SD 79
Water and wind gaps are common and have been found worldwide, yet they are a mystery to many scientists to how they were formed. A wind or water gap is a shallow notch in the upper part of a mountain ridge. The notch is an erosional notch and not one caused from faulting. We find such a gap at Buffalo Gap on SD 79 near the Hot Spring’s mammoth site. This dry gap was a favorite access route to the Black Hills. It is just a notch between ridges/hills/mountains.
Many places around the Black Hills have water gaps. Geology of SD, mentions near Fort Meade at Sturgis, “The road wanders through the foothills, cuts through the next water gap to the south and joins I-90...” p.163. OR p.220, “The few main streams that cross the Red Valley, which leave the Back Hills through gaps in the Cretaceous hogback.”
How do gaps fit in with the Flood? As the Genesis Flood water rushed off the continent they were like a sheet which we called sheet erosion. Then as the waters became less, they began to channelize. These energetic waters would have cut gaps directly into the stationary or rising ridges. Once an initial notch was formed, the waters sped through the notch creating the gap we see today.
Today, if a river runs through the gap it is called a water gap; if only wind blows through the gap it is called a wind gap. All over the world we find water and wind gaps, but of course we would the Flood was a powerful event!
Oard, Mike. 2008. Flood by Design. Master Books: Green Forest, AR. p.95, 98-100.
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