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Lake Shetek State Park
Lake Shetek State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, on Lake Shetek, which is the largest lake in southwestern Minnesota and the headwaters of the Des Moines River. It is most popular for water recreation and camping. However the park also contains historical resources related to the Dakota War of 1862, including an original log cabin and a monument to 15 white settlers killed there and at nearby Slaughter Slough on August 20, 1862. The park and lake were developed by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Two districts of park structures built in the National Park Service rustic style are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Geography Lake Shetek State Park occupies on the east shore of Lake Shetek in northeastern Murray County, outside the town of Currie. The park is about equidistant from both Tracy to the north and Slayton to the southwest, and southeast of the city of Marshall. Almost of shoreline on Lake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal. The WPA's first appropriation in 1935 was $4.9 billion (about $15 per person in the U.S., around 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP). Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA supplied paid jobs to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while building up the public infrastructure of the US, such as parks, schools, and roads. Most of the jobs were in construction, building more than 620,000 miles (1,000,000 km) of streets and over 10,000 bridges, in addition to many airports and much housing. The largest single project of the WPA was the Tennessee Valley Authority. At its pea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inholding
An inholding is privately owned land inside the boundary of a national park, national forest, state park, or similar publicly owned, protected area. In-holdings result from private ownership of lands predating the designation of the park or forest area, or the expansion of the park area to encompass the privately owned property. In the United States, the main causes of inholdings is that all of the Federal land-management agencies were formed over a century after the government sold and issued land grants to private citizens to fund the administration of the United States. When the park system was formed, many of these now-called "inholdings" had been in private ownership for generations and not available for sale when the park was formed. Over the last several decades, conservation groups have lobbied the United States Congress to acquire private residences especially within designated wilderness areas, either by direct purchase or via land exchange which trades the inh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Hardwood Forest
The northern hardwood forest is a general type of North American forest ecosystem found over much of southeastern and south-central Canada, Ontario, and Quebec, extending south into the United States in northern New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, and west along the Great Lakes to Minnesota and western Ontario. Some ecologists consider it a transitional forest because it contains species common to both the oak-hickory forest community to the south and the Boreal forest community to the north. The trees and shrub species of the Northern Hardwood Forest are known for their brilliant fall colors, making the regions that contain this forest type popular fall foliage tourist destinations. Sugar maple, yellow birch, American beech, and white ash are the common key indicator tree and shrub species in the Northern Hardwood Forest. Other species include eastern hemlock and eastern white pine. Herb and heath species include wintergreen, wild sarsaparilla, and wood sorrel. Birds and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Field (ecology)
Old field is a term used in ecology to describe lands formerly cultivated or grazed but later abandoned. The dominant flora include perennial grasses, heaths and herbaceous plants. Old fields are canonically defined as an intermediate stage found in ecological succession in an ecosystem advancing towards its climax community, a concept which has been debated by contemporary ecologists for some time. Old field sites are often marginal lands with soil quality unsuitable for crops or pasture. Examples include abandoned farmlands in central Ontario, along the edge of the Canadian Shield. Stress tolerant species with wide seed dispersal ranges are able to colonize cultivated fields after their initial abandonment, usually followed by perennial grasses. The succession of old fields culminates in takeover by trees and shrubs, eventually leading to a climax forest stand. How old fields form Most old fields form as a result of agricultural land abandonment, the rate of which has bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecological Succession
Ecological succession is the process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. The time scale can be decades (for example, after a wildfire) or more or less. Bacteria allows for the cycling of nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. The community begins with relatively few pioneering plants and animals and develops through increasing complexity until it becomes stable or self-perpetuating as a climax community. The "engine" of succession, the cause of ecosystem change, is the impact of established organisms upon their own environments. A consequence of living is the sometimes subtle and sometimes overt alteration of one's own environment. Succession is a process by which an ecological community undergoes more or less orderly and predictable changes following a disturbance or the initial colonization of a new habitat. Succession may be initiated either by formation of new, unoccupied habitat, such as from a lava flow or a severe landsl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a bushfire( in Australia), desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, prairie fire, vegetation fire, or veld fire. Some natural forest ecosystems depend on wildfire. Wildfires are distinct from beneficial human usage of wildland fire, called controlled burning, although controlled burns can turn into wildfires. Fossil charcoal indicates that wildfires began soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants approximately 419 million years ago during the Silurian period. Earth's carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, and widespread lightning and volcanic ignitions create favorable conditions for fires. The occurrence of wildfires throughout the history of terrestrial life invites conjecture tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prairie
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Interior Lowlands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east. In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and sizable parts of the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and western and southern Minnesota. The Palouse of Washington and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, sand and silt can be carried in suspension in river water and on reaching the sea bed deposited by sedimentation; if buried, they may eventually become sandstone and siltstone (sedimentary rocks) through lithification. Sediments are most often transported by water ( fluvial processes), but also wind ( aeolian processes) and glaciers. Beach sands and river channel deposits are examples of fluvial transport and deposition, though sediment also often settles out of slow-moving or standing water in lakes and oceans. Desert sand dunes and loess are examples of aeolian transport and deposition. Glacial moraine deposits and till are ice-transported sediments. Classification Sediment can be classified based on its grain size, grain sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Channel (geography)
In physical geography, a channel is a type of landform consisting of the outline of a path of relatively shallow and narrow body of water or of other fluids (e.g., lava), most commonly the confine of a river, river delta or strait. The word is cognate to canal, and sometimes takes this form, e.g. the Hood Canal. Formation Channel initiation refers to the site on a mountain slope where water begins to flow between identifiable banks.Bierman, R. B, David R. Montgomery (2014). Key Concepts in Geomorphology. W. H. Freeman and Company Publishers. United States. This site is referred to as the channel head and it marks an important boundary between hillslope processes and fluvial processes. The channel head is the most upslope part of a channel network and is defined by flowing water between defined identifiable banks. A channel head forms as overland flow and/or subsurface flow accumulate to a point where shear stress can overcome erosion resistance of the ground surface. Channel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedrock
In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bedrock is often called an outcrop. The various kinds of broken and weathered rock material, such as soil and subsoil, that may overlie the bedrock are known as regolith. Engineering geology The surface of the bedrock beneath the soil cover (regolith) is also known as ''rockhead'' in engineering geology, and its identification by digging, drilling or geophysical methods is an important task in most civil engineering projects. Superficial deposits can be very thick, such that the bedrock lies hundreds of meters below the surface. Weathering of bedrock Exposed bedrock experiences weathering, which may be physical or chemical, and which alters the structure of the rock to leave it susceptible to erosion. Bedrock may also experience ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Till
image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is diagnostic of till. image:Glacial till exposed in roadcut-750px.jpg, Glacial till with tufts of grass Till or glacial till is unsorted glacier, glacial sediment. Till is derived from the erosion and entrainment of material by the moving ice of a glacier. It is deposited some distance down-ice to form terminal, lateral, medial and ground moraines. Till is classified into primary deposits, laid down directly by glaciers, and secondary deposits, reworked by fluvial transport and other processes. Description Till is a form of ''glacial drift'', which is rock material transported by a glacier and deposited directly from the ice or from running water emerging from the ice. It is distinguished from other forms of drift in that it is d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wisconsin Glaciation
The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cordillera; the Innuitian ice sheet, which extended across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago; the Greenland ice sheet; and the massive Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered the high latitudes of central and eastern North America. This advance was synchronous with global glaciation during the last glacial period, including the North American alpine glacier advance, known as the Pinedale glaciation. The Wisconsin glaciation extended from approximately 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, between the Sangamonian Stage and the current interglacial, the Holocene. The maximum ice extent occurred approximately 25,000–21,000 years ago during the last glacial maximum, also known as the ''Late Wisconsin'' in North America. This glaciation radically altered the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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