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No, seriously, a river really runs through it.
Via Nicholas, whom I found because I have nothing better to do this morning than check my site referrals and drink coffee, we have here Durango Bill’s Ancestral Rivers of the World. Fans of the geological writing of John McPhee
There are many rivers that flow through mountains rather than around them, indication that the rivers existed before the mountains did. Durango Bill has compiled examples from around the world of such rivers, with maps and an explanation of the two main means by which rivers carve canyons through mountain ranges. He includes one of my favorite such, the Green River flowing through Split Mountain, Utah, on its own page. The mouth of that canyon is pictured below, dog provided for scale:
A related phenomenon: the entrenched meander. The canonical example of same is probably the San Juan Goosenecks. Read Bill’s pages and their formation will be explained, though he doesn’t mention them that I see.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
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