Land Between Two Rivers; 103; Little Sioux River: Mysteries of Stone and Earth

Oh. The following program is made possible through a grant from the Kennedy Lindstrom foundation incorporated a charitable trust Mason City Iowa. Oh. The land between two rivers Iowa what they call a cornfield. Small towns patches of Perrys and forests that dot the land like jewels. Driving along the east west for Lane the hills seem to roll on forever like a great green ocean frozen in time I've heard it called. I've also heard it called boring. A nice little hole homestate in the good ole US of A. You might say it's a nice place to raise your kids but nothing much ever happens here.

You'd be right in a manner of speaking. But then again you'd be wrong. The calm abiding nature of this land is only an illusion disguising the past. That boils and see it's like a witch's cauldron. A lot has happened here and a lot is still happening here just after no where to look. And I do. I can see you don't believe me. Native or just passing through. You look out your windows by the sameness. The stories I could tell about this bit of turf. Most of us take for granted. Well I'm guessing I've got your curiosity worked up. It takes years to know this land the way I do. But I've got about an hour to kill long enough to give you a taste of the mysteries. Time is stashed away in just one little backwater River Valley in northwest Ohio called the Little Sioux mysteries with names like hanging

Valley. So over Lake fan. And the kettle hole prairie there's last been certainly the last Mill Creek culture. And the strange history of pilot rock. These and others make up the well Tennyson said it best. The eternal landscape of the past. Some background info first. Don't be fooled by the name. The little zoo is the largest Iowa River Basin in the Missouri Valley. Four thousand sixty five acres with another 200 or so in southern Minnesota at the river source. Flowing for two hundred thirty six miles across the northwestern corner of Iowa. The

river empties into the Big Muddy around the town of Little Sioux. As good a place as any to start. Right away. This valley shatters the stock image of rolling Iowa. Though that image and others exist along this river in what geologists call landform regions. To me they're like people old and young faces change with the Miles who also rally occurring features in Northwestern. It actually covers five different land foreign regions that are present here in the state. Where the little joins the Missouri River is in a landform region called the plains of the Missouri River. Plains are characterized by being very flat very level landscapes. They've been formed by the. Meandering. Back and forth of the river across the flood plain slowly

eroding into positing sediment. The landscape that we see. Out behind us is very level. The land use is very characteristic of aloof plains. It's being intensively farmed and called evaded the soils that are exposed are really rich black loamy soil characteristic of Whoville plains and the intensive agriculture is very common in these landforms regions. The plane terminate very abruptly against the last tails in the far distance. The giant misery of today is only a creek compared to what it was 14000 years ago. Imagine this valley 10 miles wide or more filled with raging glacial meltwater huge ice chunks tossed around like bits of driftwood. Hold that it's one piece of them less hills possible on a day when

we were really being buffeted by the wind and when the clouds and their shadows are marching down the Missouri River Valley is a wonderful day to get an appreciation for how the Lost Hills of western Iowa formed during the late Pleistocene time perhaps 14000 years ago or so. This wide valley was carrying tremendous volumes of melt water from glaciers that were melting in north central Iowa from Minnesota and from the Dakotas. During the summer seasons the valley. Floor here would be covered with torrents of melt water. During the winter time when the melting flaunted was reduced in amount we had broad. Expanses of. Sand rars gravel bars flats that contained enormous quantities of silt and rock flower that the glacier had released. The winds. Swept that expanse. Of floodplain carry the silt sized material

off out of the valley. And has deposited it across. The Iowa landscape to the east. The result has been a tremendous. Amount of deposition of lost 50 to well over 100 feet thick in places the erosion that has taken place in Iowa since glacial time is what has carved the hills into the landforms that we see here today. The Lunts Hills tiny mounds of dust built by swirling dark blizzards now weathered like an old man's face here along this very characteristic steep sided road cut overlooking the Missouri River Valley we have an opportunity to look closely at this special material that we call us. First of all the material is assailed LOS is basically a wind blown silt. The origin of which was the Missouri River Valley silt is a very uniform

fine grained material very easily transported by the wind and the bluff here that you see behind me is a bluff composed entirely of this wind blown sail. It's very uniform in texture nearly radical slopes are its characteristic. Angle that it takes when it's being eroded or when it's been cut through by an excavation so the tendency of rust to stand in vertical faces and the very uniform character that it has. There is no large cobbles in this material and neither is it. Is it coy. It's a very uniform wind blown silk and the the thickness of it in this area is what contributes to the unique landscapes that we see through this particular region. Fourteen thousand years ago. A long time. Yet there are layers

here even older than the hills. In our lost hills of western Iowa is a very unusual deposit and interestingly enough also a wind blown deposit just as the law says. This happens to be material called volcanic ash something that you would normally think of as being found in Iowa. If you look at this very fine gray material under the microscope. You'll see that it's composed. Of very sharp. Shards fine needle like shards of glass. And it's very small size helps to explain the fact that it was. Born on the wind. From approximately a hundred fifty miles west of us here at what is now Yellowstone National Park. This ash was. Brought here by the wind from eruptions of volcanoes that were located in in Yellowstone and that are now extinct. By dating a deposit like this. We know it dates out at about

700000 years from a method called fission tracks and that tells us that this deposit is kind of an index for that time period. The last material above this is younger than 700000 years. The clay material below this is older than 700000. Time sings of glaciers wind and water is it whittles upon the land. A tune often heard as we move up river. The Lost Hills have their songs too. Like the summer song. When the hills become a light green city plants decked out in fancy uptown Globes. The creatures have struggled through life along this river longer than any of us could count.

Their trail lies buried in stone unearthed near the town of Turner. Are the rocky leftovers of creatures and some of them less than lovable that were written out of the play called evolution over ten thousand years ago. We need the hills of loss that occur near the town of Turin and we're known a colony we find exceptionally thick deposits of sand and gravel and these sand and gravel deposits are unusually rich in fossil fauna. The fossil material is primarily an ice age fauna large Pleistocene animals they are now extinct have been collected from this area. These include such animals as the giant ground floor the giant beaver mammoths and mastodons. The bone material from these animals has been deposited with the sandy gravel deposits that we find here beneath the laws. If sandy gravel indicates deposition by water so that means that

as glaciers stood in this vicinity either advancing or retreating the melt water or the water in advance of them is the material that carried these these sands and gravels and deposited them. And the bony material that we find as fossils now in the sand and gravel is really very common and even during a short trip to the torn gravel pit here where able to collect some very interesting fragments of the bones of some animal that roamed this area many hundreds of thousands of years ago. Up river now to a region geologist called the Southern Iowa drift plane where the hills roll like waves grass taller than a man over a covered wagon wheels once flowed over this land so the pioneers appeared to sail over sparkling green in their prairie schooners.

Here in the vicinity of correction Vale we get a good view of what the landscapes characteristic of this particular landform region are looking toward correction rail in the distance we see that all of the intervening terrain between here and the valley is a very stately rolling landscape. The stately Rawling are steeply dissected landscape is well drained. All of the precipitation and melt water from the snow are running off of this landscape drains into these little rows and ravines and eventually finds its way into the river off in the distance. Sometimes we don't see what the past is dealt till the cards are on the table. Over 100 years ago pioneer farmer Phipps was plowing up some Little Sioux river bottomland north of Cherokee. He noted likely would still work pioneer curiosity the newly broken sod was filled with bits of bone and broken pottery. Farmer Phipps didn't

know or probably care that what he considered trash was actually the cultural remains of an ancient civilization 500 years gone from this valley. A. About nine hundred eighty people today called Mill Creek after a Little Sioux tributary lived in northwest Iowa. It was their trash that farmer Phipps and others in the valley had been plowing up for years. Archaeologists investigated the area in the 1920s and Phipps says little parcel of bottomland revealed today 300 years of Mill Creek existence layered in a mound 12 feet deep. Archaeologist called it a base village. You'll see why in a minute.

This has given us an opportunity as archaeologists to examine the changing technologies because if people are staying in one place and they're successful and their populations are expanding we expect to find diversification of tool types new types of stone and bone tools for example elaboration of pottery trade items that will show connections with other areas and all of these things are present on a base village. The specimen of broken pottery I had before me is not a typical type of Mill Creek ceramic Rather it's a trait specimen more commonly associated with pottery that we find in the larger Mississippi and agricultural communities along the Mississippi River. And one of the diagnostic features of the Mill Creek culture is the evidence that we can find on Mill Creek sites for extensive trade contact and interaction with these Mississippi and farming

communities. In addition to the pot some of the items we have here is this whole or chunky stone as it's called by archaeologists since historically a artifact like this was used in the game called chunky which was a contest held amongst the Warriors during the early green corn ceremony. Another example of trade contacts. Is this large. Cut Piece of gulf coast marine shell. Which was brought into the area through the Mississippian culture connection and made into shell beads. Which were traded amongst members other other villages in Mill Creek culture and groups in the surrounding area.

This trade and interaction continued throughout the occupation of the Little Sioux valley by Mill Creek groups as based villages grew because of favorable climate and profitable trade. Smaller Mill Creek suburbs were farmed when archaeologist call but had villages but had villages like the Brewster side located a few miles upstream. Settled. Second choice real estate. They manage being excellent farmers and hunters with state of the art technology. I have in my hand here an example of a very common agricultural tool which would have been used by the women who did most of the agricultural work. This is a bison scapula hoe this is a shoulder blade from a bison that has been cut and worked to make a blade for a hoe to work the garden plots. When the corn was harvested and brought from the fields. It was processed on tools like these these are called

combination a model of a toddy mano Spanish for hand in the toddy the grinding stone the corn would have been shelled and then ground on the toddy the corn that wasn't processed on a daily basis would've been stored in underground silos or storage pits. Archaeologists call them cash pits. These are located in the houses themselves around the houses and other parts of the village. Other kinds of crops were used and domesticated by these plains village groups including tobacco. Tobacco is quite a bit a ceremony associated with it because the back row and the smoking of tobacco was a religious or ceremonial occasion it wasn't something we do every day or are a commonplace preacher. The men of the tribe would have would have grown the tobacco plots of use perhaps a tool like this this is an elk or an antler and as you

can see it has a great deal of polish on the tip. The tip is been blunted and the other end has been cut and trimmed to hold a shaft and use it like a dibble or digging stick to make small holes in the ground to plant at the back of seeds and grow them. The kinds of tobacco pipes used by. People in Mill Creek culture include this specimen that this is made from cattle Knight or red Pipestone which presently is quarried north of here and Pipestone national monument. You can see it's quite a bit of blackening on it indicating its use as well as these tick marks or scratch marks along the stem of the pipe which might be indicative of the number of times it would use chuckling at no great technology. You try living your life purely off what nature provides me. I'm lost without a hot shower even though the Mill Creek people did have

more game cleaner water and fresher soil than you would today. There's no denying their consummate skill in artistry. The remains at this site include a lot of bison bone. There is evidence from rock and other sites that the bison became more and more important in the economy as we have shifted toward the conditions of the Pacific climatic episode where it's drier. Now the use of bison has has been recognised as an important aspect of the milk crate cultures tool inventory and it happens that the milk crate culture has the most elaborate bone tool inventory of any of the groups on the planes for that period of time. And this has some bearing on the possible. Location of the Mill Creek people when they left this area the site is 20 or so houses were surrounded by what appears to be a moat and a log wall outlined by modern posts. Many scientists

think it was built to keep out the only old and new guys on the block. But that's another story and this one's about over. Incident spot of the success of Miller Creek groups to adapt to their local environment and environmental changes brought upon by climatic shifts leading to some of these large fortified nucleated villages as the kind you see behind me here. Eventually they abandoned the Little Sioux River Valley we believe they did this around thirteen hundred A.D.. Certainly there were no Mill Creek Indians or representatives of their culture at the time of white contact in this area in the historic period where they went as a matter of dispute. But the kinds of material culture that we talked about earlier the bone and stone tools and this restored ceramic vessel I have here before me are the kinds of artifacts that are found among similar plains village farming groups along the Missouri trench in central South Dakota. So our

best 13:00 joined the group forming groups in South Dakota and what you see here is creek culture just where they went as a matter of dispute among archaeologists. The Dakota plains area will never know unless time decides to show its hand again. The one time home of the Mill Creek people the Little Sioux River Valley changes faces once again. The Little Sioux River probably traverses more of the distinctive landform regions in Iowa than any other valley we've seen it out in the Missouri River Lluvia plain We've seen it through the Lost Hills. We've seen it

in the southern I would drift plane and now we're seeing it in the broad wide expanse of the northwest Iowa plains. The characteristics of the terrain in this area are that the horizon is easily seen from most any place that you stand. This is a very open terrain and the only trees that you see growing in this part of the state are those that have been planted as windbreaks around the farmsteads of the the area the northwest Iowa plains are the highest part of Iowa. The elevation across the state is increasing all the time to the north and to the west. Also in terms of rainfall we're drier than any other part of Iowa. And these two factors in combination with the very gently rolling landscape give this terrain an appearance that's kind of similar to the Dakotas kind of a jumping off place to the high plains of the Dakotas.

For centuries paths of wandered by this rock the Indians knew it as woven stone. The pioneers dubbed it by Little Rock to geologists this hulking brute perched like a sentinel over the Little Sioux River south of Cherokee marks the path of another cold hearted wonder challenges find this natural. Landmark to be of special interest in part because it's not a natural exposure of bedrock. If you look around this entire region that we can see from atop this rock we can see no other naturally natural exposures of bedrock and the nearest exposure of this type of rock occurs in extreme north western lion County in an area called Get you manage to stay preserved. That tells

geologists that this particular rock is. Is a glacial erratic. A stranger to the area where we are now something that's not naturally occurring here but that has been brought here by glacial ice probably several hundred thousand years ago. Not only is the rock of interest because it demonstrates to the geologist that glacial ice was involved in its placement here but it's of interest for the rock type itself. This rock called the Sue courtside. It's pink. And this pink to reddish color is something that enables most people to identify it very quickly. The sue court side is also special to Iowans because it's the oldest. Exposed rock that we can find anywhere in the state. The Sioux chord site. Is approximately one point two billion years old.

Pilot rock is an important local landmark. It has a significance to the state's historians. It certainly has a significance to the geologist. But to some people it's clear that it has no significance at all. We've seen only a few of the mysteries that lay hidden in the land. Let's hear the Mill Creek people. Pilot rock mysteries by scientific gumshoes searching for clues at the scene of the crime. You can do it yourself with a little scientific help. Try your sleuthing skills on the Little Sioux River about two miles northeast of. The strange hanging Valley. As we look in the back ground we can see that the present course of the Little is FAR

more or less the area where the trees are occurring and the law that lies adjacent to the trees marks the present floodplain of the Little Sioux River. At this upland location where we're standing here where approximately 80 feet above the present flood plain. This would be a terrace feature. This marks a former flood plain level of the little that is now abandoned and left hanging here above the little valley floor. You might ask yourself how it happens that geologist realize that this is an abandoned valley of the Little Sioux. What features exist here that tell us that this actually did hold some of the water from the Little Sioux River Valley. And as you look off into the distance you can see the same characteristics of this hanging Valley as are present along the Little Sioux today.

The valley sides drape up onto the landscape up to the skyline mark the the upland Valley sides down across the cornfield. The level of flood plain floor of the valley and then up again on the valley wall on this side and in the far distance in the sky line marks the outlet point of this hanging Valley. So at one time the Little Sioux needed two main channels. But why and why was this valley left hanging. Another clue a little further upstream. In the vicinity of the Clay County O'Brian county line the character of the Little Sioux River Valley changes dramatically. Here with the town of Peterson located in the far distance where at the beginning of a very narrow stretch of the Little Sioux Valley which has been called the Straits this segment from Peterson on down to Lynn Grove to

Sioux Rapids and on to Gillette Grove marque this very narrow course of the valley. The fact that it's narrow indicates that it has formed very recently in geologic time. This was probably taking place in the vicinity of 14000 years ago. Oh. Now we've got a handle on about when it happens. Thousand years ago. In the neighborhood of the last glacier to visit this land the Wisconsin. Displays you're. Playing with. Another just above the street. The value of the little river through Clay County. It gives us an outstanding opportunity to view the effect of glaciers particularly the one that was present in north central Iowa about 14000 years ago when the glacial ice was at its maximum and southern extent

during a period called the Wisconsin and we had of that glacier the westernmost glacier stood just on the other side of the Little Sioux valley here. The ice was stagnant that was as far as it was able to get. It just stopped there and began to slowly melt in DKA as it melted. We had chutes of water coming along the ice front marginal to the ice front. We had tunnel valleys where melt water was actually coming out from under and through the glacial ice carrying lots of water lots of silt tea rock flour and even big boulders and and cobbles being deposited out of the melting ice. All that was taking place just right here along the Little Sioux right along the edge of the ice front. So this valley then represents an ice marginal stream along its course here through Clay County. It actually formed along the contact of

the ice. The pattern and its Valley takes was actually formed by the configuration of that standing wall of glacial ice. The ice also blocked streams that were flowing eastward to the Mississippi and pond in that drainage which also accumulated along the valley and helped to carve out a new road to value that we see. Time and water are not beatable Rosena horse and there was certainly plenty of water in the massive ice sheets of the Wisconsin and last year. But you'd think it would take the sudden rush of a large quantity of water to carve out the streets and a channel for the sewage Valley. To solve this mystery. Then we need one. The area north of Spencer in Clay County has long been recognized as the site of an

ancient glacial lake. As you look across the landscape here in the background you can see that it is a very flat level occurring in the sediments that live beneath this level landscape are composed of finely laminated and Celts and clays indicating deposition in a lake environment. The lake was formed by the ponding of eastward flowing drainage by the ice front which stood off to our west. Those rivers couldn't fly any farther east they the ice dam the MUP the lake began to accumulate sediments were deposited in the lake. The lake level rose and finally. Rose high enough that it overflowed an outlet to a new channel and began to be excavated along the ice margins down the valley toward and through the narrow canyon valley toward Peterson.

The mystery of the hanging Valley. Imagine the scene of fourteen thousand years ago the upper Little Sioux flowing peaceably southeast to the Mississippi. When the Wisconsin glacier moves into north central. Damming it up. As the glacier melted the river water began to Lake Spencer until it finally overflow a torrential burst of water rushed down the Little Sioux Valley. Forming the street. In the area of Peterson. The onslaught proved too much for the old valley and the river carved itself a second. As the waters diminished the little Sue settled into its new channel leaving the mysterious hanging Valley. In the process of solving this case we've moved into another major geological landform known as the Des Moines low.

This region was created by the same force it created hanging Valley namely the notorious Wisconsin and glacier. This glacier covered only the north central portion of Iowa. As far as the city of DES MOORE hence the name. Being so recent The Des Moines lobes affect on the Iowa landscape is still very apparent and high altitude photographs. It's also very apparent from ground level. Case in point. We're at the half hour state preserve with the Little River Valley in the background and in the foreground a crater like. Depression forming the kettle. The fact that I stood here. Stagnate and melting very slowly has left a very irregular landscape and features called candles. A large

walk isolated a glacial ice that stood in this and melting very slowly outlined the landscape in the kettle. Before you was formed in this manner. The kettle hole had stories to tell. Aside from its glacial heritage in significant microscopic grains of pollen buried within its murky bottom represent a fourteen thousand year record of plant life in this area. And once you learned what plants existed here you can learn what types of climate supported them. This record shows that this part of Iowa was once cooler and more moist dotted with pine and spruce trees. Over time the climate changed becoming the drier prairie environment of today. Preserved by the Nature Conservancy. The prairie surrounding the kettle hole has a story to tell as well. It's the same story year after year.

Yet always fascinating and always new. Late winter finds it brown and dead looking. But this of course it's an illusion. Let's go down to this corner down here northwest corner and start

burning on our fire breaks both ways that. As bring bleeds into summer the time comes for a prairie dog once a natural occurrence. This fire is manmade and controlled. Almost. This area's been a. Bit especially bad one. In years past we started burning this for the conservancy. It's either 80 or 81 in the band the first time we got up we were burning out the interior of the cattle itself and the wind came up and over the edge and swirled down into the base of the cattle and then would sweep back up the hill. And dig. Doesn't the circular shape that kill it also swept around the slopes while we were burning on the inside when the thing got around behind us and chased all of us out of the cattle dropping equipment as we went because it was roaring so fast we were just running at top speed. People hadn't got a drop of

three or four people out of there before it burned up but when it reached the top of the channel then the wind coming over. Stopped it again and we were OK. The raging prairie fires catastrophic to human and animal alike were actually necessary to the Perrys health. All but the hardiest trees were burned away and the soil enriched. By mid-summer the cattle whole Prairie is fully recovered. Dressed in its. Finest. With an appreciative audience of birds. And other prairie dwellers. Yeah.

Back. This one is the adult I was just trying to see if he was molding. Dr Rick Lambie is studying small mammal populations more critters if you prefer. Here and elsewhere in the valley this species is primarily vegetarian although they'll take on fruits when they're available. Some insects when they're available. Fungus or learning one number of these small mammals are eating it not so much out here in the grasslands but in forests they're eating a lot of fungus. So and they become food then for many of the carnivores the mouse we have here although it's an exotic in the sense that it's an introduced

species does occur in these areas especially in the agricultural areas that we were trapping in this morning. It's the house mouse. The colors are just the light brown. When people think of mice they're thinking of this guy in particular and dark back slightly lighter stomach the tail of his hair or less. And you can get the very distinct rings on the tail. As you learn about these little animals you also learn things about the creatures they eat and the creatures that eat them. What we have here. Is not a mouse. These are shrews. This is a common member of the grassland community. It's called A Short tailed shrew. People will see these but not know what they are.

You commonly see them crossing roads. They're pretty voracious feeder as do most shrews they have a high metabolism they have to eat continuously but they have to eat frequently. This one is a predator it will eat mice. You'll find it out here in grasslands. Not so much in the forests it is an insect of war. We order Insectivora So it's not a rodent. It's different from the mice that we've been talking about. We're here trying to learn the natural history of these animals so that we can preserve them for posterity so that we can understand as Spaceship Earth keeps on going exactly how it all operates. It's very hard to know what kind of information will be needed 10 years from now 50 years from now

if we did we wouldn't have to go on all of the hard work that's involved in learning. We could just say this is important and we don't need the rest of it. But since we can't do that. We have to try our very best in understanding as much about the natural systems as we can learn and thereby safeguard everyone's welfare. The organisms that we're studying here as well as yours and mine are. All too soon it seems the summer dance is over and the kettle Perry drops its finery in the fall preparing for winter sleet. There seem to be no end to the variety of unique geological formations created by the

Des Moines lobe of the Wisconsin and glacier. Outstanding among them are Iowa's Great Lakes great holes in the land some shallow Some deep. Just out by the Des Moines lobe and filled with water as it wasted away. Some places the glacial bulldozer and quirks inherent in the land combine to form strange alien environment in Dickinson County we have an opportunity to see some of the really caustic glacially for landscapes in the little valley nearby. Is Trevor seeing some of these unique regions here in Dickinson County. This is location is the Silver Lake fan state preserve. And fans are very unusual occurrences of groundwater that is very highly mineralized. In this case it's an alkaline rich and sulphate rich ground water which is upwelling at this location resulting in the appearance of numerous

pools in an upland location and then gradually working down slope into these numerous shallow pools that we see here. The ground is very spongy very as you walk over it. Most quakes you can just feel it. The ground surface jiggling under your feet and these little pools are very highly mere lies. You can see the lime rich water encrusting the vegetation that's growing in these pools with kind of a coating of white. And this is a very interesting area not only to geologists but to the botanists and zoologists who study the plant in animals associated with this very specialized habitat. Pens are a niche of the wetlands that once nearly covered the Perrys of the Des Moines lo. It is here in the wetlands of north central Iowa and South Central Minnesota. The Little Sioux begins the exact location is the lucerne

river being hard to distinguish from Mars or bog at times. It is a harsh almost confusing habitat for those creatures who stay here year round for in a short period of time. This area can change from shallow flooded plain to flowing river bordered by Marsh to Dusty river bed with tiny stagnant pools to well anything in between. OK very good haul. We've got a collection here that's pretty typical of this type of river. It's what we call a collection of Pioneer fishes. This type of river system is really a very rigorous habitat floods in the spring time but often becomes dry and intermittent in the summer. Techs are pretty tough fish to survive this type of thing. Take a look at some of our common inhabitants here. We picked up quite a few black bullheads

bullheads are very typical of marshes and small streams in the area. We've got a small northern pike the Northern Pike has another fish that most fishermen know it as a lake fish but it's really very common in small prairie streams and marshes. The last species of fish that we've got here this looks like a small blue bullhead but it's called a mad Tom. This is called the tadpole mad Tom. It's called that because it bears some resemblance to a tadpole. And it's a typical Marsh dwelling mad Tom mad times are interesting little fishes because among other things they bear a pictorial fin spine or a shoulder fin spine that contains a venom and this animal can give you a sting much like a bee sting.

Such a rigorous habitat makes for a hard life but still left to their own. These marshes and streamlets represent a healthy natural system and the reason for this has as much to do with the land as it does with the river. This is a classic example of a green belt around a river. This is not these hills are NOT have not been plowed and one of the reasons is there solid gravel but fortunately that means that these slopes have been protected and this side is all marshland. It floods you can't blow this. It floods too often so this is the classical green belt. In other words this does not have row crops farming down to the water's edge which is that which is a disaster just by streams in agricultural land streams and agricultural land are essential. This is the heart of Iowa. The water in these meandering Rivers irrigates all of Iowa in a beautiful fashion. But

this kind of belt along it the so-called green belt is nature's tertiary treatment filter. It takes everything up which would have normally enriched the waters and cause sometimes heavy pollution as a result of that from the richness of the soil washing it. It is still a rich river but it is controlled by this belt which acts as a filter. A giant sponge of green which protects the waters of the stream. Would that every stream and I had such a greenbelt along it it would protect the stream enormously. And what a great place for kids to see Rivers. But a great place for people to fish for bikers to bike and a place of peace and quiet and one of the real beauties of these natural streams. When these green belts are cleared there are winners and losers. It isn't that simple of course. Trying to fit nature on an accountant's balance sheet means some

tough calls and the toughest part is that once some decisions are made there's no going back. This is where we came this spring to bring our classes to study a very very delightful little book that empties into a little so below. And this is what we found. The creek was gone. And instead we have this channeled ditch which was dug this year. The history of this ditch goes back to prior to World War One. There was a little brook here a natural brook the drained of the little sow behind us here were three likes small lakes very shallow and at a time when they wanted to increase the agricultural production in World War One they drained those by digging this ditch through here. We are now finally knows and we're reaping the economic advantages of having drained us. But we are also at the same time losing the extraordinary diversity of life that used to be here of necessity to feed the

world. But that's not replaceable. There's something about complexity which is essential or at least. Very admirable in Nixon. That we're losing. This is monotonous. This is deadly monotonous and the diversity of species is now almost zero. And when it comes back it will be much lower than it was. We've seen that time and again. That is lost. And that we will not forget. And that has something to do with the quality of life in Iowa people's enjoyment of it as well as the balance of nature. I suppose the thing to do would be to end this collection of stories right here. Music swells over a shot of the setting sun. But I've got one final place to show you. Coming up the Little River Valley now near at the headwaters in Northwestern or in the recently glaciated landscapes of Iowa and prominent among those features is this

dramatic knob of glacial drift in the background. This is Oak mound. The mound itself is composed of sands and gravels still water deposited material that probably. Formed. An odd. Hole within the glacial ice. So appropriately here at Mound a dramatic example of a glacial feature. We're reminded once again of the glacial origins of the Little Sioux River Valley. My hours about. My apologies if you were looking for a slam bam finish but

there's a reason for this little bit of Iowa style Americana. These folks are dedicating the old cheating mound as a state preserve. It may seem a little corny but when you think about it look at the faces. You are looking at the crowning glory of 5 billion years of natural heritage. The result of events both awesome in minute can be seen and heard in something as simple as the valiant attempt of a high school band to bring some pomp and ceremony to the occasion. When you look at the story of the Little Sioux River Valley and it's just one of a million stories about the land between two rivers. You can't help but think what a strange and marvelous creation it is and how tremendously we benefit from it. Many Iowans know how much their very existence is tied to the land. The point of all this is that like it or not we're all tied up in this great scheme of water land and life.

It's just a plain fact that the number of plants and animals that have headed out the exit marked dinosaurs is downright terrifying. What do you make out of this fact is your own business. Me. I got to wonder if maybe we aren't walking backwards toward that door ourselves. The preceding program was made possible through a grant from the Kennedy

Lindstrom foundation incorporated a charitable trust Mason City Iowa. Infinite Living melodies played throughout the natural world from simple to complex like permeate our environment. Such music has the power to soothe or excite ourselves in our next program we take you to ne Iowa's upper Iowa River Valley to witness this ageless symphony of life on land between two rivers.