The Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, is a meandering prairie river in northeastern Kansas in the United States. It is the southwesternmost part of the Missouri River drainage, which is in turn the northwesternmost portion of the extensive Mississippi River drainage. Its two names both come from the Kanza (Kaw) people who once inhabited the area; Kansas was one of the anglicizations of the French transcription Cansez of the original kką:ze. The city of Kansas City, Missouri, was named for the river, as was later the state of Kansas.
The Wakarusa River is a tributary of the Kansas River, approximately 80.5 miles (129.6 km) long, in eastern Kansas in the United States. It drains an agricultural area of rolling limestone hills south of Topeka and Lawrence.
Clinton Lake is a reservoir on the southwestern edge of Lawrence, Kansas. The lake was created by the construction of the Clinton Dam, and the 35 square miles (91 km2) of land and water is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Mount Oread is a hill in Lawrence, Kansas, upon which the University of Kansas, and parts of the city of Lawrence, Kansas, are located. It sits on the water divide between the Kansas River and the Wakarusa River rivers. It was named after the long defunct Oread Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, where many of the settlers of Lawrence moved from prior to the American Civil War. The hill was originally called Hogback Ridge by many Lawrence residents until the Oread name was adopted in 1864, two years after the university was founded.
The geology of Kansas encompasses the geologic history and the presently exposed rock and soil. Rock that crops out in the US state of Kansas was formed during the Phanerozoic eon, which consists of three geologic eras: the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Paleozoic rocks at the surface in Kansas are primarily from the Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Permian periods.
Eudora Township is a township in Douglas County, Kansas, USA. As of the 2010 census, its population was 6,724.
Colorado is a geologic name applied to certain rocks of Cretaceous age in the North America, particularly in the western Great Plains. This name was originally applied to classify a group of specific marine formations of shale and chalk known for their importance in Eastern Colorado. The surface outcrop of this group produces distinctive landforms bordering the Great Plains and it is a significant feature of the subsurface of the Denver Basin and the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. These formations record important sequences of the Western Interior Seaway. As the geology of this seaway was studied, this name came to be used in states beyond Colorado but later was replaced in several of these states with more localized names.
Charles Blue Jacket was a Shawnee chief in Kansas, as well as a Methodist minister. He was the grandson of the Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket by his son George Blue Jacket. Charles' mother is unknown, but is believed to have been a Shawnee. His maternal grandmother was the daughter of a Shawnee woman and Jacques Baby.
The Ogallala Formation is a Miocene to early Pliocene geologic formation in the central High Plains of the western United States and the location of the Ogallala Aquifer. In Nebraska and South Dakota it is also classified as the Ogallala Group. Notably, it records the North American Land Mammal Ages (NALMAs) Hemphillian, Clarendonian, and Barstovian. It also includes an excellent record of grass seeds and other plant seeds, which can be used for biostratigraphic dating within the formation. The Ogallala Formation outcrops of Lake Meredith National Recreation Area preserve fish fossils. Similar specimens from the same unit are found at Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument in Texas.
The Oread Limestone is a geologic unit of formation rank within the Shawnee Group throughout much of its extent. It is exposed in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Iowa. The type locality is Mount Oread within Lawrence, Kansas. It preserves fossils of the Carboniferous period. Although it has significant shale members, its limestone members are resistant and form escarpments and ridges. Limestone from the unit is a historic building material in Kansas, particularly in the early buildings of the University of Kansas; standing examples include Spooner Hall and Dyche Hall.
The Stanton Formation is a geologic formation of limestone in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period. It is in the Upper Pennsylvanian series, forming the top of the Lansing Group.
The Graneros Shale is a geologic formation in the United States identified in the Great Plains as well as New Mexico that dates to the Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous Period. It is defined as the finely sandy argillaceous or clayey near-shore/marginal-marine shale that lies above the older, non-marine Dakota sand and mud, but below the younger, chalky open-marine shale of the Greenhorn. This definition was made in Colorado by G. K. Gilbert and has been adopted in other states that use Gilbert's division of the Benton's shales into Carlile, Greenhorn, and Graneros. These states include Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and New Mexico as well as corners of Minnesota and Iowa. North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana have somewhat different usages — in particular, north and west of the Black Hills, the same rock and fossil layer is named Belle Fourche Shale.
The Council Grove Group is a geologic group in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska as well as subsurface Colorado. It preserves fossils dating to the Carboniferous-Permian boundary. This group forms the foundations and lower ranges of the Flint Hills of Kansas, underlying the Chase Group that forms the highest ridges of the Flint Hills.
The Americus Limestone is a member of the Foraker Limestone Formation in eastern Kansas, where it is quarried as a distinctive ornamental stone. In outcrop, it is typically recognized as two relatively thin but persistent beds of hard limestone separated by shale that forms the lowest prominent bench of the many benches of the Flint Hills. The recognizable facie of the member in excavated or eroded exposures is two thin limestone beds separated a bed of shale and adjacent shales above and below having a particular gray or bluish color darker than higher limestones. A third, lower, highly variable algal limestone is often present and included as the base of the member. The unit is not particularly massive, the limestone pair totaling 3 to 4 feet in places, more in other locations but less to the North, and up to nearly to 9 feet at the type location of Americus, Kansas. The addition of the lower algal limestone as a base for the unit increases the thickness to over 18 feet. Initially thought to be the lowest of the Permian rock of Kansas and as such classified as the lowest unit of the Council Grove Group, the unit is now dated within the uppermost Late Carboniferous.
The Wellington Formation is an Early Permian geologic formation in Kansas and Oklahoma. The formation's Hutchinson Salt Member is more recognized by the community than the formation itself, and the salt is still mined in central Kansas. The Wellington provides a rich record of Permian insects and its beddings provide evidence for reconstruction of tropical paleoclimates of the Icehouse Permian with the ability in cases to measure the passage of seasons. Tens of thousands of insect fossil recovered from the Wellington shales are kept in major collections at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.
The Benton Shale is a geologic formation name historically used in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. In the "mile high" plains in the center of the continent, the named layers preserve marine fossils from the Late Cretaceous Period. The term Benton Limestone has also been used to refer to the chalky portions of the strata, especially the beds of the strata presently classified as Greenhorn Limestone, particularly the Fencepost limestone.
The Favel Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Cretaceous age. It is present in southern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan, and consists primarily of calcareous shale. It was named for the Favel River near Minitonas, Manitoba, by R.T.D. Wickenden in 1945.
Cottonwood Limestone, or simply the Cottonwood, is a stratigraphic unit and a historic stone resource in east-central Kansas, northeast-central Oklahoma, and southeastern Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. It is the lowest member of the Beattie Limestone formation and commonly outcrops within the deep valleys and on top of the scenic residual ridges of the Flint Hills.
Fencepost limestone, Post Rock limestone, or Stone Post is a stone bed in the Great Plains notable for its historic use as fencing and construction material in north-central Kansas resulting in unique cultural expression. The source of this stone is the topmost layer of the Greenhorn Limestone formation. It is a regional marker bed as well as a valued construction material of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Kansas. This stone was very suitable for early construction in treeless settlements and it adds a notable rust orange tint to the region's many historic stone buildings. But the most famous use is seen in the countless miles of stone posts lining country roads and highways. This status gives rise to such regional appellations as Stone Post Country, Post Rock Scenic Byway, and The Post Rock Capital of Kansas. This rustic quality finds Fencepost limestone still used in Kansas landscaping today.
The Lawrence Formation, also referred to as Lawrence Shale, is a Late-Carboniferous geologic formation in Kansas.
