I’ve had a dream several times where I follow a creek into a Monadnock whence it emerges at almost ground level, completely dissecting the isolated sandstone (or granite) mountain.
What’s more, in my dreams, two other tributaries to this stream also carve into the mountain and merge with the creek in the center of the mountain!
I find it hard to believe that the complete dissection – like a hot cross bun but with steep 1000 foot gorge – exists, but is there an example of an isolated mountain that is completely dissected by a stream?
No running water on it, but the island of Phi Phi Leh in Thailand is a cluster of vertical limestone karsts, chopped up into a number of interesting bisections by the sea, with internal lagoons. Aerial view, Maya Bay, Pi Leh Bay. Does it look familiar?
Unfortunately, I can’t give you proof or a specific location, but I think I saw this on one of my flights from Chicago to San Jose. It was out west where it was very dry and I’m pretty sure I saw a meandering stream cut right through a low mountain.
These features would be created by a gradual uplift of the land that the stream is going through, so I think it is concievable. As the land folds up an inch or so a year, the stream bed erodes it away, such that the stream stays as the same level but the sides eventually rise forming a gorge.
I can’t tell you where it is with any accuracy though, I’d have to rely on someone else flying a similar path or maybe an extensive google earth search.
EDIT: try this Geology by Lightplane
I was addressing the OP’s dream, thinking there was an outside chance that The Beach could be the thing that inspired the image. A long shot I know, but pretty isn’t it?
funny, i worked a s a field geologist for 7 years and i never got to dream about theoretical geological cases.
first, a monadnock is an erosion remnant so a big mountain-like configuration is rare. you’d expect a flat plain. but then, you could have several episodes of erosion into a flat plain, followed by upliftment, and then another round of erosion and your bisection.
Right here in lil’ ol’ Lawrence, Kansas, we have something which almost fits the description – two modest erosional-remnant hills, Blue Mound and Old Baldy, with flat land around them, and two tiny streams which sort of “bisect” (separate) them. Not one stream, though, sorry – you’d have to dig a trench connecting them for that.
All over the Appalachian region, there are “water gaps” where a stream cuts right through a mountain. The water that did the carving came from upstream, that’s all. The thing is, the stream was there first. The topography was uplifted later. The uplift happened slowly enough that the pre-existing stream eroded a watercourse through the uplift by simply continuing to flow. It’s like, instead of pressing a chainsaw down onto a stationary log to cut through it, the log is underneath, being pressed up onto a stationary chainsaw. It gets cut through either way.
The Grand Canyon was formed in the same way, only cutting through an uplifted plateau of horizontal strata instead of a folded mountain.
The New River, so-called, which cuts across the Appalachian mountain system going northwest from North Carolina to West Virginia (unlike any other stream in the Appalachians), was there before any of those mountains were ever uplifted. Precambrian. In fact, the New River is thought to be the second-oldest river in the world after the Nile. It’s got to be the most spectacular misnomer ever.
As mac_bolan00 pointed out, since a monadnock is formed not by the land being uplifted but by erosion all around a caprock that is more resistant to erosion (similar to a mesa out west), the OP’s scenario probably could not form. Sorry!
The word bisect would apply in the specific instance described. But in geology, dissected is the standard term for an upland being eroded by streams going various directions (which gives the impression of an assortment of peaks and valleys, e.g. the Ozark mountains, so called, which is really a dissected plateau; a monadnock is just an isolated height produced in this way). So I guess either term can apply to the OP situation.
Also, I just think geological dreams are very cool.
