Land Between Two Rivers; 107-Is; Upper Iowa River. Part 1

The following program is made possible through a grant from the Kennedy Lindstrom foundation incorporated a charitable trust Mason City Iowa. Whoa. Whoa. If if. With the harmonious blending of the tastes and textures colors and

tones nature sings a song of the senses. Each individual hears music differently. It's a siren song wistful and full of longing. To others it is a disjointed Cavaney of hoots and screeches dancing on the sighing Winans. And. It contains haunting things of foreboding rock with tense uncomfortable strains that crawl across the skin. However you approach this experience with love. Or dread. It is indeed a symphony of life. On the other Iowa River in northeast Ohio with this symphony is almost deafening in its complexity. With the whispering beauty that wrenches the heart. The upper Iowa River starts just north of the Iowa Minnesota border and meanders

along a narrow one hundred and thirty five mile Valley. Plunging nearly 700 feet. By the time it has reached its end at the Mississippi. It has carved its way through two geological landform regions. The island surface and the Paleozoic plateau also called the Driftless region. The island surface is level to gently rolling. It is dotted with patches of large boulders called glacial. A red takes. Believed to have been transported to this region. By the. Traveling east through the Iowan surface the land changes dramatically becoming the almost mountainous terrain of the Paleozoic plateau. Millions of years of erosion by rivers and streams have created the shaped valleys in the exposed limestone bedrock. It was once

believed that glaciers had never touched the eastern half of the Paleozoic but. Hence the name of this area. It was later discovered that glaciers once occupied this area though their impact was minimal. The character of any river is a rhapsody of land and water. And understatement concerning the upper Iowa. For EON's nature's whimsical mother has sculpted a land where the unique is common place. The symphony begins with deep subterranean bass notes. Beneath the surface. Water bores through the living rock creating cracks fissures small tunnels and ever warming its way

down. This is cold water. Music of rushing water echoes off the caves prismatic flow stone and glistening still lack tides and stalagmites most of the water comes from the surface. At times the earth swallows whole stream. Up above me here is a stream bed the bed of that stream is flowing over the limestone and as you can see we're sitting down well below the level of that stream bed in a feature called a swallow hole. This is a sinkhole that results from the collapse of that stream bed into some kind of underground opening that had formed here in the past. All of the water coming down the stream bed is being drained right through this swallow hole. That's it swirls around here and disappears just like down the drain of the bath tub and hence the name and swallow whole.

It's an area that's just like a large depression a large crater lined with the bedrock that we find in this area limestone is very susceptible to erosion by underground water movement. And over time the solution of the limestone will result in the formation of caverns and if enlarged to extensively enough can then result in the loss of support of the material over it and the collapse of that material into the opening resulting in the formation of the sinkhole or in this case was swallowed whole form in the event of the stream. But there is a more important. Idea to keep in mind perhaps and that is the realization that water is draining the land surface in the vicinity of this area. The swallow hole is taking all of that surface drainage and directing it just like it was a pipe underground. Into perhaps

subsurface or underground water supplies. People rely on wells and those wells are quite shallow and penetrate these limestone formations that's where the drinking water comes from. So we must keep in mind the significance of the fact that what goes on the land surface is potentially an avenue for contamination of the water supply that we depend on very heavily for our drinking water caves and swallow holes are parts of a system that pervades northeast Iowa called Karst topography. It's as if nature were experimenting with the idea of plumbing. Not all the water remains in Rocky tombs. Some forces its way back to the surface in the form of springs. We have. To.

Springs. Down. That was the result. Coming up at this. Hour. We might find in this includes the. Times turn cars. And trade in northeastern part of Iowa. I am this rushing water that we see in the

background of the spring fed story. And one of the characteristics of spring is that they respond very quickly to local heavy rainfall. And it's clear from the amount of modern sediment in the water. That we've had a heavy rain here overnight. At Twin Springs. The flow of. Groundwater is very gentle. The whaling takes place in a level area. But here. At Downing spring we have to climb. A very steep. Trail over large blocks of Red Rock in order to get to the spring itself. Where that brown water finally comes back to the land surface.

Rainfall. Moved on with the land surface. Infiltrated through the land surface. The patterns of. Cracks. And crevices in the limestone. Eventually finding its way. Under the rock. And then back. To the land surface. As we see here. The spring. Will. Then cascade down the waterfall. To the Swallow is another part of NE I was natural climbing. The rolling Upland Farm fields of county are dotted with features called sinkholes. These are close depressions that form at the land surface. I'm standing in a sinkhole here this is a feature that has a discreet room all around the outside there's no outlet for the drainage to flow from this feature all as a drainage is internal coming into the

center. Sinkholes formed by the collapse of underlying soil and rock material in areas that are under lain by lined stone ground water slowly dissolves the rock away and can form cavern systems. When those systems come close to the land surface they can no longer support the overlying soil and rock and that material collapses in developing a sinkhole at the land surface. Sinkholes are the feeders for springs such as Twin Springs and Dunning Springs. The water that goes into a sink hole infiltrates under the ground through fractures and crevices in the limestone. These limestone formations are also used for water supplies by people who drill shallow wells. So it's important not to put debris or refuse or dump material into sinkholes. This is a good example of a natural vegetative cover occurring in this sinkhole. The cat tails and other plant material here

form a natural filtering of the water that flows into this sinkhole and then down into the shallow underground water supplies. The plumbing analogy works CGs swallow holes springs and rivers all serve to circulate water throughout the upper Iowa Valley in a system of stone lying pipes and underground reservoirs or aquifers if managed properly. This provides northeast Iowa with abundant easily accessible and clean water. It is an elegant example of the power of water and time have over St.. The river cliffs of clustered columns attest to the waters. This process has laid bare the SO. It's ancient sea.

It's reviewer dolomite. And here you can drift through. The Current. You're. Sure. There are clues that in the past were tired of the fight and sought an easier route. This is an area referred to as the desert area terrain and compared to some of the other things that we've

seen along the valley of the lookout here across the landscape here in the foreground. And actual areas and where the wind is able to pick up the sand material and blow it into some of it into different at other times that we come here the landscape might look a little different than it does now as the sand gets blown around. The interesting thing to realize is where the sand came from. If you can imagine at one time the upper Iowa River actually flown here across this flat plain that we see out in front of us the other aisle was now to the north of us here about a mile and the floor of the present River Valley is about one hundred and twenty feet below the surface that we see out here in front of us. So we're standing in an abandoned channel on the upper Iowa River. As you look out across the terrain you can see one true covered but Nobby hill off in the distance. Another one off to the west

here bosun bluffs are all that remain of what was once a solid valley wall along Hills bluffs where once those hills were once attached were part of the main valley bluff. In spite of occasional lost battles the upper Iowa emerges triumphant where it joins the great Mississippi as we've come down the Upper I will River Valley we've encountered increasingly older bedrock formations along the valley sides and here we are almost now at the mouth of where the upper eyelid joins the Mississippi Valley and we're standing beneath an imposing sandstone of the oldest bedrock formations that we'll see along the valley of the upper Iowa Blackhawk point a Blackhawk landmark that you see in the background is composed of Cambrian age sandstone formations that are perhaps 500 million years old and beneath this bluff flowing here and strong swift

water today is the upper Iowa. And it's interesting to look then from that ancient bluff behind us to this modern flow of the river today and realize that we're looking. At the most important feel logical activity that's presently at work on the islands. Eat. Eat.

Eat. The upper Iowa River abounds in the richness of life. In late winter the ice and snow lose their cold grip on the valley. The watery gurgles down this solemn stone faces at Milan a few springs. In the frozen earth. Hear the music and dream of the song. Among the first to appear it are the skunk in a

process not entirely understood. These plants generate their own literally melting their way through winter snow. Skunk cabbage are aptly named. You could avoid them blindfolded. Even insects especially bees find them a rare and welcome source of pollen as they await the blooming of spring. Their long wait. Delicate blossoms of Trillium. Announce that Malana has adopted the season of its name. They are followed by a host of hearty spring. Lifting their voices to the sky. The beauty of the Upper I will Woodlands is not a shallow thing. To be educated

on. Plants and trees tell much about the area's history. Supporting the sermons written in the valleys layered walls. Atop the cliffs near Bluffton there are stands of balsam fir trees paper birches yellow birches and can I do you. These are among nearly 50 species of plants and ferns confined to the extreme northeast corner of the state that simply don't seem to belong in Iowa. But botanists have learned that 12000 years ago. Judging from fossilized pollen and buried logs. I was covered by such plans. These Hardy woodlands were quite comfortable in the cool glacial environment then present in Iowa. As they are today in northern Minnesota.

Over thousands of years as the climate warmed the spruce forests were usurped by the native varieties we see today. Except in northeast Iowa. Why it is a puzzle as yet unsolved although there are clues mingled in the strains of nature's music. Terry breast has been studying El Jefe Taylor's slopes where a unique blending of circumstances has created an environment reminiscent of millennia past. I was standing next to a very good example of it all just heard or cold producing Tayla slope. These are particularly characteristic of the Paleozoic plateau especially of Iowa. What they represent is is a preserved slice in time of of the type of biota that would have been characteristic of glacial areas especially during the Wisconsin 20000 years ago. The word al defeat means cold producing tailless describes a sloping pile of rock fragments and rubble at the base of a cliff or hill.

I'm north faces cool air flows from tailless covered caves in fissures chilling the slopes throughout the year where ice caves exist. The temperature of the slope remains between 37 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit all summer long over many centuries. I thin soil forms on top of the tail is supporting life forms common to the cool habitat present in Iowa 10 to 20000 years ago as its vegetated and is just barely held together more or less by the vegetation over an extremely thin layer of soil. Oftentimes only one or two inches because the tailless itself is unstable and then in essence there's nothing beneath it except air water and ice. And because a soil this than any kind of damage to it at all can be can be fatal. Cattle damage or even foot traffic can dislodge the soil can dislodge Moss boulders that have required hundreds or even thousands of years to form and probably wouldn't be able to form again if they were

disrupted. This is what covers the thin soil and rock cover if you look into this hole from which coal there's issuing right now you see the bare rock underneath just a couple of inches from the surface coating. If this furnace and a rock break cryptogram a stellar ride is a good example of the type of plant that can only exist in the cold air flowage in between the areas that are moss covered. Other relict plants carpet the slopes with Hume's of green the showy matey slipper adds a splash of color. And the federally endangered monkshood bestows reverence on this sanctuary of

Iowa's past animals as well as plants may find this micro habitat to their liking. This results in some lone colonies of tiny creatures seemingly untouched by time. OK this is one of the things that's really unique about an algae. It's well this is the I would place a seed snail federally endangered species that is only found on all Jeff its slopes and this would be one of the species is really typical of the glacial climate you can live nowhere else and this type of climate today can't can't live with the Northern Alliance even in the longer but in a few scattered areas in northeastern I one in Illinois is still hanging on and on the subject of telescopes. This this is one of several species that was originally described from fossil material and it's just fairly recently been found alive. And when this thing went on the endangered species list that colony was the only one known. The second movement in the sympathy of life is now reaching its climax and when he

sprays. The skunk cabbage leaves are large and heavy. The woods are an explosion of green rainbow highlight it is summer Atlanta. You're. Doing our next program. We'll continue our exploration of the upper Iowa River. We'll learn how plants adapt to soil types and land terrain in the river valley. Examine Iowa artifacts from the only auto culture and their impact on modern man. Well also climb to a rock shelter near the upper Iowa that ancient man used for more than

5000 with. That and more on NEXT time on the land between two rivers. Yeah.