A loess is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposits.
Crowley's Ridge is a geological formation that rises 250 to 550 feet (170 m) above the alluvial plain of the Mississippi embayment in a 150-mile (240 km) line from southeastern Missouri to the Mississippi River near Helena, Arkansas. It is the most prominent feature in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain between Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and the Gulf of Mexico.
The Driftless Area, also known as Bluff Country, the Blufflands, the Paleozoic Plateau, and the Coulee Region, is a topographical and cultural region in the Midwestern United States that comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. The Driftless Area is a USDA Level III Ecoregion: Ecoregion 52. The Driftless Area takes up a large portion of the Upper Midwest forest–savanna transition.
Carley State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, about 15 miles (24 km) northeast of Rochester and about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Plainview in Wabasha County. It is used for picnics, camping, hiking, and other outdoor recreation. It is known for the bluebell flowers that bloom there every spring.
The Dissected Till Plains are physiographic sections of the Central Lowlands province, which in turn is part of the Interior Plains physiographic division of the United States, located in southern and western Iowa, northeastern Kansas, the southwestern corner of Minnesota, northern Missouri, eastern Nebraska, and southeastern South Dakota.
The Missouri Rhineland is a geographical area of Missouri that extends from west of St. Louis to slightly east of Jefferson City, located mostly in the Missouri River Valley on both sides of the river. Dutzow, the first permanent German settlement in Missouri, was founded in 1832 by Baron von Bock. The area is named after the Rhineland region in central Europe, a wine-growing area around the Rhine river, by German-Americans who noticed similarities in the two regions' soil and topography.
The Loess Hills are a formation of wind-deposited loess soil in the westernmost parts of Iowa and Missouri, and the easternmost parts of Nebraska and Kansas, along the Missouri River.
Stone State Park is a state park in Iowa, United States, located in the bluffs and ravines adjacent to the Big Sioux River. The park is located on the northwestern edge of Sioux City and consists of 1,069 acres (433 ha) in Woodbury and Plymouth Counties, and overlooks the South Dakota-Iowa border. Stone Park is near the northernmost extent of the Loess Hills, and is at the transition from clay bluffs and prairie to sedimentary rock hills and bur oak forest along the Iowa side of the Big Sioux River. A variety of prairie plants can be found on the steep slopes and ridges, including yucca, penstemon, rough blazing star, silky aster, and pasque flower. Wild turkey, white-tailed deer, coyote, and red fox are found in the park. Birdlife includes the turkey vulture, barred owl, rufous-sided (eastern) towhee, and the ovenbird. Exposed bedrock in the park is composed of lignite, shale, sandstone, and limestone, and dates to the Cretaceous period; it is rich in marine fossils. The park contains many miles of hiking and equestrian trails, and is a popular destination for day visitors, overnight campers, mountain bike enthusiasts, and picnickers.
The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail is a 114-mile-long (183 km) hiking trail that traverses the Metacomet Ridge of the Pioneer Valley region of Massachusetts and the central uplands of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Although less than 70 miles (110 km) from Boston and other large population centers, the trail is considered remarkably rural and scenic and includes many areas of unique ecologic, historic, and geologic interest. Notable features include waterfalls, dramatic cliff faces, exposed mountain summits, woodlands, swamps, lakes, river floodplain, farmland, significant historic sites, and the summits of Mount Monadnock, Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke. The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail is maintained largely through the efforts of the Western Massachusetts Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). Much of the trail is a portion of the New England National Scenic Trail.
Buffalo Ridge is a large expanse of rolling hills in the southeastern part of the larger Coteau des Prairies. It stands 1,995 feet (608 m) above sea level. The Buffalo Ridge is sixty miles (97 km) long and runs through Lincoln, Pipestone, Murray, Nobles, and Rock counties in the southwest corner of Minnesota.
The Missouri River Valley outlines the journey of the Missouri River from its headwaters where the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin Rivers flow together in Montana to its confluence with the Mississippi River in the State of Missouri. At 2,300 miles (3,700 km) long the valley drains one-sixth of the United States, and is the longest river valley on the North American continent. The valley in the Missouri River basin includes river bottoms and floodplains.
Brushy Creek State Recreation Area is a state park in Webster County, Iowa in the United States. With an area encompassing over 6,000 acres (24 km2), the facility is one of Iowa's largest public outdoor recreation areas.
The geography of Iowa includes the study of bedrock, landforms, rivers, geology, paleontology and urbanisation of the U.S. state of Iowa. The state covers an area of 56,272.81 sq mi (145,746 km2).
The Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts of America offers programs in 58 counties in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. The Mid-America Council was formed from a merger of the Covered Wagon Council and the Southwest Iowa Council in 1965. The first recorded Council in the area was in 1918 as the Omaha Council. In 2000 the council merged with the Prairie Gold Council that had been located in Sioux City, Iowa.
The Columbia Plateau ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) encompassing approximately 32,100 square miles (83,139 km2) of land within the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The ecoregion extends across a wide swath of the Columbia River Basin from The Dalles, Oregon to Lewiston, Idaho to Okanogan, Washington near the Canada–U.S. border. It includes nearly 500 miles (800 km) of the Columbia River, as well as the lower reaches of major tributaries such as the Snake and Yakima rivers and the associated drainage basins. It is named for the Columbia Plateau, a flood basalt plateau formed by the Columbia River Basalt Group during the late Miocene and early Pliocene. The arid sagebrush steppe and grasslands of the region are flanked by moister, predominantly forested, mountainous ecoregions on all sides. The underlying basalt is up to 2 miles (3 km) thick and partially covered by thick loess deposits. Where precipitation amounts are sufficient, the deep loess soils have been extensively cultivated for wheat. Water from the Columbia River is subject to resource allocation debates involving fisheries, navigation, hydropower, recreation, and irrigation, and the Columbia Basin Project has dramatically converted much of the region to agricultural use.
Paha are elongated landforms composed either of only loess or till capped by loess. In Iowa, paha are prominent hills that are oriented from northwest to southeast, formed during the period of mass erosion that developed the Iowan surface, and they are considered erosional remnants since they often preserve buried soils. Paha generally rise above the surrounding landscape more than 6.1 metres (20 ft). The word paha means hill in Dakota Sioux. Well known pahas include the hill on which the town of Mount Vernon, Iowa developed, Casey's Paha in Tama County, Iowa, and the Kirkwood Paha, home of Kirkwood Community College's campus. These features are found in other regions of the United States and in Europe, where they are known as greda.
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.
The Western Corn Belt Plains is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in seven U.S. states, though predominantly in Iowa.
Loess Hills District is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) located in western Iowa and northwestern Missouri established on April 4, 2016 by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). TTB received a petition from Shirley Frederiksen, on behalf of the Western Iowa Grape Growers Association and the Golden Hills Resource Conservation and Development organization proposing the establishment of the “Loess Hills District.” The district is a long, narrow north–south orientated swath of land along the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers, covering 12,897 square miles from Hawarden, Iowa, to Craig, Missouri. There are approximately 66 commercially-producing vineyards covering a total of 112 acres (45 ha) distributed throughout the AVA, along with 13 wineries. Loess Hills District is not a sub-region within any established AVA.
The Chinese Loess Plateau, or simply the Loess Plateau, is a plateau in north-central China formed of loess, a clastic silt-like sediment formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. It is located southeast of the Gobi Desert and is surrounded by the Yellow River. It includes parts of the Chinese provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi. The depositional setting of the Chinese Loess Plateau was shaped by the tectonic movement in the Neogene period, after which strong southeast winds caused by the East Asian Monsoon transported sediment to the plateau during the Quaternary period. The three main morphological types in the Loess Plateau are loess platforms, ridges and hills, formed by the deposition and erosion of loess. Most of the loess comes from the Gobi Desert and other nearby deserts. The sediments were transported to the Loess Plateau during interglacial periods by southeasterly prevailing winds and winter monsoon winds. After the deposition of sediments on the plateau, they were gradually compacted to form loess under the arid climate.
