Talimena Treasures - Sunset Rock Glacier EarthCache
Talimena Treasures - Sunset Rock Glacier
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Standing at this vista on the Talimena Scenic Drive, one can see several unique features that will take you back several thousand years.
Just below the vista (and all along the mountainside in front of your) are rock glaciers, unique geological formations caused by flowing ice during the last ice age. The glaciers look like large fields of rocks and boulders, left jumbled together in one common area. These fields were caused when melting glacial ice collected in small valleys and eventually melted, leaving all of their massive deposits behind.
These rock glaciers in the Winding Stair and Kiamichi Mountains of Oklahoma are inactive, but there are many sites on earth where rock glaciers are still moving. A rock glacier takes a combination of cold climate, a copious supply of rock debris, and just enough of a slope. Like ordinary glaciers, there is a large amount of ice present that allows the glacier to flow slowly downhill, but in a rock glacier the ice is hidden. Sometimes an ordinary glacier is simply covered by rockslides. But in many other rock glaciers, water enters a pile of rocks and freezes underground—that is, it forms permafrost between the rocks, and ice builds up until it mobilizes the rock mass.
To receive credit for this Earthcache, visit the above coordinates and read the signage there. Take a photo of yourself with the vista at your back and post it in your log. Then email me the answers to the following questions:
1. The rocks you are now standing on were once located where?
2. What rare snail lives here?
3. Give the scientific name of the giant earthworm native to the rock glaciers.
Additional Hints
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