|Glen Helen Gorge image credit: NASA / Eric Christian's Field Journal (use of image does not imply endorsement).|
Why does the Finke River at the Glen Helen Resort flow straight through the range, forming Glen Helen Gorge? Geologists call this a water gap. In Central Australia the Finke River flows across the grain of all the McDonnell Ranges and water gaps are common. In fact, water gaps are a global phenomenon, with more than 1000 across the earth.To read the rest, rock on over to "Glen Helen Gorge, Australia — How did it form?"
No one has ever seen a water gap form, so stories that attempt to explain these unexpected geological features are conjecture. The rims of at least three of the ranges that the Finke River flows through have been ‘dated’ by evolutionary geologists as some 400 million years old. How erosive processes could have continued for so long defies belief. For example, using standard uniformitarian geology, it would only take about 17 million years to erode a whole continent.