Smoky Hills

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Smoky Hills
Smoky Hills - Kansas.jpg
Highest point
Elevation 522 m (1,713 ft)  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Geography
CountryUnited States
States Kansas and Nebraska
RegionPlains Border (subregion)
Range coordinates 38°47′30″N97°59′51″W / 38.79167°N 97.99750°W / 38.79167; -97.99750
Parent range Great Plains
Geology
Age of rock Cretaceous

The Smoky Hills are an upland region of hills in the central Great Plains of North America. They are located in the Midwestern United States, encompassing north-central Kansas and a small portion of south-central Nebraska.

Contents

The hills are a dissected plain covered by tallgrass and mixed-grass prairie. The Smoky Hills were formed by erosion of sedimentary deposits from the Cretaceous period and expose chalk, limestone, and sandstone rock outcroppings.

Geography

KDOT distance map color-coded by physiographic region showing the Smoky Hills (center) Smoky Hills-KS.PNG
KDOT distance map color-coded by physiographic region showing the Smoky Hills (center)

The Smoky Hills region is part of the Plains Border subregion of the Great Plains. [1] It occupies nearly all of north-central Kansas, bordered on the west by the High Plains, on the northeast by the Dissected Till Plains, on the east by the Flint Hills, and on the south by the Arkansas River lowlands. [2] The region extends into south-central Nebraska, bordered on the north by the Rainwater Basin. [3]

It consists of three belts of hills, all running southwest to northeast, which correspond to the underlying geological formations (see geology section). The Smoky Hills proper comprise the easternmost belt; the two western belts are known as the Blue Hills. The hills of the westernmost belt are also known as the Chalk Bluffs. [4] The Blue Hills escarpment forms the boundary with the High Plains to the west. [5]

The Environmental Protection Agency divides the region into two Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregions: the Smoky Hills proper constituting the Smoky Hills Ecoregion in the east; and the Blue Hills and Chalk Bluffs constituting the Rolling Plains and Breaks Ecoregion in the west. [3]

The Republican River, Saline River, Solomon River, and Smoky Hill River all flow eastward through the Smoky Hills from their sources in the High Plains. Beginning in the 1940s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dammed these rivers at points in the Smoky Hills for flood control and irrigation purposes, creating several reservoirs. [6] [7] These include Cedar Bluff Reservoir, Kanopolis Lake, Kirwin Reservoir, Waconda Lake, Webster Reservoir, and Wilson Lake.

Land use in the Smoky Hills consists primarily of cropland and rangeland. [3] The region is sparsely populated with numerous communities of varying size, but no large cities. The two largest communities in the Smoky Hills region are Salina, Kansas and Hays, Kansas.

Elevations in the Smoky Hills range from about 1,200 feet (370 m) in the river valley near Salina to about 2,400 feet (730 m) at the western edge of the region. [8]

Geology

The region is divided into three regions based on the underlying Cretaceous rock outcroppings: The Dakota Formation (sandstone), the Greenhorn Limestone, and the Niobrara Chalk. [9] [10]

The Dakota Formation forms the eastern region. This area includes the Smoky Hill Buttes, [11] which are capped by sandstone and provide a sharp contrast with the surrounding plains. One of the most notable buttes is Coronado Heights in Saline County. [9] Pawnee Rock was another Dakota Sandstone landmark in the region. There are concretions at Rock City in Ottawa County and Mushroom Rock State Park in Ellsworth County. These are cemented by calcium carbonate. [12]

The Greenhorn Limestone region, Blue Hills [13] or Kearney Hills, [14] [15] in the central region is made up of thin—usually less than 6 inches (15 cm)—chalky limestone beds alternating with thicker beds of blue-gray chalky shale. This area is known as post rock country due to the practice of early settlers using limestone for buildings and fenceposts since trees were scarce. [9]

The Chalk Hills [15] are the beds of the Niobrara Chalk exposed in Fort Hays Limestone bluffs of the western Solomon, Saline, Smoky Hill, and Republican Rivers, and in an irregular belt of Smoky Hill Chalk bluffs further west. This area includes such Kansas landmarks as Castle Rock and Monument Rocks in Gove County. The chalk beds are known for the late 19th and early 20th century excavations of exceptionally well-preserved fossils of marine reptiles such as the plesiosaurs and mosasaurs found in the uppermost member of the Niobrara Chalk, the Smoky Hill Chalk. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salina, Kansas</span> City in Saline County, Kansas

Salina is a city in and the county seat of Saline County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,889.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoky Hill River</span> River in the United States

The Smoky Hill River is a 575-mile (925 km) river in the central Great Plains of North America, running through Colorado and Kansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cross Timbers</span> Ecoregion in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas

The term Cross Timbers, also known as Ecoregion 29, Central Oklahoma/Texas Plains, is used to describe a strip of land in the United States that runs from southeastern Kansas across Central Oklahoma to Central Texas. Made up of a mix of prairie, savanna, and woodland, it forms part of the boundary between the more heavily forested eastern country and the almost treeless Great Plains, and also marks the western habitat limit of many mammals and insects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanopolis State Park</span> State park in Kansas, United States

Kanopolis State Park contains a reservoir, desert plants such as yucca, a prairie dog town, and scenic sandstone canyons. It is located in the Smoky Hills region of the U.S. state of Kansas. The park is located southwest of the city of Salina, just south of I-70.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of Kansas</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niobrara Formation</span> Geological formation in the United States

The Niobrara Formation, also called the Niobrara Chalk, is a geologic formation in North America that was deposited between 87 and 82 million years ago during the Coniacian, Santonian, and Campanian stages of the Late Cretaceous. It is composed of two structural units, the Smoky Hill Chalk Member overlying the Fort Hays Limestone Member. The chalk formed from the accumulation of coccoliths from microorganisms living in what was once the Western Interior Seaway, an inland sea that divided the continent of North America during much of the Cretaceous. It underlies much of the Great Plains of the US and Canada. Evidence of vertebrate life is common throughout the formation and includes specimens of plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and pterosaurs as well as several primitive aquatic birds. The type locality for the Niobrara Chalk is the Niobrara River in Knox County in northeastern Nebraska. The formation gives its name to the Niobrara cycle of the Western Interior Seaway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ozark Highlands (ecoregion)</span>

The Ozark Highlands is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in four U.S. states. Most of the region is within Missouri, with a part in Arkansas and small sections in Oklahoma and Kansas. It is the largest subdivision of the region known as the Ozark Mountains, less rugged in comparison to the Boston Mountains in Arkansas, the highest part of the Ozarks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoky Hill Chalk</span>

The Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Chalk formation is a Cretaceous conservation Lagerstätte, or fossil rich geological formation, known primarily for its exceptionally well-preserved marine reptiles. Named for the Smoky Hill River, the Smoky Hill Chalk Member is the uppermost of the two structural units of the Niobrara Chalk. It is underlain by the Fort Hays Limestone Member; and the Pierre Shale overlies the Smoky Hill Chalk. The Smoky Hill Chalk outcrops in parts of northwest Kansas, its most famous localities for fossils, and in southeastern Nebraska. Large well-known fossils excavated from the Smoky Hill Chalk include marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs, large bony fish such as Xiphactinus, mosasaurs, flying reptiles or pterosaurs, flightless marine birds such as Hesperornis, and turtles. Many of the most well-known specimens of the marine reptiles were collected by dinosaur hunter Charles H. Sternberg and his son George. The son collected a unique fossil of the giant bony fish Xiphactinus audax with the skeleton of another bony fish, Gillicus arcuatus inside the larger one. Another excellent skeleton of Xiphactinus audax was collected by Edward Drinker Cope during the late nineteenth century heyday of American paleontology and its Bone Wars.

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, and as the geology of this seaway was studied, this name came to be used in states beyond Colorado, but was later replaced in several of these states with more localized names.

The Kiowa Formation or Kiowa Shale is a Cretaceous geologic formation in Kansas, diminishing to member status in Colorado and Oklahoma. In Colorado, the Kiowa Shale was classified as a member of the now abandoned Purgatoire Formation. In the vicinity of Longford, Kansas, the local Longford member comprises thinly bedded siltstone, clay, polished gravel, lignite, and sandstone suggests a river and estuary environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlile Shale</span> A geologic formation in the western US

The Carlile Shale is a Turonian age Upper/Late Cretaceous series shale geologic formation in the central-western United States, including in the Great Plains region of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanopolis Lake</span> Reservoir in Ellsworth County, Kansas

Kanopolis Lake is a reservoir in Ellsworth County in the Smoky Hills of central Kansas, about 31 miles southwest of Salina and a few miles southeast of the town of Kanopolis. The lake is formed by Kanopolis Dam. Completed in 1948 as a flood control and water conservation project of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the dam impounds the Smoky Hill River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yocemento, Kansas</span> Unincorporated community in Ellis County, Kansas

Yocemento is an unincorporated community in Big Creek Township, Ellis County, Kansas, United States. The settlement lies across the banks of Big Creek against the base of bluffs capped by massive limestone blocks, in which lies the 20th-century origin of the community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graneros Shale</span> Geological formation

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenhorn Limestone</span>

The Greenhorn Limestone or Greenhorn Formation is a geologic formation in the Great Plains Region of the United States, dating to the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous period. The formation gives its name to the Greenhorn cycle of the Western Interior Seaway.

The Valentine Formation is a geologic unit formation or member within the Ogallala unit in northcentral Nebraska near the South Dakota border. It preserves fossils dating to the Neogene period and is particularly noted for Canid fossils. A particular feature of the Valentine is lenticular beds of green-gray opaline sandstone that can be identified in other states, including South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. Even though three mammalian fauna stages can be mapped throughout the range of the Ogallala, no beddings of the Ogallala are mappable and all attempts of formally applying the Valentine to any mappable lithology beyond the type location have been abandoned. Even so, opaline sandstone has been used to refer to the green-gray opalized conglomerate sandstone that is a particular feature of the lower Ogallala.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wellington Formation</span> Geological formation

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benton Shale</span> Geologic formation (shale) in Montana, Wyoming, and other states

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Hays Limestone Member</span>

The Fort Hays Limestone is a member of the Niobrara Formation of the Colorado Group exposed in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota and is named for the bluffs near the old Fort Hays, a well-known landmark in western Kansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fencepost limestone</span>

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.

References

  1. "Physiographic Regions". A Tapestry of Time and Terrain: The Union of Two Maps - Geology and Topography. U.S. Geological Survey. Archived from the original on 2008-05-09. Retrieved 2010-02-19.
  2. "Geologic Regions". GeoKansas. Kansas Geological Survey. 2005-04-12. Retrieved 2010-02-19.
  3. 1 2 3 "Ecoregions of Nebraska and Kansas" (PDF). Environmental Protection Agency. 2001. Retrieved 2010-02-19.[ permanent dead link ]
  4. Metcalf, Artie L. (24 March 1966). "Fishes of the Kansas River System in Relation to Zoogeography of the Great Plains". University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History. 17 (3): 23–189.
  5. Adams, George I. (1902). "Physiographic Divisions of Kansas". Bulletin of the American Geographical Society. American Geographical Society. 34 (2): 89–104. doi:10.2307/197565. JSTOR   197565.
  6. "History of Kanopolis Dam". U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Archived from the original on 2009-01-09.
  7. "Pick Sloan Missouri Basin Program Project". U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
  8. Topo USA, DeLorme, 6.0
  9. 1 2 3 4 Brosius, Liz. "Smoky Hills". Kansas Geological Survey. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  10. Wilson, Frank W. (1978). "Kansas Landscapes: a geologic diary". Kansas Geological Survey. Retrieved 2018-03-12.
  11. Bruce F. Latta (1949). "Ground-water Conditions in the Smoky Hill Valley in Saline, Dickinson, and Geary Counties, Kansas". Kansas Geological Survey. p. Physiography. Retrieved 2018-03-12. Coronado Hill northwest of Lindsborg is the southernmost prominence of the Smoky Hill Buttes.
  12. Brosius, Liz. "GeoKansas--Smoky Hills--Rocks and Minerals". Kansas Geological Survey. Retrieved 2008-10-04.
  13. Bruce F. Latta (1950). "Geology and Ground-water Resources of Barton and Stafford Counties, Kansas". Kansas Geological Survey. p. Physiography. Retrieved 2018-03-12.
  14. Erasmus Haworth. "Physiography of Western Kansas". Kansas Geological Survey. Retrieved 2018-03-12. The general feature of the country is therefor similar to that of the Kearney hills west of Salina.
  15. 1 2 Artie L. Metcalf (1966). "Fishes of the Kansas River system in relation to zoogeography of the Great Plains". University of Kansas publications, Museum of Natural History. University of Kansas, Lawrence. p. 30. Retrieved 2018-03-12.

U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Smoky Hills