Gophers versus Glaciers Earthcache EarthCache
Stump: Thanks to everyone who visited this site. I hope you enjoyed it.
Geocaching.com administrators are hassling me about this cache and I'd rather archive it than deal with their petty complaints.
Gophers versus Glaciers Earthcache
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To log this cache you must do one of the following: go up the stairs of the kiosk and take a picture of the Mima mounds landscape from the cache coordinates or send an e-mail to Stump listing the person who according to legend created the mounds. This story can be found on the kiosk wall at the coordinates listed for this cache.
All over America from the Pacific Ocean to Texas there are strange mounds dotting the landscape. At one time there may have been up to one million mounds on the Mima prairie with 10,000 mounds per square mile in some places. Much of them are gone but the Mima Mounds NAP was created to preserve them and is perhaps the best place in America to view this mysterious natural phenomenon. There have been more than 25 hypotheses on how these mounds were formed. The two favorites listed at the preserve are that they were created by pocket gophers or glaciers. Another theory, my personal favorite, that was proposed in 1989 and is gaining popularity is that they were created by seismic activity. What is agreed upon is that about 14,000 years ago glaciers retreated from the Puget Sound lowlands, including Mima prairie. Left behind from the glacial outwash was a deep layer of extremely gravelly sand, topped by a 3 foot thick layer of gravelly, sandy loam. After that the theories diverge.
GLACIERS THEORY
During the last ice age the frozen prairie became fractured and formed a network of mound sized chunks that gradually thawed. Done repeatedly over many years would divide the chunks into gradually decreasing sized chunks. The reason for the mound shape was that during a partial thaw the unfrozen tops would partially erode. The mounds were then preserved after the ice age by a bog that formed over the prairie.
GOPHERS THEORY
Pocket gophers were once numerous on the Mima prairie and because of the gravelly-sandy loam could not dig their burrows underground. So instead they arranged the topsoil into mounds that grew in size year after year. Until a disease, fire, famine, etc. wiped out the entire population of gophers. There is evidence that the mounds have been used as burrows.
SEISMIC THEORY
The new kid on the block, in fact it’s not even mentioned on the preserve kiosk. An experiment was done by Andrew Berg. By vibrating a piece of plywood covered in soil he was able to recreate a landscape with mounds very similar to those of Mima. If anecdotal evidence of the mounds still growing is true this increases the likelihood of this theory over the others listed here.
MANMADE THEORY
While the mounds do look very similar to east coast burial grounds there have been no bones or artifacts found in the mounds. There are also no traditions associated with them being used as burial grounds.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)