There are two major features of Madison County and the Southern Iowa Drift plain: rock and soil—but each is packed with more history and mystery than meets the eye. In this area, visitors will explore the many factors that have contributed to Madison County’s unique geological makeup by taking a trip through time and space, over sea and air, and getting up-close-and-personal with the area’s layers of soils and sediments, the elements that brought them there, and the organisms that call (or called) it home.
Lessons to include:
- Glacial drift: What it is, where it is, and how it got here.
- Loess soils: What it is, why it’s special, and where in the county it wound up.
- Bedrock—what lies beneath: The ebb and flow of the inland ocean, the layers of limestone it left behind, and what deposits and fossils remain today.
