States Geological Survey (USGS) topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence is critical if North America’s glacial history (and middle and late Cenozoic geologic history) is to be understood, but the geological research community for decades has ignored that topographic map evidence and today has no clue as to what story the topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence is patiently waiting to tell. The topographic map mystery is: does detailed topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence tell the Cenozoic geology and glacial history the geology research community describes or does that topographic map evidence tell a different Cenozoic geology and glacial history which someday will force the geology research community to rewrite many of its now commonly accepted Cenozoic geology and glacial history interpretations? This book illustrates examples of topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence the geology research community’s accepted Cenozoic geology and glacial history paradigm cannot satisfactorily explain and briefly describes a new and fundamentally different Cenozoic geology and glacial history paradigm which does explain that topographic map evidence. 

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  1. theoryofthesecondsun

    What topographic evidence warrants the inference from the increased water flow to a larger glacier?

    The accepted consensus science arrived at a three-mile-high glacier from the floral and faunal evidence. That evidence indicated a more equable climate, which was then explained by the height required to split the jet stream.

    I would be happy to give you some sources if you like.

    Reply

    • Eric Clausen

      Your question and comments do not make sense. Topographic map evidence does show water flowed into space a melting ice sheet opened up which I interpret to mean the ice sheet floor elevation was lower than the surrounding area elevations. The lower ice sheet floor elevation suggests the ice sheet was located in a “hole” which had been created by ice sheet deep erosion and/or by uplift of the surrounding regions.

      Floral and faunal evidence cannot be used to determine how high a glacier was, but maybe can be used to make some assumptions about past climates..

      Reply

  2. theoryofthesecondsun

    Halfway through your book, I wonder what chronology you may be working with and how much uplift would be required.

    Reply

    • Eric Clausen

      I use relative dating determined by using the principle of cross cutting relationships when interpreting the topographic map drainage system and drainage divide evidence. The relative dates that I obtain from this method result in a completely different glacial history chronology than what is commonly described. You need to be more specific with your uplift question so I know what you are referring to.

      Reply

  3. theoryofthesecondsun

    On page 89, you mention that the uplift occurred too early for large volumes of meltwater, but glaciers are not the only source of water. If there were large water flows, this could result from a warmer climate.

    Reply

    • Eric Clausen

      Why would a warmer climate by itself create immense floods flowing from areas where almost every geologist recognizes evidence that a large continental ice sheet once occupied?

      Reply

  4. theoryofthesecondsun

    Why wouldn’t you just accept the earlier accepted chronology and attribute the water to heavier rainfall due to a warmer climate?

    Reply

    • Eric Clausen

      The chronology that can be developed by relative dating when using the principle of cross cutting relationships and the topographic map drainage system and drainage divide evidence suggests the accepted chronology is flawed. As mentioned, topographic map evidence can be used to trace the large floods to areas a continental ice sheet once occupied.

      Reply

  6. Eric Clausen

    A thick continental ice sheet that stood as high or higher than today’s mountains would create completely different rainfall and snowfall patterns than we see today.

    Reply

    • theoryofthesecondsun

      Here’s an idea you may like: The oldest oceanic crust is 200 million years old. Two-thirds of Earth’s surface is ocean. Then, it seems that every 100 million years, the continents wear away and are replaced.

      Reply

  7. theoryofthesecondsun

    What doesn’t make sense is preferring glacial isostatic adjustment as the cause of the uplift long after the consensus view has the orogeny (55 mya). Would you make the Laramide orogeny 2.4 mya?

    Reply

  8. theoryofthesecondsun

    I think the evidence you are examining is from long before the Quaternary and before the continental glacier believed in by the accepted consensus view. Then the uplift was caused by something else other than isostasy. Then, the amount of water must be accounted for by the warm climate.

    Reply

  9. theoryofthesecondsun

    What evidence is there that this southward water flow was Quaternary? The lay of the land must have been as you say when those rivers formed. It seems you want them to be Quaternary to provide the water from the glaciers and uplift from isostasy. Topographic evidence for greater water flow likely constitutes evidence for a warmer climate.

    Reply

  10. theoryofthesecondsun

    I notice you don’t use the terms isostasy or isostatic, yet you rely on isostatic adjustments to explain the change in the direction of water flow. What do you think of Peter James’s critique of isostasy?

    Reply

  11. Eric Clausen

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    What you are not recognizing is that the topographic map evidence defines a completely different Cenozoic geology and glacial paradigm than what the commonly accepted  geology and glacial paradigm defines. For an understanding of scientific paradigms I encourage you to read Thomas Kihn’s book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” 

    A scientific paradigm is the set of assumptions that members of a scientific discipline use to communicate with each other and to build new ideas on top of each other’s previous work. Kuhn argues that scientific paradigms are essential if scientific disciplines are to advance, but he also points out that scientific paradigms also make anomalous evidence (evidence the discipline’s accepted paradigm cannot explain) stand out. Kuhn notes there are three things a scientific discipline does with anomalous evidence. First, a way is found to tweak the accepted paradigm so as to explain the anomalous evidence. Second, the anomalous evidence can be reported and then set aside for future scientists to explain (which is what geologists did with almost all of the topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence). Third, a new paradigm can emerge which does explain the anomalous evidence (and what I describe in my book is such a new paradigm).

    Kuhn gives several examples of past scientific revolutions where a new paradigm has replaced a long held accepted paradigm. The classic example is when Copernicus suggested the Earth and the other planets moved around the Sun rather than the Sun and the other planets moving around the Earth. What Kuhn points out is the two competing paradigms describe the same observed evidence in fundamentally different ways and are incommensurable, which means there is no common standard by which the two paradigms can be compared and measured. Kuhn also says there is no way to judge which of two fundamentally different paradigms is better except by determining which of the two competing paradigms best explains the observed evidence and leads to the most promising new research opportunities.

    The purpose of my book is to point out that the geology research community has carefully mapped the United States drainage system and erosional landform evidence, but has never been able to successfully explain most of that evidence. The book illustrates examples of the many large-scale landform and drainage system features the geology research community has never satisfactorily explained. Then beginning in chapter 9 the book introduces a new and fundamentally different paradigm that I have found is able to explain much of the topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence. Chapter 12 discusses how  my new paradigm might force geologists to adopt fundamentally different interpretations of Cenozoic geology and glacial history than the interpretations now commonly told. Among those different interpretations may be a complete revision of how geologists describe Cenozoic time and events so Cenozoic time and events will correspond with the time and events the topographic map evidence describes. 

    Reply

    • theoryofthesecondsun

      The above-cited article by Mr. Taylor estimates the denudation rate of a mountain range as about 50 million years. This agrees with the accepted estimate of 55 million years for the Laramide orogeny if that is the date when it began to rise, and it has passed its peak and will be denuded in another 50 million years. This means your topographic data would date back to then, requiring a continental glacier in that era.

      Reply

  12. Eric Clausen

    Your two comments point out the problem. Geologists disagree as to how long it takes to erode a mountain range. Is 50 or 55 million years a few million years? How does one determine when a mountain range was uplifted? Right now geologists including Mr. Taylor are enamored with radiometric aging dating and ignore drainage system evidence. How do radiometric age dates obtained from a few rock samples tell when a mountain range was uplifted? Drainage system evidence which can be best be observed by using topographic maps can provide much more useful information about when a mountain range was uplifted, but that information will be relative to other drainage system events and not in the form of an absolute age date.

    Reply

    • theoryofthesecondsun

      You have not explained why your topographic evidence favors a glacial cause more than whatever uplift mechanism is thought to have caused the Laramide orogeny.

      Reply

  13. Eric Clausen

    Topographic map evidence shows the Rocky Mountains rose while massive amounts of south-oriented water was flowing across them. The only water source large enough to account for the volumes of water that must have been involved would be a large continental ice sheet. Evidence that mountain uplift blocked south-oriented water can be seen in the book’s figure 4.7 where Cameron Pass links three north- and east-oriented drainage systems. The book’s figure 10.1 shows that before being blocked the south-oriented water once flowed to the Colorado River headwaters. At the same time as the rising mountains were blocking the south-oriented water the Platte River drainage system was eroding deep valleys headward in a west direction. Those valleys beheaded and reversed the south-oriented flow in progression from east to west. Cameron Pass was eroded by water which was still moving in a south direction to the west of Wyoming’s Medicine Bow Mountains (after Platte River valley valleys had beheaded and reversed the flow to the east of the Medicine Bow Mountains). That south-oriented water was forced to make a giant U-turn around the north-south oriented Medicine Bow Mountains so as to reach the still actively eroding North and South Platte River valley systems. Headward erosion of the North Platte River valley subsequently beheaded and reversed the flow to the west of the Medicine Bow Mountains so as to create the north-oriented North Platte River headwaters seen today).

    Reply

    • theoryofthesecondsun

      You have not made the case that the glacier would be the only large enough source. The Pacific, during a warmer climate without a rain shadow, would easily provide enormous quantities of water.

      Reply

  14. Eric Clausen

    Look at Australia, without a rain shadow much of the continent is a desert. You have not made the case for the enormous amounts of water.

    Reply

  15. theoryofthesecondsun

    Then we’re tied. Not really, because there is an enormous amount of rain at present in the Pacific Northwest that would not be blocked by a rain shadow.

    Reply

  16. theoryofthesecondsun

    The Milankovitch mechanism attributes glacials to cooler summers reducing melting and warmer winters increasing precipitation. How do you have more melting with more precipitation? You are discarding Milankovitch.

    I also discard Milankovitch.

    Reply

    • Eric Clausen

      I see no drainage system evidence that supports more than two linked continental ice sheets that my new paradigm describes. I have seen in the sedimentary record evidence that may support cyclic deposition. I do not know whether those cycles are the Milankovitch cycles or not

      Reply

      • theoryofthesecondsun

        The existence of glacials depends on the Milankovitch mechanism yet your glacier violates it by both melting more in the summer and accumulating more in the winter. You will require a new mechanism to explain how your glacier was formed. That is not so bad, considering the Milankovitch mechanism has never added up.

      • theoryofthesecondsun

        In the 19th century, it was thought that an astronomical mechanism would be required to have sufficient magnitude. However, Croll concluded correctly that the astronomical factors would not accumulate any change from year to year. Milankovitch fell back on terrestrial factors. That has never really accounted for the glacials either.

  17. theoryofthesecondsun

    Peter James has shown in NCGT that the alleged glacial dam that caused glacial Lake Missoula could not have formed. The water did not come from glaciers.

    What is your response to the refutation of isostasy by James?

    Reply

    • Eric Clausen

      I am not familiar with the Peter James ideas you refer to, although i question whether an ice dam is needed to explain Glacial Lake Lake Missoula. Based on regional topography and valley systems which can be seen on topographic maps rapid ice sheet melting could easily have created a situation where a large temporary slack water lake would repeatedly fill the Clark Fork River valley and then rapidly drain. I do not discard the ice dam idea completely, but I have not seen convincing evidence for it and if it existed the hypothesis that it repeatedly reformed to block the valley (as some researchers are claiming) impresses me as being unnecessarily complicated.

      Reply

      • theoryofthesecondsun

        It was in the 2008 New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter article “The massive Missoula floods-an alternate rationale” by Peter James.

      • Eric Clausen

        Thank you for reminding me of that 2012 discussion.

      • theoryofthesecondsun

        I just got a copy of Cliff Ollier’s The Origin of Mountains. He says the mountains of the Earth have formed in the “last few million years” (cover). This would tend to place the topography within glacial times.

      • theoryofthesecondsun

        I just discovered a great new book you might like. It is recommended (in an Amazon review) by N. Christian Smoot, a surge tectonicist. It is called 20 Reasons to Question Plate Tectonics, by Ellis Hughes, c.2023. There is a good YouTube video about it. “The Problem with Plate Tectonics!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3zkcxHl-e8&t=2657s

      • Eric Clausen

        I have read Ollier’s book and liked that he argued for young mountains. I was impressed by some of his observations, but felt most of his observations were too general to be cited in my research. He tries to discuss all of the world’s mountain ranges in one book which does not permit much space for the presentation of detailed evidence which I think is necessary to properly support his conclusions.

  18. theoryofthesecondsun

    Since before the dinosaurs, the first ice on Earth began 30 million years ago in Antarctica. That makes your uplift later than that.

    Reply

  19. Eric Clausen

    You are mixed up on your accepted paradigm age dates. According to the accepted paradigm the dinosaurs became extinct long before ice sheets began to form on Antarctica and I have no reason to question that interpretation. In terms of age dates I again need to warn you that fundamentally different paradigms probably define geologic time in different ways and you cannot use accepted paradigm age dates to determine when new paradigm events took place. Read Thomas Kuhn’s book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”!!!!

    Reply

  20. theoryofthesecondsun

    I meant the first ice after the dinosaurs. There were snowball earths before that.

    I understand paradigms, and a new one, according to Popper, would conserve as much as possible of the successes of the previous ones and not discard everything.

    Reply

  21. theoryofthesecondsun

    Tony Heller is an excellent scientist who just said, “Geologists have always been considered the real climate scientists, because much of geology is based on an understanding of past climates. It is only recently that the term “climate scientist” was hijacked by climate modelers – whose work is less meaningful than alchemy.”

    Reply

    • theoryofthesecondsun

      Reply

      • theoryofthesecondsun

        The idea was taken up by Creationists so it is in disrepute. Neuville’s disproof of the cold adaptation is based on the lack of sebaceous glands. Some Russian scientists claim to have proven that mammoths had sebaceous glands. I have found the Russian scientists to be in error.

      • theoryofthesecondsun

        Creationists have dropped the idea accepting the Russian’s claim.

  23. theoryofthesecondsun

    I just discovered a great new book you might like. It is recommended (in an Amazon review) by N. Christian Smoot, a surge tectonicist. It is called 20 Reasons to Question Plate Tectonics, by Ellis Hughes, c.2023.

    Reply

    • Eric Clausen

      My research is based on drainage system and erosional landform evidence which suggests plate tectonics is not responsible for all mountain uplifts. Otherwise I have seen no evidence which has caused me to question plate tectonics, although I do speculate that a large and thick continental icesheet might cause plate tectonics to act differently than it does when the icesheet is not present.

      Reply

      • theoryofthesecondsun

        You never used the word “isostasy” in your book but instead chose to describe it as a “deep hole’ and “tilting”. If you have no issue with plate tectonics why do you shy away from the term isostasy?

      • Eric Clausen

        I shy away from using the word “isostasy” perhaps because the word may have a slightly different meaning in the accepted geology and glacial history paradigm than it has in the new paradigm which the topographic map drainage system and erosional landform evidence describes. Instead I try to explain what happened by using paradigm neutral terms. The deep “hole” is as much an erosional feature as it is an “isostatic” feature and I want to emphasize that the first thick icesheet deeply eroded the continent. I do not use the word “tilting”.

    • Eric Clausen

      I watched the video. The problems discussed relate to evidence I have not studied so I will refrain from commenting on them. The video appeared to me to advocate an alternate hypothesis which probably has far more problems than plate tectonics.

      Reply

  25. theoryofthesecondsun

    I do not think the alternative hypothesis was involved in or required by the criticisms. The video was made by a hydroplate person and I have no regard for that. Smoot is a surge tectonics guy. The criticisms seem to be ones the mainstream has neglected to attend to and appear fatal to plate tectonics.

    Reply

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