Overview
- An international team reports in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface that a lithospheric drip explains the Green River’s paradoxical route through the range.
- Reanalysis of seismic data identifies a cold, rounded anomaly about 200 kilometers deep and 50–100 kilometers across beneath the Uinta Mountains, interpreted as the drip remnant.
- Digital elevation models and river-profile metrics across more than 40 catchments indicate central-range uplift of up to roughly 450 meters not attributable to erosion alone.
- The sequence of subsidence followed by uplift allowed the antecedent Green River to remain in place and cut deeply, producing canyons such as the Canyon of Lodore with incision approaching 700 meters.
- Coverage clarifies that the river does not flow uphill and that the long-standing impression is an optical illusion, with the study presented as resolving a roughly 150-year-old geological puzzle.