December 2014 - Grassland Heritage Foundation

Winter Edition
December 2014
Upcoming Events
GHF Holiday Party
Sunday, December 14th 6:00 pm
26062 W 151st, Olathe, Kansas
GHF Members and guests are invited to the GHF Holiday Party hosted by board members
Sue and Steve Holcomb at their home. The Holcombs will make the chili and everyone
else is invited to bring an appetizer, side dish, dessert, or beverage. Please RSVP to Sue
at 913-449-3621 or [email protected] by Friday, December 12th and let us know
Kaw Valley Eagles Day
Saturday, January 24, 2015 9:00 am - 4:00 pm,
Free State High School, 4700 Overland Drive, Lawrence, Kansas
http://www.kawvalleyeaglesday.com/
Bald Eagle
Photo by Iván Sánchez
https://flic.kr/p/7m7QWs
Celebrate the return of bald eagles to area lakes and rivers. This fun and educational day includes
presentations and hands-on activities for the whole family with ranger led viewing trips. GHF will
have an exhibit.
Grassland Heritage Foundation Annual Meeting
Saturday, February 14, 2015 9:00am to 1:00pm
Higuchi Hall, 2101 Constant Ave, KU West Campus, Lawrence, Kansas
The Board of Governors will hold elections, review the past year’s activities and plan for the
coming year. If you’re interested in joining us, please contact Kim Bellemere at 785-8408104 or [email protected]. The door is locked during the session, so if you can’t
arrive at 9:00am be sure to get a cell phone number to call and be admitted. Volunteers are
always welcome!
Basketry Workshop
Wade Myslivy has agreed to offer an advanced basketry workshop in Lawrence early next year.
Watch Facebook and your email for information or check with Kim Bellemere, above.
December 2014
2
GHF News
President’s Column
As a sophomore in college nearly 40 years ago, I wasn’t much interested in the
subject of botany, but during a spring trip to a field station on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, I became fascinated by the pitcher-plants, sundews, and milkworts that inhabited
the woodlands near our lab. After that trip, I acquired several field guides, and with
some guidance from my academic advisor, I began to learn the names of some of the
flowering plants and ferns inhabiting the prairies, forests, and wetlands near my
hometown in northeast Iowa. I spent countless hours hiking trails in the county parks
and exploring railroad rights of way in search of new plants, but a tiny remnant of
Prairie Phlox
sandy, tallgrass prairie on a 1.2-acre pioneer cemetery just outside of town was particuPhoto by Joshua Mayer
larly fascinating and formative for me. Called the Warren Township Cemetery Prairie, I
https://flic.kr/p/f16q1Q
visited the site dozens of times during all seasons. Besides the prairie plants, the
gravestones, ranging in date from 1855 to 1901, caused me to wonder about the landGrassland Heritage Foundation is a
scape 150 years ago and the connections those interred in the cemetery had to it. The
non-profit 501(c)(3) membership
Warren Prairie, and my broader interest with the plants in northeast Iowa, eventually
organization
dedicated to prairie preservaled to graduate school and a career, strangely enough, as a botanist.
tion
and education.
This past summer, just prior to a July trip to Iowa to spend time with family and friends, my father asked me if we could visit the Warren Prairie. Active on the
GHF News is published quarterly by
county conservation board and in the Izaak Walton League of America, and an avid
Grassland Heritage Foundation.
outdoorsman, he knew the cemetery well. He had even taken his high school enviEditor: Sue Holcomb
ronmental education classes there so students could experience this exceeding rare
[email protected]
Iowa relic. He told me that during a recent public meeting, a citizen expressed con913-856-4784
cern for the care and condition of the cemetery, believing that the county was disrespecting the veterans and other individuals buried there by not mowing the grasses
Send mail to:
and weeds. My father did his best to disabuse the citizen of their belief, but that got
P.O. Box 394
him to wonder about the condition of the prairie, which he hadn’t surveyed recently. I
Shawnee Mission, KS 66201
told him I looked forward to revisiting the cemetery.
Website
On a warm, humid morning in late July, my father, wife, and I drove out to
www.grasslandheritage.org
the cemetery. The wildflowers were in fine form and the vegetation lush from plentiEmail Address:
ful spring rains. With an old plant list in hand, we systematically worked through the
[email protected]
cemetery, checking off the name of each species that we encountered: big bluestem,
Indian grass, side-oats grama, prairie dropseed, purple prairie-clover, prairie phlox,
GHF Officers
Culver’s root, stiff sunflowers, and dozens more. There, often exactly where I first
saw them four decades ago, were many familiar friends. A bonus was finding a numPresident: Craig Freeman
ber of species that I hadn’t seen there before, including aromatic aster and prairie
Vice-President: Angie Babbit
violet. It appeared that efforts since 1987, when the county conservation board took
Secretary: Sue Holcomb
over management duties and began to control encroaching woody vegetation and non
Treasurer: Steve Holcomb
-natives, were paying dividends. This tiny prairie remnant, representing just 0.0004%
Assistant Treasurers:
of the area of the entire county, supports 15% of all the documented species in the
Kevin Bachkora
county.
Ann Simpson
Thinking back to the citizen’s
concern, our visit convinced me that
the act of maintaining that piece of sod
Prairies are open year-round.
as prairie, and not as a lawn, did more
They can be beautiful in
to honor the memory of the 33 individwinter, whether covered in snow or in
uals buried there more than any sign or
shades of brown.
gravestone. That patch of virgin prairie embodies the Iowa landscape that
they knew and loved, and it is a tangible link to the state’s prairie heritage and the
bounty that attracted many of them to that place.
Cemeteries, railroad right-of-ways, and remnants like
Snyder Prairie have harbored prairie species that have
been eliminated in favor of corn and soybean fields or
buildings and roads.
The Grassland Heritage Foundation is devoted to prairie preservation and to
educating people about the prairie heritage of northeast Kansas. Our educational
activities and on-the-ground work at Snyder Prairie and elsewhere are vital in helping citizens understand our own state’s rich prairie heritage and why it matters. I
hope you will continue to support our efforts through your contributions and actions. To all of you who helped make a difference in 2014, you have my heartfelt
thanks.
Craig Freeman, GHF President
December 2014
Annual Report
Fiscal Year 2013 (September 1, 2013 to August 31, 2014)
Membership and Education
Last year saw new partnerships, new initiatives and changing
funding opportunities as we evaluated our educational programs
and looked to expand our educational offerings.
Some of the many highlights of the year include grant funding from three organizations we’ve never partnered with before –
the Lawrence-based Cans for the Community, the Bess Spiva
Timmons (Timmons) Foundation, and the Kansas Volunteer
Commission (KVC). Funding from these organizations allowed
us to accomplish a few very important tasks. Thanks to the Timmons funding, we were able to create new educational trunks
which are now being used in presentations with area elementary
students. We’ve had a great time teaching kids about prairie
mammals, plants, and the ways animals impact the landscape.
The KVC grant allowed us to continue work started by our intern
to create a more comprehensive and professional volunteer education and management system. To see some of the products of
that effort, check out our volunteer page on the GHF website at
http://www.grasslandheritage.org/volunteer.php. The Cans For
the Community grant was used to pay for some of our administrative costs – which is also very important.
3
GHF News
Our Educational Activities by the numbers:
Number of educational events attended or hosted by GHF – 10
Number of volunteer hours contributed (not including internship
hours) – approx. 70
Number of children and adults participating in our outreach activities – 730 – 770.
Snyder Prairie Restoration
During 2014, Groundhogs (GHF’s prairie restoration volunteers
who meet the 3rd Saturday of each month except December) contributed a total of 229 volunteer hours over 10 Saturdays to clear
an Osage orange hedgerow for firewood, cut brush and pile debris, assist in spring prescribed burns, control invasive plants
(e.g., sericea lespedeza, red cedar, rough-leaved dogwood, garlic
mustard, and musk thistle), and collect and broadcast native prairie seeds. Most of the activities were conducted with the goal to
make haying possible in more areas of the property. This year,
Bruce Yonke, a GHF subcontractor, was able to hay our largest
remaining unplowed native prairie due to our hard work. Haying
will allow us to better control the encroachment of woody species at Snyder Prairie. Groundhogs, led by Frank Norman, were
joined by many new and returning volunteers including Myron
Leinwetter, Ted Abel, Gary Tegtmeier, Debbie Borek, Craig
Freeman, Kellis Bayless, Melvin Depperschmidt, Wayne Rhodus, Nicole Stanton, Josh Wilson, Dale Nimz, John Flavin, Carol
and Stan Moyers, Tim Merklein, Tom, Ron, and Maggie Wolf,
and Daniel Lassman.
Volunteers
Volunteers once again played an important role in furthering Contact Frank Norman, our property manager, at 785-691-9748
2008
our mission and two volunteer activities were critical to our suc- or [email protected] to get on the volunteer list and be
informed
of
work
day
activities.
cess this year. Our intern Christina Baker, a Kansas Univerity
senior in Geography and Spanish, researched successful volunteer engagement systems and helped out in a number of other
projects. Christina has since graduated and is now working as an
English teacher in Spain.
A second very important role volunteers played is on our
recently formed Education Committee. The committee is composed of environmental educators, school teachers, and others
who are committed to our mission. They are now helping us
develop our education goals for 2015 and develop a long-term
education plan.
Donations
We were excited to receive a large donation to our Rachel
Snyder Memorial Scholarship Fund by Susan Lordi Marker.
Funds were awarded for two research projects at Snyder Prairie
this summer. We’re excited to be able to assist more graduate
projects in the future thanks to this gift.
Native Plant Sale
Another highlight for the year was the continued success and
growth of our Native Plant Sale. The number of plants sold
(close to 1800) was almost twice the number sold in 2013 and we
gained new members. We expect the sale to only grow in the
future and we are planning for an even bigger and better event in
2015. We are also hoping to include more educational activities,
teaching homeowners how to use native plants in their landscapes. If you’d like to volunteer to help with the plant sale,
please contact Kim Bellemere.
2013
Craig, Carol, Stan, Kellis, and Myron getting ready for our first Spring burn.
Kim Bellemere, our membership and education coordinator,
organizes GHF’s booth and needs help from area members to
staff and visit with people about GHF at area events. Call
her at 785-840-8104 or email [email protected]
if you can assist or would like to volunteer in some other way.
December 2014
4
GHF News
Annual Report continued…
Financial Summary of Income and Expenses for Fiscal Year Ending August 31, 2014
Who We Are
Board of Governors
Craig Freeman – President
Angie Babbit – Vice President
Sue Holcomb – Secretary
Steve Holcomb – Treasurer
Mike Campbell
Jennifer Dropkin
Brad Guess
Tom Hammer
Jeff Hansen
Myron Leinwetter
Frank Norman
Rex Powell
Andrea Repinsky
Chip Taylor
Gary Tegtmeier
Megan Withiam
Joyce Wolf
Assistants to the Treasurer
Ann Simpson
Kevin Backhora
Craig, Tim, Deborah, Myron, Bruce, and Gary after a Groundhogs outing.
GHF’s “Groundhogs” prairie maintenance group meets the 3rd Saturday of each month, except December. Contact Frank Norman,
our property manager, at 785-691-9748 or [email protected]
to get on the volunteer list and be informed of work day activities.
Contractors
Frank Norman – Snyder Prairie Land Manager
Kim Bellemere – Membership and Education Coordinator
December 2014
5
GHF News
Annual Report continued…
What we’re planning in 2014-2015
We’re looking ahead to a great year for GHF. We remain committed to preserving tallgrass prairie in Kansas and educating
our fellow Kansans about our native ecosystem. We will accomplish these tasks by working with new partners and expanding the
reach of many of our activities.
Chief among our new projects will be a Prairie Restoration and Maintenance lecture series hosted in cooperation with the
Douglas County Conservation District. The series, which will begin in February, will include three presentations by area restoration experts as well as tours of restored and native prairies and possibly a burn demonstration. Watch your inbox for more information.
We’re also looking forward to educational partnerships that focus on native plants in the landscape including projects with
Monarch Watch, the Pearl Clark Community Garden – part of the Lawrence Common Ground Program, and others. As awareness
of the important role native plants play in our landscape grows, GHF will look for new opportunities to work with the public.
Of course, we will continue to offer many of our already successful activities including prairie walks, presentations to schools
and community organizations, and community workshops. First up – an advanced basketry workshop in January. It’s going to be
a fun year!
Financial Contributors for Fiscal Year Beginning September 1, 2013
The following members contributed during the last year. This does not include life-time members, members who paid for multiple years on a previous occasion, or any of the many volunteers who give of their time and talents and don’t necessarily make a monetary contribution. If you believe we’ve inadvertently left off your name, please contact Sue Holcomb, 913-856-4784 or
[email protected]. Thank you!!!
George Akob
Dr David Alspaugh
Kevin & Angie Babbit
Robert G. Barnhardt, Jr.
Grace Beam
Sue Beamer
Malcolm Beck
William & Joanne Berns
Jane Booth
Deborah Borek
Lee Boyd
Danielle Brunin
Don Chronister
Mary Conrad
Mary Cottom
Bruce & Lucy Cutler
Daniel Dannenberg
Melvin Depperschmidt
Dennis Dinwiddie
Jim Donovan
Carol Fields & Charles Downing
Jane Drury/R Amos
David Dvorak, Jr
Hank & Eileen Ernst
Tamara Fairbanks-Ishmael
John Flavin
Cans for the Community
Craig & Jane Freeman
Meredith Fry
Sheryl Geisler
Judy Gilliland
Rosslyn Gross
Brad & Ellen Guess
Dr. Edna Hamera
Tom Hammer
Mary Haskin
Ron & Ann Hendel
Chuck Herman
Jean Hiersteiner
Jamie Hofling
Steve & Sue Holcomb
Thad Holcombe
Donald & Dolores Hrenchir
Nancy Hubble
Doug & Dorothy Iliff
Marvin Jardon
Shannon Jones
Jill Kleinberg
Marie Alice L'Heureux
Nicholas Lamberty
Kathryn Lange
Dennis & Libby Lee
Myron Leinwetter
Cathy W. Lewis
Susan Lordi Marker
Margie Lundy
Katherine Marples
Richard & Betty Marshall
Brian Martin
Douglas May
Roxie McGee
Douglas McGregor
Mike, Pam & Lia Miller
Brian Monberg
Wade and Rachel Myslivy
Jenica Nelson
Conni Nevius
Kenneth & Gayle Nicolay
Stan & Sandy Nolind
Frank Norman
Ken O'Dell
Cynthia Pederson
Paul Post & Kay Kelly
Alexis Powell
Mary Powell
Rex Powell
Lesley Rigney
Dean Rinner
Margaret Rose
Byril J. Sanders
Barbara Katharine Schowen
Catherine Schwoerer
Kylee Sharp
Dr. Artie Shaw
Ronald L Sisk
Madonna Stallmann
Ruth Stepien
Al & Linda Storms
Toni & Chip Taylor
Gary Tegtmeier
Sandra Tholen
Ken Tillery
Bess Spiva Timmons Foundation
Mary Ann Tindell
David L. Wagner
Martha Wagner
Joan Wagstaff
Amy Waldron
Oyin Wintoki
Ron & Joyce Wolf
Clifford H. Wormcke
Rita & David Wristen
Topeka Zoological Park
December 2014
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Prairie “Not Quite” Underground
Sue’s Sioux Quartzite
Sioux Quartzite,
Photo by James St. John
https://flic.kr/p/oXua1c
by Dr. Rex Powell
Every rock has a story. Sue Holcomb knows this and asked if I might
tell the story of the pinkish-purple
boulders on Snyder Prairie. Since
childhood I have been fascinated by
these Sioux quartzite boulders scattered across much of Northeast Kansas, so I agreed to try.
I realize that very few people have a personal relationship with rocks; but being one of those people, I think it might
be helpful to explain how these Sioux quartzites became a window and then a door leading to the rest of my life. In somewhat
analogous experiences, I believe that many, if not most, people
can describe a similar formative moment in their lives which
opened their eyes to a vivid world of which others are unaware;
but now that world guides and colors their daily lives.
My rock epiphany began In the 1950s on an isolated farm
south of Lawrence. I had no playmates and life was very quiet
and simple. In those truly dark night skies the stars and the
Milky Way were very bright and timeless. All the fields on our
farm were bordered by massive cream-colored limestone fences. Rocks were everywhere and like the stars, timeless. When I
was nine years old, after milking my gentle Guernsey cow, Kelabell, I was walking across the barnyard when among all the
pieces of limestone, I spotted a strange rock, which, to this day,
I still keep on my desk. This rock was strange in several ways.
It was a large round quartz pebble. Quartz is an igneous rock
and there are no igneous rocks in Kansas, only sedimentary. Its
polished roundness was even more strange. Round stream tumbled rocks do not exist in Kansas because they require powerful
fast flowing streams to tumble and polish chunks of angular
hard rocks. Strangest of all, one side of the pebble looked as if
it had been sliced by a knife and had numerous deep grooves
extending across the pebble. This was perhaps the first rock in
my “collection “which now occupies much of our country
house. My wife loves many, if not all our rocks and tolerates
the rest. Not long after this first discovery, on a nearby hillside,
I came across a rubble pile of about a dozen large half-buried
boulders. They were rounded and a somewhat unusual pinkishpurple color. These were Sioux quartzite boulders.
In my one-room schoolhouse, I constantly studied the volumes of the world book Encyclopedia with all their wonderful
diagrams. I eventually came to realize that northeastern Kansas
is the extreme southern boundary of the great Pleistocene continental glaciers and that my anomalous rocks had been carried
here from hundreds of miles north of us. My little pebble had
been tumbled along powerful rivers inside and under a Conti-
GHF News
nental glacier and had then been sliced by being frozen into the
ice and dragged across other rocks. Many years later, Dr.
Wakefield Dort the well-known KU glaciologist was equally
impressed by the appearance of the little pebble, confirmed its
history and said that he had seen a few others. The story of the
great Continental glaciers of the past million and a half years
had opened my eyes to the world of geology and its unfathomable time spans. Responding to my interests, my teacher Mrs.
Wrench brought a big steamer chest full of loan books from the
Lawrence public library. This treasure chest opened my eyes to
both geology and paleontology. I discovered that our Kansas
limestone rocks with ocean seashells, corals, and strands of
strange beads were much older than the dinosaurs. Nearby, in
the exposed thin coal beds of the eroded spillway ravine of
Lone Star Lake, I picked up fossil leaves and pieces of the patterned tree bark of the coal forests of 300 million years ago.
Geology carried me into the same time spans as the stars.
In 1960 my KU geology instructors were extremely excited to
share with their young geology students, the very latest discoveries of Continental drift and plate tectonics. The concept of
Pangaea and the several previous arrangements of Continental
core cartons which we now call supercontinents was just a
glimmer in the eyes of the geology researchers. Being totally
ignorant of the past concepts of immobile continents, we young
students took Continental drift for granted and were shocked
when we received enthusiastic A+ grades because of our unbiased understanding of the new paradigm. Since then wonderful
detailed maps of the supercontinents of Pangaea, Rodenia ,
Columbia, and Ur have largely been worked out.
This introductory description of the strange and mysterious
Sioux quartzite rocks on Snyder Prairie has been an attempt to
whet your appetite for a more straightforward geologic description of how these rocks formed 1.76 billion years ago on the
shores of the supercontinent Columbia. Then with the help of
Continental glaciers 700 million years ago they somehow made
their way to Snyder Prairie here in northeastern Kansas.
Sioux quartzite boulder
December 2014
7
GHF News
tas overlooking the ocean on the southern shore of the supercontinent which geologists call Columbia. For tens of millions of
Just like air, people take rocks for granted. Rocks are
years, in this quiet lifeless landscape these rivers laid down deep
changeless; they’ve always been here and always will be. We
drifts of this pure sand until it was well over a mile deep. Occahumans are alive and are interested in things that are changing in sionally these pink sands were interspersed with layers of pebtime periods of seconds, minutes, hours, and perhaps days and
bles, when the curyears. A sports event of three hours often makes a wonderful
rents were stronger or
story. A story of dauntless explorers on a quest, journeying
finer clay-like partiacross oceans, over mountains, and through unknown wilderness cles, when the curfor a couple of years may also make a good story. And even a
rents were gentler.
few older people may read the life story of individuals who have Given time, these
changed the course of civilization. But clearly, our human condelta deposits would
sciousness has no concrete ability to comprehend timescales of a be turned to stone
few centuries, a millennia, or any longer time periods, except as and pieces of it
symbolic abstract concepts.
would end up on
Occasionally people like Native Americans using psychedel- Snyder Prairie. First
however, we should
ic drugs, mystics, and poets may experience some awareness of
time scales beyond our normal human consciousness. The vision look around Columbia.
of William Blake …
Prairie “Not Quite” Underground continued...
“To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wildflower,
Holding infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour,
”
Although we will probably never reach William Blake’s vision,
the first step in having a glimpse of these symbolic abstract periods is to accept that such consciousness is largely beyond our
ability.
In the shallow
waters along Columbia’s shores were
http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/.shared/
hundreds of miles of image.html?/photos/uncategorized/
simple colorful reef
columbia_hyper_continental_mass.jpg
mounds called stromatolites each of which was composed of hundreds of thin layers. The sunlit surface of the stromatolite (below) had a thin layer of microbes including photosynthetic bacteria. Each new layer
was added as the community of microbes deposited sediment on
its surface, and the photosynthetic cells migrated upward to stay
in the sunlight, starting a new layer. Snorkeling along this reef
would not have attracted very many vacationing time travelers
because 1.76 billion years ago there were no colorful fish, no
spiny lobsters, in fact no other creatures larger than microscopic
So, as we have noted, people most like to hear stories about
sports, cats, and people; but with our somewhat expanded conbacteria, just these lumpy stromatolites. Nevertheless the time
sciousness we will begin the story of these rocks. As you have
traveler would be witnessing an awesome event, for the first time
been warned, our story begins long, long before we storytelling
humans were even a glimmer in the earth’s eye. So long ago that
on the mountains, the plains, and in the rivers of the great continent where our story occurs there was not a single living creature
large or small, neither plant nor animal.
Imagine the birth of our purple rocks 1 .76 billion years
ago, in a landscape in which the passage of time was measured
only by passing storms, changing wind patterns and the movement of the sun, moon and stars across the sky. Our rocks-to-be
were made of countless tiny pink sand grains being swept along
meandering channels of large nameless rivers. It would be more
than a billion years before Blake would be able to see one of
these sparkling grains. Each grain had been carried from distant
mountainous highlands far to the northeast. At the end of its
journey the sand was spread in countless thin layers on wide del-
http://earthsurfaceprocesses.com/3c-E-MassExtnFig3B.jpg
Prairie “Not Quite” Underground continued...
in the earth’s history oxygen was being released into the ocean’s
water and the atmosphere by these photosynthetic stromatolites.
The release of oxygen, which is incredibly reactive with most
other elements and compounds, changed the earth dramatically.
The oxygen was catastrophically lethal to most living creatures at
the time, thus the name, the great oxygenation catastrophe. Before the release of the oxygen, ocean waters contained countless
trillions of tons of dissolved iron compounds. Each year, the newly released oxygen reacted with a portion of these iron compounds and sank to the ocean floor as a thin layer of rust. Over
tens of millions of years deep deposits of the banded iron formations accumulated creating the massive Iron Ranges of the
Lake Superior region. The iron deposits of the Iron Range and a
few other similar regions around the world are what we humans
have used to create The Iron Age. Before the explosive population increase of humans, it would appear that, the stromatolites
may have changed the face of the earth more than any other creature in Earth history.
Dr. Mike Williams, from http://www.geo.umass.edu/
Back to our rock’s story, there is another turn of events. Nothing lasts forever and the supercontinent Columbia, which had
Although Columbia’s lovely sunny beaches would seem so been assembled by the forces of the slowly rising convection curinviting, visiting time travelers, like astronauts, would have to
rents within the earth’s mantle, was torn apart by these same
bring all their life-support supplies. Columbia’s atmosphere was mantle currents that had created it. But before several of the driftcomposed mostly of nitrogen, just like today, but the 21% oxygen ing continental crustal slabs that had coalesced to build Columbia
of today’s “air “would not exist for well over another billion
were pulled away from the West, North, and the East of Columyears. As implied by the term the great oxygenation catastrophe, bia, a remarkable process of new continent construction occurred
the new atmosphere with less than 1% trace of oxygen in the aton Columbia’s South shore. We inhabitants of the American
mosphere created a new world. It made possible the evolution of Midwest owe the ground upon which we stand to those long-ago
our own bodies’ relatively huge partitioned eukaryotic cells.
tectonic processes which geologists call the Yavapai and Mazatzal subduction and orogeny events occurring 1.9 to 1.6 billion
years ago.
If we time travelers had been there and were patient enough to
witness this 300 million year process, we would have witnessed
the formation of the central plains from Nevada to Indiana and
Wisconsin to North Texas. Looking over the ocean south of Columbia we would have witnessed the formation of many beautiful
volcanic island archipelagoes somewhat like the Japanese islands,
the Philippines, or the Indonesian islands. If we had continued to
http://www.agatelady.com/images/mineral-of-the-month/january-2012/Archean
-Eon-shoreline-big.jpg
These complex cells, being more than 1000 times larger than the
stromatolite cells and all other previous microbes, were able to
evolve into all the plants and animals of today. It’s unlikely that
our vacationing time travelers would have noticed these changes
over the next billion years.
http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Publications/PIC/pic28.html
December 2014
Prairie “Not Quite” Underground continued...
watch during this process, we would have seen wave after wave
of these islands swept along slowly by the irresistible mantle
convection currents and then crushed onto the southern shores of
Columbia. Slowly, no doubt lovely unknown landscapes made of
hundreds of miles of volcanic rocks were added until the continental foundation which is now only a couple thousand feet below our feet was formed. At the same time that these island
chains were being crushed against Columbia’s South Shore
these same powerful tectonic forces crushed, heated, and welded
the deep sand drifts of Columbia’s River Deltas, into an extensive area composed of one of the most resistant rock types
known, namely quartzite. This is the origin of the Sioux quartzite, boulders of which we find on Snyder Prairie today.
9
GHF News
mulate without fully melting, eventually creating ice fields as
much as 11,000 feet deep, covering what we now call Canada.
Today we call the southern shores of Columbia: Minnesota,
Extent of glaciers in the United States
Wisconsin, and South Dakota. Now days, Pipestone national
Monument in southern Minnesota is one place where this quartzWe resume our Sioux quartzite story looking across tundra
ite, can be seen along with layers of the softer more fine-grained
with a few scattered pine, spruce, and aspen trees on almost barPipestone. Places in Wisconsin such as Rib Mountain and Sioux
ren fields of quartzite. Several times in the preceding million and
Falls in South Dakota have other dramatic Sioux quartzite expoa half years, slowly moving fields of Canadian ice had flowed
sures.
over our quartzite; but for some reason about 700,000 years ago,
the incomprehensible forces of these glaciers dislodged and
broke up great numbers of quartzite slabs and incorporated them
into its ice. Besides the hundreds and thousands of tons of these
nearly indestructible quartzite stones, untold quantities of other
less durable rocks were mixed into this slowly flowing ocean of
ice. Unstoppable the ice field flowed relentlessly down the continental slope, eventually reaching northeastern Kansas. Powerful
rivers flowing within and under the ice often ground-up, tumbled, and rounded many of the stones both large and small carried in the ice. Finally more than 600 miles from where the
quartzite had been picked up, the glacier could push no further
south; the ice front stalled then stopped and began to a melt,
dumping its load of rocks and debris. Today, 700,000 years later,
these unweathered quartzite boulders, some with surfaces still
showing polish are found where they were dumped. In the west,
http://www.nps.gov/pipe/planyourvisit/images/quarries250x200.jpg
south of the town of Wamego there is a huge boulder field and
all along the rest of the former ice front boulders can be found on
To complete the 1.76 billion years story of how our boulders made their way to Snyder Prairie would no doubt be somewhat longer than the Bible; but would suffer a plot that included
no saints, sinners, or even humans. It would be the story of the
day-to-day struggles and events of a planet blessed by sunlight,
wrapped in an oxygen rich atmosphere, populated by evolving
DNA creatures that has somehow produced, at this moment in
time, our world.
For brevity’s sake, we will fast-forward our time machine
to almost today, namely, a mere 700,000 years ago. During the
preceding million and half years the Earth’s constantly changing
orbital alignments had periodically reduced the amount of sunlight on the northern hemisphere, causing winter snows to accu-
Sea of Sioux Quartzite erratics on ridge crest 5 miles (8 km) south of Wamego
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GHF News
world, we humans multiplied rapidly and quickly spread over
both North and South America. Although there is no way to tell
hundreds of hilltops all the way east into Missouri both north and with certainty what happened in the roughly 1000 years in which
south of the Kaw River.
most of the North and South American mega fauna became extinct some researchers have suggested that we humans were able
Time travelers could have stood on this muddy pebble and
boulder covered landscape 700,000 years ago looking North with to rather quickly eliminate these fearsome animals. Some researchers have suggested that the American extinctions could be
the cold Arctic winds in their faces. They would have seen the
front wall of the mighty continental glacier melting away, slowly compared to the massive wave of mega fauna extinctions in Australia when humans arrived there. History is history and it is likeretreating, never to return again. Then over the next century the
ly that our values are neither the values of those who lived in the
rather barren landscape of mixed birch, spruce, and pine woodlands and grasses would return from the South. In this cold Arc- past, nor the values of those who will live in the future.
tic climate in this broad zone south of the glacier, a wide variety
of large mammals would occasionally be seen, such as, horses,
woodland musk ox, mammoths, hyena-like bone crushing dogs,
bear-sized beavers, mastodons, woolly rhinoceroses, giant stag
moose, long legged short-faced bear, camels, giant ground sloths,
four-Tusk gomphother elephants, and 5 foot tall armadillo-like
glyptodonts. Although the Continental glaciers themselves never
reached future Kansas again, over the next 700,000 years, the icy
periodic advances of the glaciers and the very warm interglacials
occurring far north of future Kansas, controlled our local climate.
During the wide climate shifts the populations of these giant
mammals dramatically waxed and waned but few became extinct. About 250,000 years ago our boulders would have seen the
newly arrived bison from Asia; and 50,000 years ago Brown
bears arrived from Asia and quickly displaced all of the huge
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pr/pr_images/glacier.jpg
short-faced bears. About 80 to 100,000 years ago we modern
To finish our rock’s story, sometime between 4000 and 6000
humans made our first appearance; but only in Africa, Europe,
years ago, our daily weather and climate took on its modern patand Asia.
terns, and the grasses and forbs which we now see on the prairie,
reappeared much like all the prairies of the previous interglacial
periods but, as we just noted, there were now no Imperial mammoths, horses, camels, or the other mega fauna that had grazed
there during the previous interglacials of the past 700,000 years
on what we now call Snyder Prairie. Now there were only bison,
antelope, and elk.
Prairie “Not Quite” Underground continued...
http://fossilhd.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/North-American-PleistoceneMegafauna.jpg
Extinct Megafauna
Being rocks, our quartzite boulders would not have noticed
anything different about our present warm interglacial period
beginning about 11,700 years ago. However, we modern time
travelers would have no doubt been excited to notice that just
before this time, another Asian species arrived, namely, we humans. Like some of other Asian mammals entering the new
The field at Snyder Prairie where Sue Holcomb photographed the quartzite.
Thanks to Rex Powell, a GHF board member and
retired high school science teacher for taking time to
write this article.
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GHF News
We depend on your contributions!
Please help GHF complete its mission by sending your donation today. The date of your last contribution is
printed above your name on the mailing label. Or you can donate online via Paypal on our web site.
Send to Grassland Heritage Foundation, PO Box 394, Shawnee Mission, KS 66201.
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Special Donations since the last news:
Thank you to our volunteers:
New members: Dennis Dinwiddie of the Topeka
Zoo, Jenica Nelson, Jamie Holfing, and Conni Nevius
Tasha Wolf for volunteering at the Kansas State Fiddling and Picking Championships in August.
Returning members: Chuck Herman, Dr. Artie
Shaw, and Kenneth & Gayle Nicolay. We’d like to
thank the Nicolays for arranging a monthly contribution!
For Education: Ron & Joyce Wolf, Dr. Artie Shaw
in honor of Kim Bellemere for her productive work
on behalf of GHF
Prairie Management by Richard & Bettye Marshall
Gift in honor of David Wristen by Malcolm Beck
Memorial Contributions for Philip Kimball, a
writer from Lawrence, Kansas by Ron & Ann Hendel of Walnut Creek, California designated for Prairie Acquisition and by Brian Monberg of Portland,
Oregon from Metro Regional Government
Jamie Hofling, Frank Norman, Jennifer Dropkin,
Megan Withiam, and Rex Powell for volunteering at
the GHF exhibit during the Mother Earth News Fair
in October.
Julie Schwarting, Jenica Nelson, Sandy Sanders,
Marty Birrell, Angie Babbit, Joyce Wolf, Megan
Withiam and Jennifer Dropkin for serving on the
GHF Education Committee
Jennifer Dropkin for editing our new volunteer educational materials.
Megan Withiam and the Topeka Zoo for loaning animals and a display for Prairie Appreciation Day
Sandy Sanders and the Jayhawk Audubon Society
for loaning materials for Prairie Appreciation Day
Kevin Bachkora for accounting services
Sharon Gan-Yang for newsletter layout design
December 2014
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GHF News
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Visit Prairie Related Exhibits at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
While the cold or icy weather keeps us indoors, take time to visit two prairierelated exhibits in Kansas City. “The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and
Sky” features artifacts from pre-contact through the modern day. Objects have
been loaned from 58 public and private collections. The collection first appeared in Paris at the musee du quai Brandy. It demonstrates the transitions from
all natural supplies to the introduction of manufactured materials and that Native
American culture continues to thrive today. The 136 works include clothing and
regalia, weapons, personal and religious items, and domestic wares collected
from Europe and North America.
Also on exhibit in the Bloch Building is “Across the Indian Country: Photographs by Alexander Gardner, 1867-68”. Gardner’s images capture the setting and people who attended 1868 signing of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, detailing the end of a way of life. The exhibit also contains photos from his “Across
the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, 1867-68.” His job on this trip was
to capture images to sell the economic benefits of the project. These photos provide a time tunnel to this area 150 years ago.
The exhibits are open until January 11, 2015, Wednesdays through Sundays
at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak St., Kansas City, MO 64111
http://www.nelson-atkins.org/ See website for times, ticket fees.
Shield, Arikara artist, North Dakota, ca. 1850.
Buffalo rawhide, native tanned leather, pigment, Diameter: 20 inches. The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase: the Donald D. Jones Fund for American
Indian Art, 2004.35, Photo: Jamison Miller.
To receive your newsletter in pdf form by email, contact Sue Holcomb, [email protected] or 913-856-4784. Also, please let
us know if you no longer wish to receive the GHF News or if we need to correct your information. Thank you!