1.
International Union for Conservation of Nature
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, lobbying. IUCNs mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of resources is equitable. Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to equality, poverty alleviation. Unlike other international NGOs, IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation and it tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice, and through lobbying and partnerships. The organization is best known to the public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List. IUCN has a membership of over 1200 governmental and non-governmental organizations, some 11,000 scientists and experts participate in the work of IUCN commissions on a voluntary basis. It employs approximately 1000 full-time staff in more than 60 countries and its headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. IUCN has observer and consultative status at the United Nations, and plays a role in the implementation of several conventions on nature conservation. It was involved in establishing the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the past, IUCN has been criticized for placing the interests of nature over those of indigenous peoples. In recent years, its relations with the business sector have caused controversy. It was previously called the International Union for Protection of Nature, establishment In 1947, the Swiss League for the Protection of Nature organised an international conference on the protection of nature in Brunnen. It is considered to be the first government-organized non-governmental organization, the initiative to set up the new organisation came from UNESCO and especially from its first Director General, the British biologist Julian Huxley. At the time of its founding IUPN was the international organisation focusing on the entire spectrum of nature conservation Early years. Its secretariat was located in Brussels and its first work program focused on saving species and habitats, increasing and applying knowledge, advancing education, promoting international agreements and promoting conservation. Providing a solid base for conservation action was the heart of all activities. IUPN and UNESCO were closely associated and they jointly organized the 1949 Conference on Protection of Nature. In preparation for this conference a list of endangered species was drawn up for the first time
2.
Natural monument
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A natural monument is a natural or natural/cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities or cultural significance. They are generally quite small protected areas and often have high visitor value and this is a lower level of protection than level II and level I. The European Environment Agencys guidelines for selection of a natural monument are, the area should be large enough to protect the integrity of the feature and its immediately related surroundings
3.
Allamakee County, Iowa
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Allamakee County is the northeastern-most county in the U. S. state of Iowa. As of the 2010 census, the population was 14,330, Allamakee County was formed on February 20,1847. The derivation of the name is debated, some believing it was the name of an Indian chief, others think it was named for Allen Magee, the first Allamakee County Courthouse in Waukon, built in 1861, now serves as the Allamakee County Historical Museum. The present Allamakee County Court House was built in 1940, both courthouse buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 659 square miles. In the northern part of the county is the Upper Iowa River, in the southern part is the Yellow River. The eastern boundary is the Mississippi River, all offer scenic and recreational opportunities, particularly in Yellow River State Forest. French Creek flows north of Waukon, outside the city limits, Paint Creek, named after Paint Rock Bluff, flows out of the south of Waukon. Norfolk creek originates in the outskirts of Waukon and is effluent to the Yellow River. Village Creek flows through rural terrain. All are tributary to the Mississippi River, the landforms encountered in the county are very unlike those found in most of Iowa, which is mostly absent Glacial Drift. This Driftless Area also includes parts of Clayton, Fayette, Winneshiek, Howard, Dubuque, there were 7,617 housing units, of which 5,845 were occupied. As of the census of 2000, there were 14,675 people,5,722 households, the population density was 23 people per square mile. There were 7,142 housing units at a density of 11 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 95. 88% White,0. 14% Black or African American,0. 18% Native American,0. 27% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,2. 82% from other races, and 0. 70% from two or more races. 3. 54% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race,27. 50% of all households were made up of individuals and 14. 30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49 and the family size was 3.02. In the county, the population was out with 25. 40% under the age of 18,7. 00% from 18 to 24,25. 60% from 25 to 44,23. 60% from 45 to 64
4.
Clayton County, Iowa
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Clayton County is a county located in the U. S. state of Iowa. As of the 2010 census, the population was 18,129, the county was established in 1837 and was named in honor of John M. Clayton, United States Senator from Delaware and later Secretary of State under President Zachary Taylor. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 793 square miles. It is the fifth-largest county in Iowa by area, streams have deeply carved valleys, while the Mississippi River has spectacular bluffs. The 2010 census recorded a population of 18,129 in the county, there were 8,999 housing units, of which 7,599 were occupied. As of the census of 2000, there were 18,678 people,7,375 households, the population density was 24 people per square mile. There were 8,619 housing units at a density of 11 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 98. 93% White,0. 14% Black or African American,0. 22% Native American,0. 11% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,0. 19% from other races, and 0. 41% from two or more races. 0. 76% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race,26. 30% of all households were made up of individuals and 13. 30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the family size was 2.98. In the county, the population was out with 25. 40% under the age of 18,6. 50% from 18 to 24,26. 00% from 25 to 44,23. 60% from 45 to 64. The median age was 40 years, for every 100 females there were 97.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.50 males, the median income for a household in the county was $34,068, and the median income for a family was $40,199. Males had an income of $27,165 versus $19,644 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,930, about 5. 70% of families and 8. 60% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9. 60% of those under age 18 and 9. 40% of those age 65 or over. Clayton County is divided into townships, The population ranking of the following table is based on the 2010 census of Clayton County
5.
Iowa
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Iowa is a U. S. state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west. Surrounding states include Wisconsin and Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska and South Dakota to the west, in colonial times, Iowa was a part of French Louisiana and Spanish Louisiana, its state flag is patterned after the flag of France. After the Louisiana Purchase, people laid the foundation for an economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. Iowa is the 26th most extensive in area and the 30th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city by population is Des Moines, Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states in which to live. Its nickname is the Hawkeye State, Iowa derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many Native American tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east, the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west, Iowa is the only state whose east and west borders are formed entirely by rivers. Iowa has 99 counties, but 100 county seats because Lee County has two, the state capital, Des Moines, is in Polk County. Iowas bedrock geology generally increases in age from west to east, in northwest Iowa, Cretaceous bedrock can be 74 million years old, in eastern Iowa Cambrian bedrock dates to c.500 million years ago. Iowa is generally not flat, most of the consists of rolling hills. Iowa can be divided into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils, topography, Loess hills lie along the western border of the state, some of which are several hundred feet thick. Northeast Iowa along the Mississippi River is part of the Driftless Zone, consisting of steep hills, several natural lakes exist, most notably Spirit Lake, West Okoboji Lake, and East Okoboji Lake in northwest Iowa. To the east lies Clear Lake, man-made lakes include Lake Odessa, Saylorville Lake, Lake Red Rock, Coralville Lake, Lake MacBride, and Rathbun Lake. The states northwest area has remnants of the once common wetlands. Iowas natural vegetation is tallgrass prairie and savanna in areas, with dense forest and wetlands in flood plains and protected river valleys. Most of Iowa is used for agriculture, crops cover 60% of the state, grasslands cover 30%, as of 2005 Iowa ranked 49th of U. S. states in public land holdings. Endangered or threatened plants include western prairie fringed orchid, eastern prairie fringed orchid, Meads milkweed, prairie bush clover, the explosion in the number of high-density livestock facilities in Iowa has led to increased rural water contamination and a decline in air quality. Iowa has a continental climate throughout the state
6.
Marquette, Iowa
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Marquette is a city in Clayton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 375 at the 2010 census, down from 421 at the 2000 census, Marquette is located directly across from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and the two cities are connected by U. S. Highway 18, which crosses the river on the Marquette-Joliet Bridge. Effigy Mounds National Monument and the Yellow River State Forest are a few miles to the north, the city of McGregor, Iowa is located just to the south. Marquette itself was incorporated as North McGregor in 1874. Along with McGregor, the city became a hub on the railroad, as grain from throughout Iowa. Marquette subsequently became home to a rail yard, which even as late as 1920 was the busiest in Iowa. Not too long afterwards, the railroads declined, the last passenger train stopped in Marquette in 1960. Today the city is a tourist destination, the Isle of Capri riverboat casino is located there. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 1.81 square miles. As of the census of 2010, there were 375 people,182 households, the population density was 215.5 inhabitants per square mile. There were 216 housing units at a density of 124.1 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 98. 7% White,0. 8% Native American,0. 3% Asian, hispanic or Latino of any race were 0. 5% of the population. 35. 2% of all households were made up of individuals and 13. 7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.06 and the average family size was 2.60. The median age in the city was 46.6 years. 19. 2% of residents were under the age of 18, 6% were between the ages of 18 and 24,23. 7% were from 25 to 44,30. 2% were from 45 to 64, and 20. 8% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 49. 9% male and 50. 1% female, as of the census of 2000, there were 421 people,194 households, and 108 families residing in the city. The population density was 345.2 people per square mile, there were 222 housing units at an average density of 182.0 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 98. 57% White,0. 48% African American and 0. 95% Native American, hispanic or Latino of any race were 0. 71% of the population
7.
Dubuque, Iowa
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Dubuque /dəˈbjuːk/ is the county seat of Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, located along the Mississippi River. In 2013, its population was 58,253, making it the tenth-largest city in the state This city lies at the junction of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin and it serves as the main commercial, industrial, educational, and cultural center for the area. Geographically, it is part of the Driftless Area, a portion of North America that escaped all three phases of the Wisconsinian Glaciation and it is one of the few large cities in Iowa with hills, and a tourist destination featuring the citys unique architecture and river location. It is home to five institutions of education, making it a center for culture. Dubuque has long been a center of manufacturing, but the economy grew rapidly, by 2005, the city led the state and the Midwest in job growth, ranking as the 22nd fastest-growing economy in the US. Alongside industry, the city has large health care, education, tourism, publishing, the first permanent settler in what is now Dubuque was Quebecois pioneer Julien Dubuque, who arrived in 1785. In 1788, he received permission from the Spanish government and the local Meskwaki of American Indians to mine the rich lead deposits. Control of Louisiana and Dubuques mines shifted briefly back to France in 1800, then to the United States in 1803, following the Louisiana Purchase. The Meskwaki continued to mine with full support of the U. S. Government until 1830, the current City of Dubuque was named after Julien Dubuque, settled at the southern end of a large flat plain adjacent to the Mississippi River. The city was chartered in 1833, located in unorganized territory of the United States. The region was designated as the Iowa Territory in 1838, and was included in the newly created State of Iowa in 1846, after the lead resources were exhausted, the city became home to numerous industries. Dubuque became a center for the industry because of its proximity to forests in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Also important were boat building, brewing, and later, the railroad industry, between 1860 and 1880, Dubuque was one of the 100 largest urban areas in the United States. Iowas first church was built by Methodists in 1834, since then, Iowans have followed a variety of religious traditions. Beginning in the century and into the early 20th century, thousands of poor German. The citys large Roman Catholic congregations led to its designation as the seat of the newly established Archdiocese of Dubuque, numerous convents, abbeys, and other religious institutions were built. The ethnic German and Irish descendants maintain a strong Catholic presence in the city, nicholas E. Gonner, a Catholic immigrant from Pfaffenthal in Luxembourg, founded the Catholic Publishing Company of Dubuque, Iowa. Early in the 20th century, Dubuque was one of sites of a brass era automobile company, in this case Adams-Farwell, like most others
8.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
9.
National Park Service
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It was created on August 25,1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. As of 2014, the NPS employs 21,651 employees who oversee 417 units, the National Park Service celebrated its centennial in 2016. National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior, the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior and they wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service, Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3,1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933, the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasnt until later that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt agreed and issued two Executive orders to make it happen. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service, the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery, Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and then National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States national parks, Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no government to manage it. Yosemite National Park began as a park, the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state of California in 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yosemite was later returned to federal ownership, at first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. Later, the agency was given authority over other protected areas, the National Park System includes all properties managed by the National Park Service
10.
Mound
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A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, a mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher elevation on any surface. Artificial mounds have been created for a variety of reasons throughout history, including ceremonial, burial, in the archaeology of the United States and Canada, a mound is a deliberately constructed elevated earthen structure or earthwork, intended for a range of potential uses. In European and Asian archaeology, the word tumulus may be used as a synonym for an artificial hill, while the term mound may be applied to historic constructions, most mounds in the United States are pre-Columbian earthworks, built by Native American peoples. Native Americans built a variety of mounds, including flat-topped pyramids or cones known as mounds, rounded cones. Some mounds took on unusual shapes, such as the outline of cosmologically significant animals and these are known as effigy mounds. Some mounds, such as a few in Wisconsin, have rock formations, or petroforms within them, on them, while these mounds are perhaps not as famous as burial mounds, like their European analogs, Native American mounds also have a variety of other uses. While some prehistoric cultures, like the Adena culture, used preferentially for burial, others used mounds for other ritual and sacred acts. The platform mounds of the Mississippian culture, for example, may have supported temples, the houses of chiefs, council houses, other mounds would have been part of defensive walls to protect a certain area. The Hopewell culture used mounds as markers of complex astronomical alignments related to ceremonies, mounds and related earthworks are the only significant monumental construction in pre-Columbian Eastern and Central North America. Mounds are given different names depending on which culture they strive from and they can be located all across the world in spots such as Asia, Europe and the Americas. Mound builders have more commonly associated with the mounds in the Americas. They all have different meanings and sometimes are constructed as animals, kankali Tila is a famous mound located at Mathura in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. A Jain stupa was excavated here in 1890-91 by Dr. Fuhrer, mound, as a technical term in archaeology, is not generally in favor in the rest of the world. More specific local terminology is preferred, and each of these terms has its own article
11.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
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The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas and their descendants. The term Amerindian is used in Quebec, the Guianas, Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans or American Indians, and Alaska Natives. Application of the term Indian originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, eventually, the Americas came to be known as the West Indies, a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the blanket term Indies and Indians for the indigenous inhabitants, although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time, although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by peoples, some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico. At least a different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are the subject of ongoing research. According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America. Alaska was a glacial refugium because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska for thousands of years. Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single population, one that developed in isolation. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years, around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets. Another route proposed involves migration - either on foot or using primitive boats - along the Pacific Northwest coast to the south, archeological evidence of the latter would have been covered by the sea level rise of more than 120 meters since the last ice age
12.
Effigy mound
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An effigy mound is a raised pile of earth built in the shape of a stylized animal, symbol, human, or other figure and generally containing one or more human burials. Effigy mounds were built during the Late Woodland Period. Conical and linear mounds, the predecessors of effigy mounds may date from as far back as 700 BCE and they remain places First Peoples frequent to visit and speak with ancestors, to put down tobacco and to give thanks. There also remains the possibility that a diversity of First Peoples such as ancestors of those named nations may have contributed to building some percentage of the mounds. Scholars believe that effigy mounds were primarily for spiritual purposes. Older conical mound construction evolves into effigy mound construction over time, given the expected rates of decay regarding burial evidence it is reasonable to project that all mounds in the conical-to-effigy mound spectrum, are burial or funerary earthworks. The builders of the mounds are usually referred to as the Mound Builders. Native American societies in Wisconsin built more effigy mounds than did those in any region of North America—between 15,000 and 20,000 mounds. Many mounds on the University of Wisconsin grounds including burial mounds measuring as large as 35 feet in diameter and 5 feet high were removed for grading purposes as recently as 1909. Native North American effigy mounds have been compared to the large-scale geoglyphs such as the Nazca Lines of Peru. Effigy mounds are limited to the Northern and Eastern United States, early surveyors and settlers noticed and mapped many effigy mounds, but farming and other development erased numerous sites despite efforts to preserve them. After the discovery of effigy mounds, and other all over the country, wild theories began to be developed as to how. The first theories were the most accurate, people in the late 17th century assumed that the mounds had been built by the Native American people who lived in the vicinity. These logical assumptions lost popularity as more fantastic theories were developed, the most popular of these theories in the 19th century was that an extinct race of Mound Builder people had built the mounds and then vanished. This theory was laid to rest by archaeologists at the Smithsonian Institution in the 1880s, the Ho-Chunk suggest that effigy mounds were used as places of refuge as well as burial. Some archaeologists today believe that the mounds were built by particular clans or groups to honor their representative animal, some believe that the animal shape is the clan or extended family of the person or persons buried in the mound. The mounds may also indicate hunting and gathering territories of different groups, other evidence suggests that effigy mounds were used for all manner of rites and ceremonies, from birth ceremonies to funeral rites. Common shapes for effigy mounds include birds, bear, deer, bison, lynx, panther, turtles and these are somewhat arbitrary names given to the mound shapes by archaeologists who were simply looking for words that would help them classify the mounds
13.
Woodland period
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The term Woodland Period was introduced in the 1930s as a generic term for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the agriculturalist Mississippian cultures. The Eastern Woodlands cultural region covers what is now eastern Canada south of the Subarctic region and this period is variously considered a developmental stage, a time period, a suite of technological adaptations or traits, and a family tree of cultures related to earlier Archaic cultures. Many Woodland peoples used spears and atlatls until the end of the period, the most cited technological distinction of this period was the widespread use of pottery, and the diversification of pottery forms, decorations, and manufacturing practices. Intensive agriculture characterizes the Mississippian period from ca, 1000-1400 CE and may have continued up to European contact, around 500 years ago. Eastern Woodlands lived in wigwams and longhouses, clay for pottery was typically tempered with grit or limestone. Pots were usually made in a conoidal or conical jars with rounded shoulders, slightly constricted necks, pots were coiled and paddled entirely by hand without the use of fast rotation such as a pottery wheel. Some were slipped or brushed with red ochre, pottery, agriculture, and permanent settlements have often been thought of the three defining characteristics of the Woodland period. Nevertheless, these sites were typical Archaic settlements, differing only in the use of basic ceramic technology. Most of these are evident in the Southeastern United States by 1000 BCE, in some areas, like South Carolina and coastal Georgia, Deptford culture pottery manufacture ceased after ca.700 CE. In coastal regions, many settlements were near the coast, often near salt marshes, people tended to settle along rivers and lakes in both coastal and interior regions for maximum access to food resources. Most groups relied heavily on white-tailed deer, but a variety of small and large mammals were hunted also, including beaver, raccoon. Shellfish formed an important part of the diet, attested to by numerous shell middens along the coast, seasonal foraging also characterized the strategies of many interior populations, with groups moving strategically among dense resource areas. Recently evidence has accumulated of a reliance of woodland peoples on cultivation in this period, at least in some localities. This is especially true for the middle period and perhaps beyond. C. Margaret Scarry states in the Woodland periods, people diversified their use of plant foods, increased their consumption of starchy foods. They did so, however, by cultivating starchy seeds rather than by gathering more acorns, smith and Yarnell refer to an indigenous crop complex as early as 3800 B. P. in parts of the region. The beginning of the Middle Woodland saw a shift of settlement to the Interior, as the Woodland period progressed, local and inter-regional trade of exotic materials greatly increased to the point where a trade network covered most of the Eastern United States. Throughout the Southeast and north of the Ohio River, burial mounds of important people were very elaborate and contained a variety of mortuary gifts, the most archaeologically certifiable sites of burial during this time were in Illinois and Ohio
14.
America the Beautiful Quarters
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The America the Beautiful Quarters are a series of 25-cent pieces issued by the United States Mint starting in 2010 and scheduled to continue until at least 2021. The series may be extended at the option of the Secretary of the Treasury, the obverse of all the coins depicts George Washington in a restored version of the original portrait used for the 1932 Washington quarter. There will be five new designs each year, each depicting a national park or national site – one from each state, the federal district. The program is authorized by the America’s Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008, Quarters will be issued depicting designs of national parks and sites in the order of which that park or site was deemed a national site. The quarters from three different states will depict parks or sites that were portrayed on the state quarters. Though they will depict the sites, they bear new designs. There are collector versions of the America the Beautiful 5 ounce Silver Bullion Coin Program which debuted in December 10,2010 and they feature an uncirculated finish and contain a ‘P’ mintmark indicating they were struck at the US Mint’s facility in Philadelphia. The bullion coins were struck in Philadelphia but contain no mintmark. The United States Mint struck these coins late in 2010 with a limited mintage of only 27,000. The Mint apparently had insufficient time to strike more before the end of the year owing to production difficulties with both America the Beautiful Five Ounce Coin series. This forced the Mint to only release these Hot Springs Coins the following year on April 28,2011, demand was intense in the first hours of availability with collectors ordering 19,000 of them in the first nine hours. Within two weeks, the Mint indicated a sell-out of the limited mintage strikes, each coins price is determined by the current value of silver and the 2010 issues sold for $279.95. Many subsequent issues have even lower mintages and higher market values. These 5 oz. silver quarters are the Big Boys quarter collection and due to their low mintage, have increased their value over issue price, even in the face of declining silver prices
15.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
16.
Harpers Ferry, Iowa
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Harpers Ferry is a city in Taylor Township, Allamakee County, Iowa, United States. The population was 328 at the 2010 census, Harpers Ferry was platted in 1852, it was then called Winfield. In 1860, the name was changed to Harpers Ferry, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.65 square miles, of which,0.63 square miles is land and 0.02 square miles is water. As of the 2010 census, there were 328 people,173 households, the population density was 520.6 inhabitants per square mile. There were 578 housing units at a density of 917.5 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 99. 7% White and 0. 3% African American,32. 9% of all households were made up of individuals and 19% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.90 and the family size was 2.33. The median age in the city was 58.8 years. 10. 7% of residents were under the age of 18,4. 5% were between the ages of 18 and 24, 10% were from 25 to 44,40. 8% were from 45 to 64, and 33. 8% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 51. 2% male and 48. 8% female, as of the 2000 census, there were 330 people,166 households, and 110 families residing in the city. The population density was 539.7 people per square mile, there were 560 housing units at an average density of 915.9 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 98. 18% White,1. 21% Native American, hispanic or Latino of any race were 0. 30% of the population. 31. 9% of all households were made up of individuals and 22. 3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 1.99 and the average family size was 2.44. 14. 8% are under the age of 18,1. 8% from 18 to 24,18. 8% from 25 to 44,28. 2% from 45 to 64, the median age was 58 years. For every 100 females there were 90.8 males, for every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83.7 males. The median income for a household in the city was $29,091, males had a median income of $30,000 versus $21,250 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,566, about 3. 5% of families and 7. 5% of the population were below the poverty threshold, including 24. 4% of those under age 18 and 1. 8% of those age 65 or over
17.
Lidar
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Lidar is a surveying method that measures distance to a target by illuminating that target with a laser light. The name lidar, sometimes considered an acronym of Light Detection And Ranging, was originally a portmanteau of light, the technology is also used for control and navigation for some autonomous cars. Lidar sometimes is called laser scanning and 3D scanning, with terrestrial, airborne and its first applications came in meteorology, where the National Center for Atmospheric Research used it to measure clouds. The general public aware of the accuracy and usefulness of lidar systems in 1971 during the Apollo 15 mission. Although some sources treat the word lidar as an acronym, the term originated as a portmanteau of light, the first published mention of lidar, in 1963, makes this clear, Eventually the laser may provide an extremely sensitive detector of particular wavelengths from distant objects. Meanwhile, it is being used to study the moon by lidar, the Oxford English Dictionary supports this etymology. Currently no consensus exists on capitalization, reflecting uncertainty about whether or not lidar is an acronym, various publications refer to lidar as LIDAR, LiDAR, LIDaR, or Lidar. Lidar uses ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light to image objects and it can target a wide range of materials, including non-metallic objects, rocks, rain, chemical compounds, aerosols, clouds and even single molecules. A narrow laser-beam can map physical features with high resolutions, for example. Lidar has been used extensively for research and meteorology. Lidar instruments fitted to aircraft and satellites carry out surveying and mapping – a recent example being the U. S. Geological Survey Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar, NASA has identified lidar as a key technology for enabling autonomous precision safe landing of future robotic and crewed lunar-landing vehicles. Wavelengths vary to suit the target, from about 10 micrometers to the UV, typically light is reflected via backscattering, as opposed to pure reflection one might find with a mirror. Different types of scattering are used for different lidar applications, most commonly Rayleigh scattering, Mie scattering, Raman scattering, based on different kinds of backscattering, the lidar can be accordingly called Rayleigh Lidar, Mie Lidar, Raman Lidar, Na/Fe/K Fluorescence Lidar, and so on. Suitable combinations of wavelengths can allow for remote mapping of atmospheric contents by identifying wavelength-dependent changes in the intensity of the returned signal, in general there are two kinds of lidar detection schemes, incoherent or direct energy detection and coherent detection. In both coherent and incoherent lidar, there are two types of models, micropulse lidar systems and high energy systems. Micropulse systems utilizing intermittent bursts of energy have developed as a result of the amount of computer power available combined with advances in laser technology. They use considerably less energy in the laser, typically on the order of one microjoule, there are several major components to a lidar system, Laser — 600–1000 nm lasers are most common for non-scientific applications. They are inexpensive, but since they can be focused and easily absorbed by the eye, eye-safety is often a requirement for most applications
18.
Mound Builders
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Since the 19th century, the prevailing scholarly consensus has been that the mounds were constructed by indigenous peoples of the Americas. Sixteenth-century Spanish explorers made contact with living in a number of later Mississippian cities, described their cultures. By the time of United States westward expansion two hundred years later, Native Americans were generally not knowledgeable about the civilizations that produced the mounds, research and study of these cultures and peoples has been based mostly on archaeology and anthropology. At one time, the mound builder was applied to the people believed to have constructed these earthworks. In the 16th through 19th centuries, Europeans and Americans generally thought that an other than one related to the historic Native Americans had built the mounds. The namesake cultural trait of the Mound Builders was the building of mounds and these burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds, flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of villages that arose from more dense populations, with a specialization of skills. The early earthworks built in Louisiana c.3500 BCE are the ones known to be built by a hunter-gatherer culture. The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure, which at over 100 feet tall is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico, is Monks Mound at Cahokia in present-day Collinsville, Illinois. At its peak about 1150 CE, Cahokia was a settlement with 20, 000-30,000 people. Some effigy mounds were constructed in the shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals, the most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, ranges from 1 to just over 3 feet tall. 20 feet wide, over 1,330 feet long, many different tribal groups and chiefdoms, involving an array of beliefs and unique cultures over thousands of years, built mounds as expressions of their cultures. The general term, mound builder, covered their shared architectural practice of earthwork mound construction and this practice, believed to be associated with a cosmology that had a cross-cultural appeal, may indicate common cultural antecedents. The first mound building was a marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the Eastern United States. Watson Brake in Louisiana, constructed about 3500 BCE during the Middle Archaic period, is the oldest dated mound complex in North America and it is one of eleven mound complexes from this period found in the Lower Mississippi Valley. We can conclude that these mound builders were very organized people, hundreds or even thousands of workers had to dig up tons of earth with the hand tools available. Then the dirt had to be moved long distances. The most complete reference for these earthworks is Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, written by Ephraim G. Squier and it was published in 1848 by the Smithsonian
19.
Midwestern United States
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It was officially named the North Central region by the Census Bureau until 1984. Illinois is the most populous of the states and North Dakota the least, a 2012 report from the United States Census put the population of the Midwest at 65,377,684. The Midwest is divided by the Census Bureau into two divisions, the East North Central Division includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, all of which are also part of the Great Lakes region. Major rivers in the include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mississippi River. Chicago is the most populated city in the American Midwest and the third most populous in the entire country, other large Midwest cities include, Indianapolis, Columbus, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Omaha, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Wichita and St. Louis. Chicago and its suburbs form the largest metropolitan area with 9.8 million people, followed by Metro Detroit. Paul, Greater St. Louis, Greater Cleveland, Greater Cincinnati, Kansas City metro area, the term Midwestern has been in use since the 1880s to refer to portions of the central United States. A variant term, Middle West, has used since the 19th century. Another term sometimes applied to the general region is the heartland. Other designations for the region have fallen out of use, such as the Northwest or Old Northwest, the Northwest Territory was one of the earliest territories of the United States, stretching northwest from the Ohio River to northern Minnesota and upper-Mississippi. The upper-Mississippi watershed including the Missouri and Illinois Rivers was the setting for the earlier French settlements of the Illinois Country, economically the region is balanced between heavy industry and agriculture, with finance and services such as medicine and education becoming increasingly important. Its central location makes it a crossroads for river boats, railroads, autos, trucks. Politically the region swings back and forth between the parties, and thus is heavily contested and often decisive in elections, after the sociological study Middletown, which was based on Muncie, Indiana, commentators used Midwestern cities as typical of the nation. The region has a higher ratio than the Northeast, the West. Traditional definitions of the Midwest include the Northwest Ordinance Old Northwest states, the states of the Old Northwest are also known as Great Lakes states and are east-north central in the United States. The Ohio River runs along the section while the Mississippi River runs north to south near the center. Many of the Louisiana Purchase states in the west-north central United States, are known as Great Plains states. The Midwest lies north of the 36°30′ parallel that the 1820 Missouri Compromise established as the line between future slave and non-slave states
20.
Serpent Mound
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The Great Serpent Mound is a 1, 348-foot -long, three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. Maintained within a park by the Ohio History Connection, it has designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of Interior. Researchers have attributed construction of the mound to three different prehistoric indigenous cultures, originally thought to be Adena in origin, a 1996 carbon dating study led scholars to believe the mound was built by members of the Fort Ancient culture around 1070 CE. Most recent dating places the mound at around 300 BCE, once again suggesting Adena construction, Serpent Mound is the largest serpent effigy in the world. Including all three parts, the Serpent Mound extends about 1,376 feet, and varies in height from less than a foot to more than three feet, the effigys extreme western feature is a triangular mound approximately 31.6 feet at its base and long axis. There are serpent effigies in Scotland and Ontario that are very similar, in addition, contemporary American Indians have an interest in the site. Several attributions have been entered by academic, philosophic, and Native American concerns regarding all three of unknown factors of when designed, when built, and by whom. Over the years, scholars have proposed that the mound was built by members of the Adena culture, both Lenape and Iroquois legends tell of the Allegheny or Allegewi People, sometimes called Tallegewi. They were said to have lived in the Ohio Valley in an ancient period, believed pre-Adena. Recently the dating of the site has brought into question. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal discovered within the mound in the 1990s indicated that people worked on the mound circa 1070 AD, historically, researchers first attributed the mound to the Adena culture. William Webb, noted Adena exponent, found evidence through carbon dating for Kentucky Adena as early as 1200 BC, as there are Adena graves near the Serpent Mound, scholars thought the same people constructed the mound. The skeletal remains of the Adena type uncovered in the 1880s at Serpent Mound indicate that people were unique among the ancient Ohio Valley peoples. It was more than 45 years before scholars paid sufficient attention to the Adena studies, the Adena culture did build some nearby mounds, so for more than 125 years, many scholars thought they created the Serpent Mound as well. The Adena were renowned for their elaborate earthworks and their creation of sacred circles as part of their cosmology, an unrecorded number of their gravesites throughout the greater Ohio Valley were destroyed before any organized archeological supervision performed correct analysis of their contents. Carbon-dating studies published in 1996 of material from the mound appeared to place the Serpent Mound construction as later than the span of the Adena and this suggested that a people subsequent to the Adena may have built or refurbished the site for their own uses and purposes. Although a characteristic of excavation at most Adena mounds has been discovery of related artifacts and this study and its inferences drew the attention of many experts and is further discussed below. Scholars previously thought that the Fort Ancient culture, an Ohio Valley-based, mound-building society, the Fort Ancient culture was influenced by the contemporary Mississippian culture society based along the mid-Mississippi River valley with its North American center at Cahokia
21.
Poverty Point
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Poverty Point is a prehistoric earthworks of the Poverty Point culture, now a U. S. National Monument and World Heritage Site located in the Southern United States. It is 15.5 miles from the current Mississippi River, Poverty Point comprises several earthworks and mounds built between 1650 and 700 BC, during the Archaic period in the Americas by a group of Native Americans of the Poverty Point culture. The culture extended 100 miles across the Mississippi Delta, the 910-acre site, which has been described as the largest and most complex Late Archaic earthwork occupation and ceremonial site yet found in North America is a registered National Monument. The monument was brought to the attention of archaeologists in the early 20th century, since then, various excavations have taken place at the site. Scholars have advanced various theories regarding the purpose of the site, including religious. Other writers have proposed pseudo-archaeological and New Age associations, the complex attracts many tourists as a destination. Poverty Point is constructed entirely of earthworks, the core of the site measures approximately 500 acres, although archaeological investigations have shown that the total occupation area extended for more than three miles along the river terrace. The monumental construction is a group of six concentric, crescent ridge earthworks, the site also has several mounds both on the outside and inside of the ring earthworks. The name Poverty Point came from the plantation which once surrounded the site, in January 2013, the United States Department of the Interior nominated Poverty Point for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. State Senator Francis C. Thompson of Delhi in Richland Parish said the matter is not just a local or even state issue of international importance, the prestige of having a World Heritage Site in our region and state would be of great significance both culturally and economically. The designation makes Poverty Point the first World Heritage Site in Louisiana, the main part of the monument is the six concentric curving earthworks located in the center of the site. Each is separated from one another by a corridor of earth. Dividing the ridges into three sections are two ramps that slope inwardly, leading to Bayou Maçon, each of the ridge earthworks is about three feet high. Archaeologists believe they were five feet high, but have been worn down through agricultural ploughing over the last few centuries. The approximate diameter of the ridge is three-quarters of a mile, while the innermost ridge’s diameter is about three-eighths of a mile. Alongside these ridges are other earthworks, primarily platform mounds, the largest of these, Mound A, is to the west of the ridges, and is roughly T-shaped when viewed from above. Many have interpreted it as being in the shape of a bird and also as an Earth island, researchers have learned that Mound A was constructed quickly, probably over a period of less than three months. Prior to construction, the covering the site was burned
22.
Mississippi River
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The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
23.
Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest
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Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial biome, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. The term Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is used by the World Wildlife Fund in global biogeography as one of the biome designations under which to organize ecoregions, the typical structure of these forests includes four layers. The uppermost layer is the canopy composed of mature trees ranging from 30 to 61 m high. Below the canopy is the three-layered, shade-tolerant understory that is roughly 9 to 15 m shorter than the canopy, the top layer of the understory is the sub-canopy composed of smaller mature trees, saplings, and suppressed juvenile canopy layer trees awaiting an opening in the canopy. Below the sub-canopy is the layer, composed of low growing woody plants. Typically the lowest growing layer is the cover or herbaceous layer. In the Northern hemisphere, characteristic dominant broadleaf trees in this biome include oaks, beeches, maples, the term mixed forest comes from the inclusion of coniferous trees as a canopy component of some of these forests. Typical coniferous trees include, Pines, firs, and spruces, in some areas of this biome the conifers may be a more important canopy species than the broadleaf species. In the Southern hemisphere, endemic genera such as Nothofagus and Eucalyptus occupy this biome, Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests occur in areas with distinct warm and cool season, which give it a moderate annual average temperature —3 to 15.6 °C. These forests occur in warm and rainy climates, sometimes also with a distinct dry season. A dry season occurs in the winter in East Asia and in summer on the wet fringe of the Mediterranean climate zones. Other areas, as in the central and upper eastern United States and southeastern Canada, have an even distribution of rainfall, annual rainfall is typically over 600 mm
24.
Forest
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A forest is a large area dominated by trees. Hundreds of more precise definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as density, tree height, land use, legal standing. According to the widely used Food and Agriculture Organization definition, forests covered four billion hectares or approximately 30 percent of the land area in 2006. Forests are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are distributed across the globe, Forests account for 75% of the gross primary productivity of the Earths biosphere, and contain 80% of the Earths plant biomass. Forests at different latitudes and elevations form distinctly different ecozones, boreal forests near the poles, tropical forests near the equator, higher elevation areas tend to support forests similar to those at higher latitudes, and amount of precipitation also affects forest composition. Human society and forests influence each other in both positive and negative ways, Forests provide ecosystem services to humans and serve as tourist attractions. Forests can also affect peoples health, human activities, including harvesting forest resources, can negatively affect forest ecosystems. Although forest is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition, there are three broad categories of forest definitions in use, administrative, land use, and land cover. Land use definitions are based upon the purpose that the land serves. For example, a forest may be defined as any land that is used primarily for production of timber, land cover definitions define forests based upon the type and density of vegetation growing on the land. Such definitions typically define a forest as an area growing trees above some threshold and these thresholds are typically the number of trees per area, the area of ground under the tree canopy or the section of land that is occupied by the cross-section of tree trunks. Under such land cover definitions, and area of land only be defined as forest if it is growing trees, areas that fail to meet the land cover definition may be still included under while immature trees are establishing if they are expected to meet the definition at maturity. Under land use definitions, there is variation on where the cutoff points are between a forest, woodland, and savanna. Under some definitions, forests require high levels of tree canopy cover, from 60% to 100%, excluding savannas. Other definitions consider savannas to be a type of forest, the term was not endemic to Romance languages, and cognates in Romance languages, such as Italian foresta, Spanish and Portuguese floresta, etc. are all ultimately borrowings of the French word. The exact origin of Medieval Latin foresta is obscure, uses of the word forest in English to denote any uninhabited area of non-enclosure are now considered archaic. The word was introduced by the Norman rulers of England as a term denoting an uncultivated area legally set aside for hunting by feudal nobility. These hunting forests were not necessarily wooded much, if at all, however, as hunting forests did often include considerable areas of woodland, the word forest eventually came to mean wooded land more generally
25.
Wetland
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A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink, Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to people about wetland issues. Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design. A patch of land that develops pools of water after a storm would not be considered a wetland. Wetlands have unique characteristics, they are distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil, Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions. A wetland is an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen. Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types, the largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia. Under the Ramsar international wetland conservation treaty, wetlands are defined as follows, Article 2.1, may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six metres at low tide lying within the wetlands. Although the general definition given above applies around the world, each county, Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. This definition has been used in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act, some US states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have separate definitions that may differ from the federal governments. It is not uncommon for a wetland to be dry for long portions of the growing season, the most important factor producing wetlands is flooding
26.
Prairie
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Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay as well as the steppes of Eurasia. Lands typically referred to as prairie tend to be in North America, the Central Valley of California is also a prairie. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prairie is the French word for meadow, but the ultimate root is the Latin pratum. The formation of the North American Prairies started with the upwelling of the Rocky Mountains near Alberta, the mountains created a rain shadow that resulted in lower precipitation rates downwind, creating an environment in which most tree species will not tolerate. The parent material of most prairie soil was distributed during the last glacial advance that began about 110,000 years ago, the glaciers expanding southward scraped the landscape, picking up geologic material and leveling the terrain. As the glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago, it deposited this material in the form of till, wind based loess deposits also form an important parent material for prairie soils. Tallgrass Prairie evolved over tens of thousands of years with the disturbances of grazing, native ungulates such as bison, elk, and white-tailed deer, roamed the expansive, diverse, plentiful grassland before European colonization of the Americas. For 10, 000-20,000 years native people used fire annually as a tool to assist in hunting, transportation, evidence of ignition sources of fire in the tallgrass prairie are overwhelmingly human as opposed to lightning. Humans, and grazing animals, were participants in the process of prairie formation. Fire has the effect on prairies of removing trees, clearing dead plant matter, fire kills the vascular tissue of trees, but not prairie, as up to 75% of the total plant biomass is below the soil surface and will re-grow from its deep roots. Without disturbance, trees will encroach on a grassland, cast shade, Prairie and widely spaced oak trees evolved to coexist in the oak savanna ecosystem. In spite of long recurrent droughts and occasional torrential rains, the grasslands of the Great Plains were not subject to soil erosion. The root systems of native prairie grasses firmly held the soil in place to prevent run-off of soil, when the plant died, the fungi, bacteria returned its nutrients to the soil. These deep roots also helped native prairie plants reach water in even the driest conditions, the native grasses suffered much less damage from dry conditions than the farm crops currently grown. Prairie in North America is usually split into three groups, wet, mesic, and dry and they are generally characterized by tallgrass prairie, mixed, or shortgrass prairie, depending on the quality of soil and rainfall. In wet prairies the soil is very moist, including during most of the growing season. The resulting stagnant water is conducive to the formation of bogs, wet prairies have excellent farming soil. The average precipitation amount is 10-30 inches a year, mesic prairie /ˈmiːzɪk/ has good drainage, but good soil during the growing season
27.
Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge
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Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge is a United States National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Iowa, southwestern Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois. It is a collection of parcels in the vicinity of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife. The refuge was established in 1989 to help the recovery of two listed species, the endangered Iowa Pleistocene Snail and threatened plant Northern Wild Monkshood. Although the refuge was established to protect the snail and flower, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages the refuge as part of the National Wildlife Refuge system. Currently, the refuge consists of nine sites totaling 811.99 acres in four counties of Iowa only, in descending order of land area they are Clayton, Dubuque, Jackson, and Allamakee counties. Portions of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois contain unusual geology, the karst region, referred to as the Driftless Area, escaped the last glaciers leaving the Paleozoic-age bedrock subject to erosion. In addition to the topography of steep slopes and cliffs. Certain slopes, usually north facing, are covered with a layer that allows ice-cooled air to exit from underground cracks. Upland sinkholes contribute to the air flow regime and are an important component of a system called an algific talus slopes. Even on a day when the outside air temperature is 90 °F. Although the slopes will freeze in winter, the temperatures are moderated and these slopes remain cool throughout the year and are home to rare species of plants and animals. In the summer, air is drawn down through sinkholes, flows over very cold groundwater and is released out vents on the slopes, summer temperatures on the slopes range from 42 °F to 55 °F. In winter, the air is drawn into the vents, because of the cool temperatures and moist conditions, unusual plants for this part of the country grow on the slopes. Typically growing in a more northern climate, yews, balsam fir, Showy ladys slipper. These cold microclimates of the slopes allow the plants and animals to survive. A tiny land snail, the Iowa Pleistocene snail, is smaller than a shirt button, considered a glacial relict species, it has survived only on these small areas where temperature, moisture and food are suitable. The snail was known only from records and thought to be extinct until 1955. Because of the nature of the habitat and the small size of the total population
28.
Yellow River State Forest
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Yellow River State Forest, is mostly forested land owned by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. It is located in the corner of Allamakee County, the most northeasterly of Iowas counties. It is adjacent to the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge and is just north of Effigy Mounds National Monument in the region of the Upper Mississippi River. The forest was established in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps with the purchase of 1500 acres of land at the mouth of the Yellow River. It now has six units, Luster Heights, Paint Creek North, Paint Creek South, Paint Rock, Waukon Junction and Yellow River, collectively aggregating 8,503 acres. The original 1,500 acres were transferred to the National Park Service in 1945, due to the presence of many Native American effigy mounds, the majority of YRSF is now in the catchment of Paint Creek. Some of the forest is reclaimed farmland, but much of it was never farmed because of the steepness of the terrain, the best examples occur in northeast Iowas Paleozoic Plateau, but similar prairie can be found in other parts of the state. The forest is located in the Driftless Area of Iowa, a region that was not glaciated during the last ice age, the geology of the region shows ancient Silurian period formations. The Yellow River and Paint Creek have rugged, steep walled canyons, showing millennia of erosion, where glacial action would have otherwise smoothed out the features. Yellow River is home to one of only two public-owned sawmills in Iowa, with the other at Shimek State Forest, the first sawmill in Iowa was also located in Yellow River, which was built in the 1800s. About 150,000 board feet lumber of is annually harvested in the forest, the prisoners do other work in the forest as well. The lumber produced at the sawmill is used for state-related projects, the type of wood produced at the sawmill depends on the type of wood that grows in the forest. The forest includes the Yellow River Fire Tower, the fire tower standing in Iowa. The tower is an Aermotor LS40 model fire tower sold to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources from the U. S. Forest Service and it was acquired in 1950 and rebuilt on the current site in 1962. So for that and safety reasons, the tower was fenced in and is closed to the public
29.
Pikes Peak State Park
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Pikes Peak State Park is a state park of Iowa, US, featuring a 500-foot bluff overlooking the Upper Mississippi River opposite the confluence of the Wisconsin River. The park is operated by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and it is nearly a thousand acres in extent. The nearest city is McGregor, Iowa, Iowa Highway 76 approximately defines its northern boundary. It gets its name from the Iowa incarnation of Pikes Peak, a high point overlooking the gorge of the Upper Mississippi. There are hiking trails, campgrounds and RV facilities, mountain bikes are permitted in certain portions of the park. Aside from recreational development, the land in the park was never cleared, the Northeast Iowa Legacy Trail System is undergoing development, and will connect elements of these sites. Pikes Peak Geology of Pikes Peak State Park Pikes Peak State Park
30.
Wisconsin
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Wisconsin is a U. S. state located in the north-central United States, in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, Wisconsin is the 23rd largest state by total area and the 20th most populous. The state capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee, the state is divided into 72 counties. Wisconsin is second to Michigan in the length of its Great Lakes coastline, Wisconsin is known as Americas Dairyland because it is one of the nations leading dairy producers, particularly famous for its cheese. Manufacturing, especially paper products, information technology, and tourism are major contributors to the states economy. The word Wisconsin originates from the given to the Wisconsin River by one of the Algonquian-speaking Native American groups living in the region at the time of European contact. French explorer Jacques Marquette was the first European to reach the Wisconsin River, arriving in 1673, subsequent French writers changed the spelling from Meskousing to Ouisconsin, and over time this became the name for both the Wisconsin River and the surrounding lands. English speakers anglicized the spelling from Ouisconsin to Wisconsin when they began to arrive in numbers during the early 19th century. The legislature of Wisconsin Territory made the current spelling official in 1845, the Algonquin word for Wisconsin and its original meaning have both grown obscure. Interpretations vary, but most implicate the river and the red sandstone that lines its banks, other theories include claims that the name originated from one of a variety of Ojibwa words meaning red stone place, where the waters gather, or great rock. Wisconsin has been home to a variety of cultures over the past 12,000 years. The first people arrived around 10,000 BCE during the Wisconsin Glaciation and these early inhabitants, called Paleo-Indians, hunted now-extinct ice age animals such as the Boaz mastodon, a prehistoric mastodon skeleton unearthed along with spear points in southwest Wisconsin. After the ice age ended around 8000 BCE, people in the subsequent Archaic period lived by hunting, fishing, agricultural societies emerged gradually over the Woodland period between 1000 BCE to 1000 CE. Toward the end of period, Wisconsin was the heartland of the Effigy Mound culture. Later, between 1000 and 1500 CE, the Mississippian and Oneota cultures built substantial settlements including the village at Aztalan in southeast Wisconsin. The Oneota may be the ancestors of the modern Ioway and Ho-Chunk tribes who shared the Wisconsin region with the Menominee at the time of European contact, the first European to visit what became Wisconsin was probably the French explorer Jean Nicolet. He canoed west from Georgian Bay through the Great Lakes in 1634, pierre Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers visited Green Bay again in 1654–1666 and Chequamegon Bay in 1659–1660, where they traded for fur with local Native Americans. In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet became the first to record a journey on the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway all the way to the Mississippi River near Prairie du Chien
31.
Visitor center
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A visitor center or centre, visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to the visitors who tour the place or area locally. Often a film or other media display is used, if the site has permit requirements or guided tours, the visitor center is often the place where these are coordinated. A tourist information center, providing visitors to a location with information on the attractions, lodgings, maps. Often, these centers are operated at the airport or other port of entry, often a visitor center is called simply an information center. A corporate visitor center, provides visitors with an easily accessible window into the corporation, Visitor centers used to provide fairly basic information about the place, corporation or event they are celebrating, acting more as the entry way to a place. The role of the center has been rapidly evolving over the past 10 years to become more of an experience. Many have become destinations and experiences in their own right, other TICs are run by local authorities or through private organisations such as local shops in association with BTA. In England, VisitEngland promotes domestic tourism, in Wales, the Welsh Government supports TICs through Visit Wales. In Scotland, the Scottish Government supports VisitScotland, the official tourist organisation of Scotland, in Poland there are special offices and tables giving free information about tourist attractions. These information centers are operated by the state they are located in, the first example opened on 4 May 1935, next to US12 in New Buffalo, Michigan, near the Indiana state line. In Ontario, there are 11 Ontario Travel Information Centres located along 400-series highways and it also provides assistance on various procedures or where tourists have problems of various kinds. Iperú receives complaints and suggestions for destinations and tourism companies operating in Peru, iperú, Tourist Information and Assistance has a nationwide network represented online by the Peru. The official tourist organization or national tourist board of Peru is PromPerú, in Australia, most visitor centres are local or state government-run, or in some cases as an association of tourism operators on behalf of the government, usually managed by a board or executive. Those that comply with an accreditation programme use the italic i as pictured above. Heritage center Heritage interpretation Interpretation center Nature center United States Capitol Visitor Center Communicating effectively with visitors -16 tips for visitor centers
32.
Tallgrass prairie
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The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. They were characteristically found in the central forest-grasslands transition, the tall grasslands, the upper Midwest forest-savanna transition. They flourished in areas with loess soils and moderate rainfall around 30 to 35 inches per year. To the east were the eastern savannas. In the northeast, where fire was infrequent and periodic windthrow represented the source of disturbance. In contrast, shortgrass prairie was typical in the western Great Plains, due to expansive agricultural land use, very little tallgrass prairie remains. Retreating glaciers deposited the parent material for soil in the form of till, i. e. unsorted sediment, wind-dropped loess and organic matter accumulated, resulting in deep levels of topsoil. Animals such as bison, elk, deer, and rabbits added nitrogen to the soil through urine, Prairie dogs, a ground squirrel-like rodent considered to be a keystone species, dug tunnels that aerated the soil and channeled water several feet below the surface. For 5,000 to 8,000 years, more than 240 million acres of prairie grasslands were a feature of the landscape. Between 1800 and 1930, the vast majority was destroyed, settlers transformed what they named the Great American Desert or The Inland Sea into farmland. Further, extensive tile drainage has changed the water content and hydrodynamics. Tallgrass prairie is capable of supporting significant biodiversity, parts of the ecoregion among the top ten ecoregions for reptiles, birds, butterflies, and tree species. Tallgrass species are found in the understory layer, oak and hickory tree species occur in some areas, but generally in moderate densities. The tallgrass prairie biome depends on fires, a form of wildfire. Tree seedlings and intrusive alien species without fire tolerance are eliminated by periodic fires, such fires may either be set by humans or started naturally by lightning. Technically, prairies have less than 5–11% tree cover, a grass-dominated plant community with 10–49% tree cover is a savanna. After the steel plow was invented by John Deere, this fertile soil became one of Americas most important resources, over 95% of the original tallgrass prairie is now farmland. In Oklahoma, the tallgrass prairie has been maintained by ranchers and they have reintroduced plains bison to the vast expanses of grass
33.
River
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A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water, small rivers can be referred to using names such as stream, creek, brook, rivulet, and rill. There are no official definitions for the term river as applied to geographic features. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location, examples are run in parts of the United States, burn in Scotland and northeast England. Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek, but not always, Rivers are part of the hydrological cycle. Potamology is the study of rivers while limnology is the study of inland waters in general. Extraterrestrial rivers of liquid hydrocarbons have recently found on Titan. Channels may indicate past rivers on other planets, specifically outflow channels on Mars and rivers are theorised to exist on planets, a river begins at a source, follows a path called a course, and ends at a mouth or mouths. The water in a river is confined to a channel. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by flood-waters over-topping the channel. Floodplains may be wide in relation to the size of the river channel. This distinction between river channel and floodplain can be blurred, especially in areas where the floodplain of a river channel can become greatly developed by housing. Rivers can flow down mountains, through valleys or along plains, the term upriver refers to the direction towards the source of the river, i. e. against the direction of flow. Likewise, the term describes the direction towards the mouth of the river. The term left bank refers to the bank in the direction of flow. The river channel typically contains a stream of water, but some rivers flow as several interconnecting streams of water. Extensive braided rivers are now found in only a few regions worldwide and they also occur on peneplains and some of the larger river deltas. Anastamosing rivers are similar to braided rivers and are quite rare
34.
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
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Prairie du Chien is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,911 at the 2010 census, often referred to as Wisconsins second oldest city, Prairie du Chien was established as a European settlement by French voyageurs in the late seventeenth century. The city is located near the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, early French visitors to the site found it occupied by a group of Fox Indians led by a chief whose name Alim meant Chien in French. The French explorers named the location Prairie du Chien, French for Dogs Prairie, originally this name applied only to the plain upon which the settlement is located, but it was later extended to mean the city as well. The city of Prairie du Chien is located between the Town of Prairie du Chien and the Town of Bridgeport. The first Europeans to reach Prairie du Chien were the French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, later travel between French Canada and the Mississippi River passed through Prairie du Chien, although routes via the Illinois River were also used. In 1685, the French explorer Nicolas Perrot established a trading post in the area as part of the large, the significance of Prairie du Chien as a center of the fur trade did not diminish until the mid-nineteenth century. In 1763, when Great Britain defeated France in the French and Indian War, it took possession of the French territory in North America, the British expanded the fur trade during their occupation of the area. During the American Revolutionary War, the city was used as a point for British troops. After the American victory, the Treaty of Paris granted the area to the new United States of America, only after the War of 1812 did the city become fully American. In July, British soldiers captured the fort during the Siege of Prairie du Chien, the British maintained control over the city until the wars end in 1815. Not wanting another invasion through Prairie du Chien, the Americans constructed Fort Crawford in 1816, the fort was the site of the negotiations and signing of the Treaties of Prairie du Chien, by which the Fox and Sauk ceded much of their land to the US. Representing them and the United Nations of the Chippewa, Ottawa and Pottawatomie in the 1829 negotiations was Billy Caldwell, of Scots-Irish and he became involved with the Pottawatomie after moving to the US as a young man from Canada. In 1829, the army doctor William Beaumont carried out many of his famous experiments on digestion in the hospital of Fort Crawford, beaumonts discoveries are still the basis of current knowledge on the human digestive process. Col. Zachary Taylor, who became the 12th U. S. President, was the commanding officer at Fort Crawford during the Black Hawk War of 1832. Taylor oversaw the surrender of Black Hawk in Prairie du Chien, lt. Jefferson Davis, who later became president of the Confederate States of America, was stationed at Fort Crawford at the same time. Here Jefferson Davis met Zachary Taylors daughter, Sarah Knoxie Taylor, outside the walls of the fort, early nineteenth century life in Prairie du Chien was still dominated by the fur trade. Prairie du Chiens most well-known traders during this time were Michel Brisbois, Joseph Rolette, Nathan Myrick, and Hercules L. Dousman
35.
National Monument (United States)
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Historically, some national monuments were managed by the War Department. National monuments can be so designated through the power of the Antiquities Act of 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt used the act to declare Devils Tower in Wyoming as the first national monument. The Antiquities Act of 1906 resulted from concerns about protecting mostly prehistoric Native American ruins, the Act authorized permits for legitimate archaeological investigations and penalties for taking or destroying antiquities without permission. Among the next three monuments he proclaimed in 1906 was Petrified Forest in Arizona, another natural feature, in 1908, Roosevelt used the act to proclaim more than 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon as a national monument. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Katmai National Monument in Alaska, Katmai was later enlarged to nearly 2,800,000 acres by subsequent Antiquities Act proclamations and for many years was the largest national park system unit. Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, and Katmai were among the national monuments later converted to national parks by Congress. Substantial opposition did not materialize until 1943, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Jackson Hole National Monument in Wyoming. He did this to accept a donation of lands acquired by John D. Rockefeller, roosevelts proclamation unleashed a storm of criticism about use of the Antiquities Act to circumvent Congress. A bill abolishing Jackson Hole National Monument passed Congress but was vetoed by Roosevelt, the proclamation authority was not used again anywhere until 1996, when President Bill Clinton proclaimed the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. This action was unpopular in Utah, and bills were introduced to further restrict the presidents authority. To date, none of them have been enacted, presidents have used the Antiquities Acts proclamation authority not only to create new national monuments but to enlarge existing ones. For example, Franklin D. Roosevelt significantly enlarged Dinosaur National Monument in 1938, lyndon B. Johnson added Ellis Island to Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, and Jimmy Carter made major additions to Glacier Bay and Katmai National Monuments in 1978. Marine National Monument List of U. S. National Forests List of areas in the National Park System of the United States List of U. S
36.
Charles R. Keyes
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Charles Reuben Keyes was a pioneering American archaeologist and linguist based in Iowa, known as the founder of modern Iowa archaeology. Keyes is known as the first American researcher to describe the Mississippian culture, many of its major earthworks had been drawn and recorded in the late 19th century by researchers for the Smithsonian Institution, but he also used evidence from artifacts to describe its culture. In support of research, Keyes organized the Iowa Archaeological Survey in 1922. Charles Reuben Keyes was born on 5 May 1871 in Mount Vernon, Iowa to Marsden, among his ancestors was Edmund Rice, an English immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony. Keyes attended Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa and he attended Harvard University for his Ph. D. in German. Keyes returned to Iowa to teach German at Cornell College in Mount Vernon and he was a professor there for his entire career. While his early work dealt with linguistics, by the 1920s Keyes focused his research almost exclusively on sites and he is considered the founder of Iowa archeology. Keyes organized the Iowa Archaeological Survey in 1922 and led it with Ellison Orr until their deaths in 1951 and they recorded thousands of sites and conducted hundreds of excavations. Together they helped create the modern theoretical and temporal framework for prehistoric Midwestern archaeology, Keyes was among the first scholars to describe what is now known as the Mississippian culture, which reached its peak after 1000CE. The people of culture had centers throughout the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries, including the Ohio. Its major chiefdom was at Cahokia, in present-day Illinois, in the late 19th century, researchers for the Smithsonian Institution had recorded mounds at Cahokia and elsewhere in the Midwest. Keyes and Orr surveyed a territory of extensive prehistoric earthwork mounds in northeastern Iowa and they established its significance and gained establishment by Congress in 1949 of the Effigy Mounds National Monument to protect these historic and cultural resources. Orr donated most of his writings and much of his American Indian artifact collection to the national monument, in 1951 Keyes proposed the Iowa Archeological Society, which colleagues founded that year. After getting established, Keyes married Sarah Mary Sadie Naumann in 1902 and they had two daughters, Catherine Ann and Margaret Naumann Keyes. Margaret became a professor of Home Economics at the University of Iowa,1902 Some Phrases of Alliteration and Rime in Modern English and German. Proceedings of the American Philological Association XXXIII,1903 The Omission of the Auxiliary Verb in German. Proceedings of the American Philological Association XXXIV,1920 Some Materials for the Study of Iowa Archaeology. Iowa Journal of History and Politics 18, 357–370,1925 Progress of the Archaeological Survey of Iowa
37.
Driftless Area
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The Driftless Area or Paleozoic Plateau is a region in the American Midwest noted mainly for its deeply carved river valleys. While primarily in southwestern Wisconsin, it includes areas of southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, the region includes elevations ranging from 603 to 1,719 feet at Blue Mound State Park and covers an area of 16,203 square miles. The regions peculiar terrain is the result of its having escaped glaciation in the last glacial period, retreating glaciers leave behind silt, clay, sand, gravel, and boulders called drift. The northern and eastern lobes were in part diverted around the area by the Watersmeet Dome, the Green Bay and Lake Michigan lobes were also partially blocked by the bedrock of the Door Peninsula, which presently separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan. In earlier phases of the Wisconsinan, the Driftless Area was totally surrounded by ice, in the adjacent glaciated regions, the glacial retreat left behind drift, which buried all former topographical features. Surface water was forced to carve out new stream beds, overall, the region is characterized by an eroded plateau with bedrock overlain by varying thicknesses of loess. Most characteristically, the valleys are deeply dissected. The bluffs lining this reach of the Mississippi River currently climb to nearly 600 feet, in Minnesota, Pre-Illinoian-age till was probably removed by natural means prior to the deposition of loess. The sedimentary rocks of the walls date to the Paleozoic Era and are often covered with colluvium or loess. In the east, the Baraboo Range, an ancient, profoundly eroded monadnock, the area has not undergone much tectonic action, as all the visible layers of sedimentary rock are approximately horizontal. Karst topography is found throughout the Driftless area and this is characterized by caves and cave systems, disappearing streams, blind valleys, underground streams, sinkholes, springs, and cold streams. Disappearing streams occur where surface waters sinks down into the earth through fractured bedrock or a sinkhole, either joining an aquifer, blind valleys are formed by disappearing streams and lack an outlet to any other stream. Sinkholes are the result of the collapse of the roof of a cave, disappearing streams can re-emerge as large cold springs. Cold streams with cold springs as their sources are noted as superb trout habitat, the Mississippi River passes through the Driftless Area between and including Pool 2 and Pool 13. As rivers and streams approach their confluence with the Mississippi, their canyons grow progressively steeper and deeper, the change in elevation above sea level from ridgetops lining a stream to its confluence with the Big River can reach well past 650 feet in only a few miles. The Waukon Municipal Airport is reliably established as being 1,281 feet above sea level, the Army Corps of Engineers maintains a river level in Pool 9 of about 619 feet above sea level, which covers Lansing. Maps and signs issued by the Iowa Department of Transportation indicate Waukon and this is a drop of more than 660 feet in less than 20 miles. The role of isostatic rebound on the process of stream incision in the area is not clearly understood, there are many small towns in the Driftless Area, especially in river valleys, at or upstream from the Mississippi
38.
Wisconsin glaciation
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The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsinan glaciation, was the most recent major advance of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance was synchronous with global glaciation during the last glacial period, including the North American alpine glacier advance, the Wisconsin glaciation extended from approximately 85,000 to 11,000 years ago, between the Sangamon interglacial and the current interglacial, the Holocene. The maximum ice extent occurred approximately 25, 000–21,000 years ago during the last glacial maximum and this glaciation radically altered the geography of North America north of the Ohio River. At the height of the Wisconsin Episode glaciation, the ice covered most of Canada, the Upper Midwest, and New England, as well as parts of Idaho, Montana. On Kelleys Island in Lake Erie or in New York Citys Central Park, during much of the glaciation, sea level was low enough to permit land animals, including humans, to occupy Beringia and move between North America and Siberia. Two related movements have been termed Wisconsin, Early Wisconsin and Late Wisconsin, the Early Wisconsin was the bigger of the two and extend farther west and south. It retreated a distance before halting. During this period of quiet, the deposits were eroded and weathered. This first Wisconsin period erased all the Illinoian glacial topography that extended over, the Late Wisconsin ice sheet extended more towards the west than the earlier movements. This may have due to changes in the accumulation center of the ice sheet. The Labrador Ice Sheet centered east of Hudson Bay, expanding towards the southwest, it reached into the eastern edge of Manitoba and across the Great Lakes to the Ohio River, upwards of 1,600 miles from its source. Its eastern lobes covered New England and reached south to Cape Cod and Long Island, the Keewatin Ice Sheet began west of Hudson Bay in the Canadian Territory of Keewatin The ice moved south some 1,500 miles into Kansas and Missouri. To the west, it reached 1,000 miles to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet has left remnants throughout the Northern Rocky Mountains. Unlike the other two ice sheets, this one is mountain based covering the British Columbia and reaching into northern Washington State, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet has more of an Alpine style of many glaciers merged into a whole. The striations made by the ice field in moving over the show that it moved principally to the west through the passes of the coast range. When the ice sheet melts northward from a moraine, water begins to be pond between this moraine and the ice front, the water cannot drain through the ice sheet, which for the Wisconsin period covered most of the proglacial river valleys. Numerous small, isolated water bodies form between the moraine and the ice front, as the ice sheet continues to melt and recede northward, these ponds combine into a proglacial lake. An outlet forms through these low spots, until one becomes dominant when erosion, lowers the outlet, Ice melt and rainfall carried large quantities of clay, sand, and gravel from the ice mass
39.
Moraine
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A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions on Earth, through geomorphological processes. Moraines are formed from debris previously carried along by a glacier, lateral moraines are formed at the side of the ice flow and terminal moraines at the foot, marking the maximum advance of the glacier. Other types of moraine include ground moraines, till-covered areas with irregular topography, moraines may be composed of debris ranging in size from silt-sized glacial flour to large boulders. The debris is typically sub-angular to rounded in shape, moraines may be on the glacier’s surface or deposited as piles or sheets of debris where the glacier has melted. Moraines may form through a number of processes, depending on the characteristics of sediment, the dynamics on the ice, moraine forming processes may be loosely divided into passive and active. Passive processes involve the placing of chaotic supraglacial sediments onto the landscape with limited reworking and these moraines are composed of supraglacial sediments from the ice surface. Active processes form or rework moraine sediment directly by the movement of ice and these form push moraines and thrust-block moraines, which are often composed of till and reworked proglacial sediment. Moraine may also form by the accumulation of sand and gravel deposits from glacial streams emanating from the ice margin and these fan deposits may coalesce to form a long moraine bank marking the ice margin. Several processes may combine to form and rework a single moraine, moraines can be classified either by origin, location with respect to a glacier or former glacier, or by shape. Some moraine types are only from ancient glaciers, while medial moraines of valley glaciers are poorly preserved. Lateral moraines are parallel ridges of debris deposited along the sides of a glacier, the unconsolidated debris can be deposited on top of the glacier by frost shattering of the valley walls and/or from tributary streams flowing into the valley. The till is carried along the glacial margin until the glacier melts, lateral moraines stand high because they protect the ice under them from the elements, causing it to melt or sublime less than the uncovered parts of the glacier. Multiple lateral moraines may develop as the glacier advances and retreats, ground moraines are till-covered areas with irregular topography and no ridges, often forming gently rolling hills or plains. They are accumulated at the base of the ice as lodgment till, in alpine glaciers, ground moraines are often found between the two lateral moraines. Ground moraines may be modified into drumlins by the overriding ice, Rogen moraines or ribbed moraines are a type of basal moraines that form a series of ribs perpendicular to the ice flow in an ice sheet. The depressions between the ribs are sometimes filled with water, making the Rogen moraines look like tigerstripes on aerial photographs, Rogen moraines are named after Lake Rogen in Härjedalen, Sweden, the landform’s type locality. End moraines, or terminal moraines, are ridges of unconsolidated debris deposited at the snout or end of the glacier and they usually reflect the shape of the glaciers terminus. Glaciers act much like a belt, carrying debris from the top of the glacier to the bottom where it deposits it in end moraines
40.
Pleistocene
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The Pleistocene is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the worlds most recent period of repeated glaciations. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period, the Pleistocene is the first epoch of the Quaternary Period or sixth epoch of the Cenozoic Era. In the ICS timescale, the Pleistocene is divided into four stages or ages, all of these stages were defined in southern Europe. In addition to this subdivision, various regional subdivisions are often used. Charles Lyell introduced the term pleistocene in 1839 to describe strata in Sicily that had at least 70% of their molluscan fauna still living today and this distinguished it from the older Pliocene Epoch, which Lyell had originally thought to be the youngest fossil rock layer. The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.588 million to 11,700 years before present and it covers most of the latest period of repeated glaciation, up to and including the Younger Dryas cold spell. The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to about 9640 BC, the IUGS has yet to approve a type section, Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point, for the upper Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. The proposed section is the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core 75°06 N 42°18 W, the lower boundary of the Pleistocene Series is formally defined magnetostratigraphically as the base of the Matuyama chronozone, isotopic stage 103. Above this point there are notable extinctions of the calcareous nanofossils, Discoaster pentaradiatus, the Pleistocene covers the recent period of repeated glaciations. The name Plio-Pleistocene has, in the past, been used to mean the last ice age. The revised definition of the Quaternary, by pushing back the date of the Pleistocene to 2.58 Ma. Pleistocene climate was marked by repeated glacial cycles in which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places and it is estimated that, at maximum glacial extent, 30% of the Earths surface was covered by ice. In addition, a zone of permafrost stretched southward from the edge of the sheet, a few hundred kilometres in North America. The mean annual temperature at the edge of the ice was −6 °C, during interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions. The effects of glaciation were global, antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene as well as the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap, there were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania. The current decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas mountains. In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one, the Cordilleran ice sheet covered the North American northwest, the east was covered by the Laurentide
41.
Loess
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Loess is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. It covers about 10% of the Earths surface and it is usually homogeneous and highly porous and is traversed by vertical capillaries that permit the sediment to fracture and form vertical bluffs. It was first applied to Rhine River valley loess about 1821, Loess is homogeneous, porous, friable, pale yellow or buff, slightly coherent, typically non-stratified and often calcareous. Loess grains are angular with little polishing or rounding and composed of crystals of quartz, feldspar, mica, Loess can be described as a rich, dust-like soil. Loess deposits may become thick, more than a hundred meters in areas of China. It generally occurs as a deposit that covers areas of hundreds of square kilometers. Loess often stands in either steep or vertical faces, because the grains are angular, loess will often stand in banks for many years without slumping. This soil has a characteristic called vertical cleavage which makes it easily excavated to form cave dwellings, in several areas of the world, loess ridges have formed that are aligned with the prevailing winds during the last glacial maximum. These are called paha ridges in America and greda ridges in Europe, the form of these loess dunes has been explained by a combination of wind and tundra conditions. Loess comes from the German Löss or Löß, and ultimately from Alemannic lösch meaning loose as named by peasants, the term Löß was first described in Central Europe by Karl Cäsar von Leonhard who reported yellowish brown, silty deposits along the Rhine valley near Heidelberg. Charles Lyell brought this term into usage by observing similarities between loess and loess derivatives along the loess bluffs in the Rhine and Mississippi. At that time it was thought that the yellowish brown silt-rich sediment was of fluvial origin being deposited by the large rivers. It wasnt until the end of the 19th century that the origin of loess was recognized. A tremendous number of papers have been published since then, focusing on the formation of loess and on loess/palaeosol sequences as archives of climate and these water conservation works were carried out extensively in China and the research of Loess in China has been continued since 1954. Much effort was put into the setting up of regional and local loess stratigraphies, and Frechen, Horváth & Gábris for the Austrian and Hungarian loess stratigraphy, respectively. During the autumn and winter, when melting of the icesheets and icecaps ceased, as a consequence, large parts of the formerly submerged and unvegetated floodplains of these braided rivers dried out and were exposed to the wind. Because these floodplains consist of sediment containing a high content of glacially ground flour-like silt and clay, they were susceptible to winnowing of their silts. Once entrained by the wind, particles were then deposited downwind, the loess deposits found along both sides of the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley are a classic example of periglacial loess
42.
Karst
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Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves and it has also been documented for more weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions. Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few to no rivers or lakes, the English word karst was borrowed from German Karst in the late 19th century. The German word came into use before the 19th century, according to the prevalent interpretation, the term is derived from the German name for the Karst region, a limestone plateau above the city of Trieste in the northern Adriatic. Scholars disagree, however, on whether the German word was borrowed from Slovene, the Slovene common noun kras was first attested in the 18th century, and the adjective form kraški in the 16th century. The Slovene words arose through metathesis from the reconstructed form *korsъ, ultimately, the word is of Mediterranean origin, believed to derive from some Romanized Illyrian base. It has been suggested that the word may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root karra- rock, the name may also be connected to the oronym Karsádios oros cited by Ptolemy, and perhaps also to Latin Carusardius. The development of karst occurs whenever acidic water starts to break down the surface of bedrock near its cracks, as the bedrock continues to degrade, its cracks tend to get bigger. As time goes on, these fractures will become wider, if this underground drainage system does form, it will speed up the development of karst formations there because more water will be able to flow through the region, giving it more erosive power. The carbonic acid that causes karstic features is formed as rain passes through the atmosphere picking up carbon dioxide, once the rain reaches the ground, it may pass through soil that can provide much more CO2 to form a weak carbonic acid solution, which dissolves calcium carbonate. The oxidation of sulfides leading to the formation of acid can also be one of the corrosion factors in karst formation. As oxygen -rich surface waters seep into deep anoxic karst systems, they bring oxygen, sulfuric acid then reacts with calcium carbonate, causing increased erosion within the limestone formation. This chain of reactions is, This reaction chain forms gypsum, the karstification of a landscape may result in a variety of large- or small-scale features both on the surface and beneath. On exposed surfaces, small features may include solution flutes, runnels, limestone pavement, medium-sized surface features may include sinkholes or cenotes, vertical shafts, foibe, disappearing streams, and reappearing springs. Large-scale features may include limestone pavements, poljes, and karst valleys, mature karst landscapes, where more bedrock has been removed than remains, may result in karst towers, or haystack/eggbox landscapes. Beneath the surface, complex underground systems and extensive caves. Some of the most dramatic of these formations can be seen in Thailands Phangnga Bay, calcium carbonate dissolved into water may precipitate out where the water discharges some of its dissolved carbon dioxide. Rivers which emerge from springs may produce tufa terraces, consisting of layers of calcite deposited over extended periods of time, in caves, a variety of features collectively called speleothems are formed by deposition of calcium carbonate and other dissolved minerals
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Sinkhole
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A sinkhole, also known as a cenote, sink, sink-hole, shakehole, swallet, swallow hole, or doline, is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. Most are caused by karst processes—for example, the dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes. Sinkholes vary in size from 1 to 600 m both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms, sinkholes may form gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. Sinkholes may capture surface drainage from running or standing water, but may form in high. Sinkholes that capture drainage can hold it in limestone caves. These caves may drain into tributaries of larger rivers, the formation of sinkholes involves natural processes of erosion or gradual removal of slightly soluble bedrock by percolating water, the collapse of a cave roof, or a lowering of the water table. Sinkholes often form through the process of suffosion, for example, groundwater may dissolve the carbonate cement holding the sandstone particles together and then carry away the lax particles, gradually forming a void. Occasionally a sinkhole may exhibit a visible opening into a cave below, sinkholes also occur in sandstone and quartzite terrains. As the rock dissolves, spaces and caverns develop underground and these sinkholes can be dramatic, because the surface land usually stays intact until there is not enough support. Then, a collapse of the land surface can occur. Sinkholes also form from human activity, such as the collapse of abandoned mines and salt cavern storage in salt domes in places like Louisiana, Mississippi, more commonly, sinkholes occur in urban areas due to water main breaks or sewer collapses when old pipes give way. They can also occur from the overpumping and extraction of groundwater, sinkholes can also form when natural water-drainage patterns are changed and new water-diversion systems are developed. Sinkholes tend to occur in karst landscapes, karst landscapes can have up to thousands of sinkholes within a small area, giving the landscape a pock-marked appearance. These sinkholes drain all the water, so there are only subterranean rivers in these areas, examples of karst landscapes with a plethora of massive sinkholes include Khammouan Mountains and Mamo Plateau. The largest known sinkholes formed in sandstone are Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel in Venezuela, some sinkholes form in thick layers of homogenous limestone. On the contact of limestone and insoluble rock below it, powerful underground rivers may form, in such conditions, the largest known sinkholes of the world have formed, like the 662-metre deep Xiaozhai Tiankeng, giant sótanos in Querétaro and San Luis Potosí states in Mexico and others. The state of Florida in the United States is known for having frequent sinkhole collapses, the Murge area in southern Italy also has numerous sinkholes. Sinkholes can be formed in retention ponds from large amounts of rain, an analysis of a case of sinkhole formation under a retention pond due to a large amount of rain can be seen in a sinkhole collapse study
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Cave
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A cave is a hollow place in the ground, specifically a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. Caves form naturally by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground, the word cave can also refer to much smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos. A cavern is a type of cave, naturally formed in soluble rock with the ability to grow speleothems. Speleology is the science of exploration and study of all aspects of caves, visiting or exploring caves for recreation may be called caving, potholing, or spelunking. The formation and development of caves is known as speleogenesis, which can occur over the course of millions of years, caves are formed by various geologic processes and can be variable sizes. These may involve a combination of processes, erosion from water, tectonic forces, microorganisms, pressure. Isotopic dating techniques can be applied to cave sediments, in order to determine the timescale when geologic events may have occurred to help form and it is estimated that the maximum depth of a cave cannot be more than 3,000 metres due to the pressure of overlying rocks. For karst caves the maximum depth is determined on the basis of the limit of karst forming processes. Most caves are formed in limestone by dissolution, solutional caves or karst caves are the most frequently occurring caves and such caves form in rock that is soluble. Most occur in limestone, but they can form in other rocks including chalk, dolomite, marble, salt. Rock is dissolved by acid in groundwater that seeps through bedding planes, faults, joints. Over geological epochs cracks expand to become caves and cave systems, the largest and most abundant solutional caves are located in limestone. Limestone dissolves under the action of rainwater and groundwater charged with H2CO3, the dissolution process produces a distinctive landform known as karst, characterized by sinkholes and underground drainage. Limestone caves are often adorned with calcium carbonate formations produced through slow precipitation and these include flowstones, stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, soda straws and columns. These secondary mineral deposits in caves are called speleothems, the portions of a solutional cave that are below the water table or the local level of the groundwater will be flooded. Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico and nearby Carlsbad Cavern are now believed to be examples of type of solutional cave. They were formed by H2S gas rising from below, where reservoirs of oil give off sulfurous fumes and this gas mixes with ground water and forms H2SO4. The acid then dissolves the limestone from below, rather than from above, caves formed at the same time as the surrounding rock are called primary caves
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National Historic Preservation Act of 1966
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The National Historic Preservation Act is legislation intended to preserve historical and archaeological sites in the United States of America. The act created the National Register of Historic Places, the list of National Historic Landmarks, senate Bill 3035, the National Historic Preservation Act, was signed into law on October 15,1966, and is the most far-reaching preservation legislation ever enacted in the United States. Several amendments have been made since, among other things, the act requires federal agencies to evaluate the impact of all federally funded or permitted projects on historic properties through a process known as Section 106 Review. Preservation is an early development in America. Although there was no national policy regarding preservation until 1966, efforts in the 19th century initiated the journey towards legislation, one of the earliest efforts of the preservation movement occurred around the 1850s when George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, was in shambles. His nephew attempted to sell it to the government for $200,000. To prevent further destruction or conversion to a resort, Ann Pamela Cunningham created the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association to fight for this house, after establishing the first group promoting preservation efforts, they raised the money to acquire the property and protect it from ruin. Due to their efforts, not only does this house stand to represent the nation and the birth of independence, but it also, “served as a blueprint for later organizations. ”In 1906, an act was passed on the behalf of the nation’s history and land. President Teddy Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act that “prohibited the excavation of antiquities from public lands without a permit from the Secretary of Interior. ”It also gave the president authority to declare a specific piece of land a national monument, therefore protecting it from scavengers and proclaiming national identity. In 1916, the Department of the Interior established a new entity known as the National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey, one of the established programs, provided jobs for architects, engineers, and surveyors who suffered from the Great Depression era. They were to record, document, interpret, and survey historic properties, the Historic Sites Act also organized the national parks under the National Park Service, which created the foundation for the future development of National Register of Historic Places. Although the Antiquities Act and Historic Sites Act were major stepping stones for the preservation movement, it did not create a public “national awareness. In addition, the bill enforced public participation in preserving and protecting the sites, buildings, objects of significance in American history. ”Initially. Today, they are able to offer funds for planning and education, providing a plethora of information, techniques, due to this new construction, many historic properties were destroyed. In the 1960s, the Kennedy administration launched the Urban Renewal Program, hoping the plan would rejuvenate the cities, it in fact increased the destruction in the downtown areas. The increase in population around this time, as well, and the manufacturing of cars called for a rapid change, therefore hindering our nation and its culture. “With the urbanization, tear downs, and rebuilding America. it is destroying the evidence of the past. ”During the 1950s and 1960s people saw the negative changes in their city and developed a concern for their “quality of life that reflected their identity. ”As a response to the nationwide destruction brought about by federally initiated programs, a report coordinated by Lady Bird Johnson analyzed the country. The National Historic Preservation Act was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson on October 15,1966 and this act established several institutions, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, State Historic Preservation Office, National Register of Historic Places, and the Section 106 review process
