Massive uphill climb near Watertown (Mitchell, Milbank: deposits, land, area)

[Omahahonors]

I was amazed to see many hill formations that appeared to look like foothills and the kind of geological bending and twisting that you see in the panhandle of Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado... That was on top of this almost constant uphill climb where my ears kept popping.

anybody here with any geological background research have an explanation for this? The area appears to be a hotspot for more rapid geological movement and even possibly become a mountain range far into the future..

Anybody?

[sholomar]

it's called the 'coteau des prairies', also known on the eastern edge as the 'buffalo ridge' ... glaciers did not pass over this area during the last ice age so a lot of the erosion that occured from streams and whatnot remained in place combined with glacial deposits from either side of the glaciers, etc. Two lobes of glaciers passed on either side making for some flat land in western minnesota and also along the Missouri river basin to the east, in towns like Mitchell. F

It's at it's climax right around Sisseton and there's a tower you can climb west of sisseton and see a long ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coteau_des_Prairies

Another interesting formation is the drainage point of a massive glacial lake that used to cover much of North Dakota and canada, and carved the big river valley going through Minnesota which is now the minnesota river. If you look on google maps east and north of Sisseton you can see the massive carvings in the land the emptying of that lake into the river created.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_River_Warren


There's plenty of geologic wonders to behold with google. Everything west of the Missouri is basically unglaciated, and there's plenty of geologic marvel out to the west from the black hills themselves to the badlands, yellowstone, etc. Also there's an area in wisconsin known as the 'driftless area' which has remained unglaciated for a very long time and probably represents what the area looked like in the whole state before glaciation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area

[SD4020]

Crap, now I will have to go find my SD geology book. I think it part of glacial formation. If I recall, it is glacial drift that was left behind. Unless you get over into West Minnesota and near Milbank where is some precambrian formations.

Geology of South Dakota

As far as becoming mountains. Hardly. Unless the next ice age tells us something otherwise.

The Black Hills is a precambrian formation and is older than the Rockies. Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore, Needles etc are examples.

[Raean]

Great Divide runs northeast corner of South Dakota, near Sisseton... doesn't that contribute to the glacial theory I would think?

[sholomar]

Traverse Gap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Despite the low elevation and flat topography of its floor, the Traverse Gap marks southernmost point of the Northern Divide between the watersheds of the Arctic and the Atlantic Oceans. On the north, Lake Traverse is the source of the Bois des Sioux River, a source stream of the Red River of the North, which drains via Lake Winnipeg and the Nelson River to Hudson Bay in the Arctic Ocean. To the south, Big Stone Lake is the source of River Warren's remnant, the Minnesota River, tributary to the Mississippi, which drains to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Big Stone Lake is now fed by the Little Minnesota River, the headwaters of which are in South Dakota. The Little Minnesota enters the gap from the west and meanders south through the old channel to Big Stone Lake. The Little Minnesota, part of the Mississippi watershed, is less than one mile (1.6 km) from Lake Traverse in the drainage basin of Hudson Bay

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