The Red Hills, also referred to as Gypsum Hills, is the name of a

physiographic region Physiographic regions of the world are a means of defining Earth's landforms into distinct regions, based upon the classic three-tiered approach by Nevin M. Fenneman in 1916, that separates landforms into physiographic divisions, physiographic pr ...

located mostly in

Clark Clark is an English language surname, ultimately derived from the Latin with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educate ...

, Comanche and Barber counties in southern and central

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

. This undulating terrain of red-tinted sediments, a product of the underlying geology, does not fit the conventional description of the Great Plains landscape of Kansas. The red bed

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sa ...

s of the Red Hills were deposited in an arid continental

closed basin An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

that formed within the

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea () was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million y ...

n supercontinent during the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

Period. Water often flooded this basin forming ephemeral playas of somewhat acidic waters.Benison, K.C. and Goldstein, R.H. 2001. Evaporites and siliciclastics of the Permian Nippewalla Group of Kansas, USA: a case for non-marine deposition in saline lakes and saline pans. Sedimentology 48(1):165-188. The shallow playas were intermittently flooded then dried leaving a mixture of

lacustrine A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

sediments and

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywal ...

evaporite An evaporite () is a water- soluble sedimentary mineral deposit that results from concentration and crystallization by evaporation from an aqueous solution. There are two types of evaporite deposits: marine, which can also be described as ocean ...

s. The red color derives from the

oxidation Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is the gain of electrons or a ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

contained within the deposits. The region is also known as the Gypsum Hills, because of the large natural deposits of gypsum in this area. The dissolution of underlying gypsum beds has led to the formation of

sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openi ...

s which are common features within the Red Hills region. Big Basin and Little Basin are two well-known sinkholes in western Clark County. The Red Hills have scenic vistas and some small steep canyons. High points include Mount Nebo (), Mount Jesus () and Mount Lookout (), in

Clark County, Kansas Clark County (county code CA) is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 1,991. Its county seat and most populous city is Ashland. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau ...

References

External links

Red Hills Focus Area-U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Regions of Kansas Geology of Kansas {{BarberCountyKS-geo-stub

See also

References

External links