Flint Hills
The Flint Hills, historically known as Bluestem Pastures or Blue Stem Hills, are a region of hills and prairies that lie mostly in eastern Kansas. It is named for the abundant residual flint eroded from the bedrock that lies near or at the surface. It consists of a band of hills extending from Marshall and Washington Counties in the north to Cowley County, Kansas and Kay and Osage Counties in Oklahoma in the south, to Geary and Shawnee Counties west to east. Oklahomans generally refer to the same geologic formation as the Osage Hills or "the Osage." The Flint Hills Ecoregion is designated as a distinct region because it has the densest coverage of intact tallgrass prairie in North America. Due to its rocky soil, the early settlers were unable to plow the area, resulting in the prevalence of cattle ranches as opposed to the crop land more typical of the Great Plains. These ranches rely on annual controlled burns conducted by ranchers every spring to renew the prairie gras ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flint Hills Discovery Center
The Flint Hills Discovery Center is a municipal heritage center, heritage and Science museum#Science center, science center located in the city of Manhattan, Kansas, Manhattan, Kansas. Featured within the facility are exhibits detailing local history and preservation of the Flint Hills, a theater, a specialized interactive playground for youth and parents, and a temporary exhibition gallery. The facility also promotes various educational outreach programs for youth and adults and serves as a venue for special events. Exhibits The Flint Hills Discovery Center features exhibits that explore the ecology, history, and culture of the Flint Hills in Kansas and Oklahoma. It also hosts traveling and temporary exhibits on related themes. The permanent exhibits are arranged in nine topical zones including an immersive theater experience. Main-floor exhibits zones *''Shaping Winds and Water'' - a brief overview of the geologic formation of the area and the eventual formation of the grass ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Manhattan, Kansas
Manhattan is a city in and the county seat of Riley County, Kansas, United States, although the city extends into Pottawatomie County, Kansas, Pottawatomie County. It is located in northeastern Kansas at the junction of the Kansas River and Big Blue River (Kansas), Big Blue River. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 54,100. The city was founded by settlers from the New England Emigrant Aid Company as a Free-Stater (Kansas), Free-State town in the 1850s, during the Bleeding Kansas era. Nicknamed "the Little Apple" as a play on New York City's moniker of the "Big Apple", The city is a college town with a significant student population, because it is home to Kansas State University (KSU). History Indigenous tribes settlement Before settlement by European-Americans in the 1850s, the land around Manhattan was home to Native tribes. From 1780 to 1830, it was home to the Kaw people, also known as the Kansa. The Kaw settlement was call ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impurities, such as a reddish or brownish colour from small amounts of iron oxide. Clays develop plasticity (physics), plasticity when wet but can be hardened through Pottery#Firing, firing. Clay is the longest-known ceramic material. Prehistoric humans discovered the useful properties of clay and used it for making pottery. Some of the earliest pottery shards have been radiocarbon dating, dated to around 14,000 BCE, and Clay tablet, clay tablets were the first known writing medium. Clay is used in many modern industrial processes, such as paper making, cement production, and chemical filtration, filtering. Between one-half and two-thirds of the world's population live or work in buildings made with clay, often baked into brick, as an essenti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Riley County, Kansas
Riley County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat and largest city is Manhattan. As of the 2020 census, the population was 71,959. The county was named after Bennet Riley, the 7th governor of California, and a Mexican–American War hero. Riley County is home to Fort Riley and Kansas State University. History Riley County, named for Mexican–American War general Bennet Riley, was on the western edge of the 33 original counties established by the Kansas Territorial Legislature in August 1855. For organizational purposes, Riley County initially had attached to it Geary County and all land west of Riley County, across Kansas Territory into present-day Colorado. The first Territorial Capital of Kansas Territory was located in the boundaries of Riley County, in the former town of Pawnee. The site now falls within the boundaries of Fort Riley, a U.S. Army post. Manhattan was selected as county seat in contentious fashion. In late 185 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Interstate 70
Interstate 70 (I-70) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from Interstate 15, I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to Interstate 695 (Maryland), I-695 and Maryland Route 570 (MD 570) in Woodlawn, Baltimore County, Maryland, Woodlawn, just outside Baltimore, Maryland. I-70 approximately traces the path of U.S. Route 40 (US 40; the old National Road) east of the Rocky Mountains. West of the Rocky Mountains, the route of I-70 was derived from multiple sources. The Interstate runs through or near many major U.S. cities, including Denver, Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. The sections of the Interstate in Missouri and Kansas have laid claim to be the first Interstate in the United States. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has claimed the section of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon in Colorado, completed in 1992, to be the last pie ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chert
Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a precipitation (chemistry), chemical precipitate or a diagenesis, diagenetic replacement, as in petrified wood. Chert is typically composed of the petrified remains of siliceous ooze, the biogenic sediment that covers large areas of the deep ocean floor, and which contains the silicon skeletal remains of diatoms, Dictyochales, silicoflagellates, and radiolarians. Precambrian cherts are notable for the presence of fossil cyanobacteria. In addition to Micropaleontology, microfossils, chert occasionally contains macrofossils. However, some chert is devoid of any fossils. Chert varies greatly in color, from white to black, but is most often found as gray, brown, grayish brown and light green to rusty redW.L. Roberts, T.J. Campbell, G.R. Rapp Jr., ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stratum
In geology and related fields, a stratum (: strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as either '' bedding surfaces'' or ''bedding planes''.Salvador, A. ed., 1994. ''International stratigraphic guide: a guide to stratigraphic classification, terminology, and procedure. 2nd ed.'' Boulder, Colorado, The Geological Society of America, Inc., 215 pp. . Prior to the publication of the International Stratigraphic Guide, older publications have defined a stratum as being either equivalent to a single bed or composed of a number of beds; as a layer greater than 1 cm in thickness and constituting a part of a bed; or a general term that includes both ''bed'' and '' lamina''.Neuendorf, K.K.E., Mehl, Jr., J.P., and Jackson, J.A. , eds., 2005. ''Glossary of Geology'' 5th ed. Alexandria, Virginia, American Geological Institute. 779 pp. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite.Blatt, Harvey and Robert J. Tracy (1996) ''Petrology: Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic'', 2nd ed., Freeman, pp. 281–292 Shale is characterized by its tendency to split into thin layers (Lamination (geology), laminae) less than one centimeter in thickness. This property is called ''Fissility (geology), fissility''. Shale is the most common sedimentary rock. The term ''shale'' is sometimes applied more broadly, as essentially a synonym for mudrock, rather than in the narrower sense of clay-rich fissile mudrock. Texture Shale typically exhibits varying degrees of fissility. Because of the parallel orientation of clay mineral flakes in shale, it breaks in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Limestone
Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science), crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Limestone forms when these minerals Precipitation (chemistry), precipitate out of water containing dissolved calcium. This can take place through both biological and nonbiological processes, though biological processes, such as the accumulation of corals and shells in the sea, have likely been more important for the last 540 million years. Limestone often contains fossils which provide scientists with information on ancient environments and on the evolution of life. About 20% to 25% of sedimentary rock is carbonate rock, and most of this is limestone. The remaining carbonate rock is mostly Dolomite (rock), dolomite, a closely related rock, which contains a high percentage of the mineral Dolomite (mine ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It was officially named the North Central Region by the U.S. Census Bureau until 1984. It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south. The U.S. Census Bureau's definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The region generally lies on the broad Interior Plain between the states occupying the Appalachian Mountain range and the states occupying the Rocky Mountain range. Major rivers in the region include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mississippi River, and the Missouri River. The 2020 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Permian Period
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 251.902 Mya. It is the sixth and last period of the Paleozoic Era; the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era. The concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the Perm Governorate, region of Perm in Russia. The Permian witnessed the diversification of the two groups of amniotes, the synapsids and the Sauropsida, sauropsids (reptiles). The world at the time was dominated by the supercontinent Pangaea, which had formed due to the collision of Euramerica and Gondwana during the Carboniferous. Pangaea was surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa. The Carboniferous rainforest collapse left behind vast regions of desert within the continental interior. Amniotes, which could better cope with these ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flint Hills Scenic Byway
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start fires. Flint occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones.''The Flints from Portsdown Hill'' Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey or black, green, white, or brown in colour, and has a glassy or waxy appearance. A thin, oxidised layer on the outside of the nodules is usually different in colour, typically white and rough in texture. The nodules can often be found along s and [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |