Alabama Black Belt Earthcache EarthCache
Alabama Black Belt Earthcache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(other)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This earth cache is located on the bluffs overlooking the Tombigbee River, near the site of Fort Tombecbe. Park at the additional waypoint coordinates and cross under the highway bridge to approach the cache. There is no physical cache container to find; to log this earthcache, you will need to email us the answers to the questions below. The requirements for logging the earthcache are repeated in the hint section.
Special thanks to GLOBEtrotter5, whose nearby cache brought us to this spot -- we'd been looking for a good example of Black Belt geology for months!
The Alabama Black Belt is a crescent-shaped region consisting of 17 counties across the lower half of Alabama. It is part of a larger Black Belt that stretches from Texas to Georgia. Though the term "Black Belt" is increasingly used in a socioeconomic or political sense, referring to the racial makeup of the area, the term is actually geologic in nature, referring to the rich, dark soils of the area.
Alabama’s Black Belt Prairies originated about 90 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. During this time, warm ocean waters covered a shoreline that extended from present-day Montgomery, Alabama, westward into Mississippi, then north toward Memphis, Tennessee. These prehistoric waters teamed with marine creatures and algae that produced tiny plates of calcium carbonate. When they died, their remains settled to the ocean bottom and over eons of time accumulated to form a thick layer of white chalk-like material. When ocean waters receded, these landmasses began to weather and plants colonized them. The impermeable nature of this underlying chalk and the alkalinity of the soils originating from chalk promoted the growth of grasses and cane. The organic material left behind from many generations of grasses produced a fertile black clay soil that gave the Black Belt its name.
The purple band (see map in photo gallery) is known as the "Black Belt" because of the dark surface colors of many of the soils. These soils were derived from alkaline, Selma chalk or acid marine clays. Acid and alkaline soils are intermingled throughout the area. Sumter soils, which are typical of the alkaline soils, are clayey throughout and have a dark-colored surface layer and a yellowish colored subsoil. Oktibbeha soils are acid and clayey throughout. They have red subsoils and light-colored surface layers. The clayey Wilcox, Mayhew, and Eutaw soils are the dominant soils of the rolling pine woodlands along the southern edge of the "Prairie." They are acid and are somewhat poorly drained or poorly drained. They are locally known as "flatwoods" or "post oak clays." The clayey soils contain a large percentage of montmorillonitic clays and they shrink and crack when dry and swell when wet. The area is level to undulating. Elevation is about 200 feet. Soybeans are the major crop. Most of these soils are used for timber production and pasture.
The Black Belt is geographically distinguished from higher elevations to the north and east by a band of hills along the fall line, where rivers flow onto flat bottom lands and form several large alluvial plains. The thick, rich, and fertile sedimentary soils deposited on these flood plains attracted both Native American and early colonial settlers to the area.
At the heart of Alabama's Black Belt is the Ripley cuesta, a ridge with a steep north face and gentle, sloping southern face. This feature is known locally as the Chunnennuggee after the Bullock County ridge formation of the same name. A geological formation known as the Selma Chalk underlies the Blackland Prairie, a major physiographic component of the region. This sedimentary limestone bed was formed over millions of years in the shallow gulf waters that once covered modern-day Alabama during the Lower Tertiary Period, between 66 million to 38 million years ago. The Selma Chalk has since been uplifted and tilted toward the Gulf of Mexico. It is overlain with a layer of dark, fairly rich soils that are excellent for cultivating cotton, wheat, and rice with proper irrigation. The label "Black Belt," in use for more than a century, is presumed to have derived from early settlers' description of the abundant dark black soils found throughout the region.
Traditionally, 17 Alabama counties—Barbour, Bullock, Butler, Choctaw, Crenshaw, Dallas, Greene, Hale, Lowndes, Macon, Marengo, Montgomery, Perry, Pike, Russell, Sumter, and Wilcox—were included in the region. The crescent-shaped Black Belt stretches across the mid-section of Alabama from the Chattahoochee River in the east westward to Mississippi. The uppermost part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain, one of the state's five physiographic sections, forms the northern boundary of Alabama's Black Belt. The area is dominated by relatively flat and well-drained terrain interspersed with low undulating hills. Elevations in northern parts of the plains rise to an average of 600 feet. The Black Belt is geographically distinguished from higher elevations to the north and east by a band of hills along the fall line, where rivers flow onto flat bottom lands and form several large alluvial plains. The thick, rich, and fertile sedimentary soils deposited on these flood plains attracted both Native American and early colonial settlers to the area.
Rivers and streams from several large basins—the Sipsey-Warrior, Coosa-Tallapoosa, Alabama-Cahaba, Tombigbee, and Chattahoochee—course through the Black Belt. When cotton was the dominant crop grown in the region, the Black Belt's many navigable waterways enabled growers to transport their harvests to the docks in Mobile for shipment abroad. Reliance on these waterways continues into the present. In 1995, more than 25 million tons of channel traffic flowed along the Black Warrior-Tombigbee alone.
A large portion of the Black Belt region experiences the lowest rainfall amounts within the state, with mean averages approaching 56 inches or less, but the region still has an abundant variety of native plants and animals. In 2008, approximately 70 percent of Alabama lands were forested, with coverage in the 17 traditional Black Belt counties totaling slightly more than 74 percent. On the whole, timberland throughout the Black Belt is dominated by stands of loblolly and shortleaf pines. Some western and northwestern sections of the Black Belt are home to mixed oak and pine forests, and oak-gum-cypress stands can be found along flood plains. According to the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program of the USDA Forest Service, virtually all the forested acreage in Alabama's Traditional Black Belt counties, with the exception of some 6,000 acres in Perry County, is classified as timberland capable of producing a minimum of 20 cubic feet of industrial wood per acre per year.
This earthcache is located in an area where the topsoil, the underlying soil layers, and the bedrock formations typical of the Black Belt can all be seen in one vicinity.
LOGGING THIS EARTHCACHE
To log this earthcache, email us or send us a message (visit link) and copy and paste these questions, along with your answers. Please do not post the answers in your log, even if encrypted. There's no need to wait for confirmation from us before you log, but we will email you back if you include your email address in the message.
1. The name of this earthcache: Alabama Black Belt Earthcache.
2. Look around. What colors do you see in the soil around this area?
3. Describe the rock surface in the area. Can you see any fossils?
4. What kind of plants do you see around the cache area?
Photos of your visit are optional but always appreciated, please do not post any close-up photos of the soil or rock surface. Group answers are fine; just let us know who was with you.
Sources:
Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Auburn University College of Agriculture
Encyclopedia of Alabama
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
[To log this earthcache, use the "send message" link in our profile and copy and paste these questions, along with your answers. Please do not post the answers in your log, even if encrypted. There's no need to wait for confirmation from us before you log, but we will email you back if you include your email address in the message.
1. The name of this earthcache: Alabama Black Belt Earthcache.
2. Look around. What colors do you see in the soil around this area?
3. Describe the rock surface in the area. Can you see any fossils?
4. What kind of plants do you see around the cache area?
Photos of your visit are optional but always appreciated, please do not post any close-up photos of the soil or rock surface. Group answers are fine; just let us know who was with you.]