Talk:Traverse Gap

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An entry from Traverse Gap appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 6 May 2007.

[edit] Post-glacial rebound

This and other articles say that Lake Agassiz "broke through" at Traverse Gap. Yet, there seems to be no ridge of higher elevation at this point. In fact the Glacial River Warren river valley extends farther north. The area is effected by post-glacial rebound. The present locations of the continental divide does not seem to mark any specific historic event or catastrophe. The exact location of the "gap" on the old riverbed may thus have changed over the years. It is possible that the Little Minnesota River flowed north some centuries ago. -- Petri Krohn 02:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The Big Stone Moraine exists both west and east of the gap. The Fisher paper cited in the new article on Glacial River Warren has a very interesting discussion of formation of the gap and the intermittent flow through it. There is evidence of other channels in the immediate area which drained the lake and were superseded by this outlet. As adverted to in the Glacial River Warren article, there were other, more distant outlets to Lake Agassiz, and isostatic rebound was one of the causes of these wandering outlets. At various times these outlets included Lake Nipigon to Glacial Lake Duluth and down the St. Croix to the Mississippi or east to the Saint Lawrence, and even the Mackenzie River to the Arctic. I will add a cite to the Fisher paper to this article, as well as mention of Browns Valley Man, skeletal remains of PaleoIndians some 8700 years old, found just east of Browns Valley. Kablammo 02:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC)