This Earthcache is located at
the Cypress Island Preserve.
Geology of
Louisiana
Louisiana is entirely made of Mississippi mud, and its
surface rocks go back some 50 million years. As the seas rose and
fell over this low-lying region, some version of the Mississippi
was carrying vast sediment loads here from the core of the North
American continent and piling it on the rim of the Gulf of Mexico.
Organic matter from highly productive marine waters has been deeply
buried under the whole state and far offshore, turning into
petroleum. During other dry periods, large beds of salt were laid
down through evaporation. As a result of oil company exploration,
Louisiana may be better known underground than on its surface,
which is closely guarded by swamp vegetation, kudzu, and fire
ants.
The older outcrops dip downward toward the sea owing to the
steady subsidence of the land, and the coast is very young indeed.
You can see how much the gray Holocene alluvium of the Mississippi
River covers the state. The Holocene represents only the latest
10,000 years of Earth history, and in the 2 million years of
Pleistocene time before that the river has wandered over the whole
coastal region many times.
Human engineering has temporarily tamed the river, most of
the time, and it's no longer dumping its sediment all over the
place. As a result, coastal Louisiana is sinking out of sight,
starved of fresh material. This is not permanent
country.
A bayou or a
swamp?
The word bayou
originated from the term bayuk, the Louisiana French word for
"small stream" By definition, a bayou is a watercourse, usually the
offshoot of a river or lake in a lowland area. It is a sluggish or
stagnant creek, frequently flowing through swamp
terrain.
In comparison, a
swamp is low-lying, marshy wetland, and is usually forested and
seasonally flooded. A swamp is a type of wetland. A wetland is a
transitional environment between permanently aquatic and
terrestrial environments that shares characteristics of both
environments and where water, which covers the soil or is near the
surface for substantial parts of the year, is the key factor in
determining the nature of the ecosystem and
soil.
The National
Wetlands Research Center of the U.S. Geological Survey defines
swamps as forested low, spongy land generally saturated with water
and covered with trees and aquatic vegetation; may be a deepwater
swamp, such as the cypress tupelo, which has standing water all or
part of the growing season or bottomland hardwood forests, which
are only flooded
periodically.
Cypress Island
Preserve
The Cypres Island Nature Preserve is open during daylight
hours. The walking trail starting along the levee is closed during
alligator nesting season, June through October. The rookery is
closed to all entry from February 1 through July 31 for breeding
bird season. The Cypress Island Presereve totals approximately
9,500 acres of important cypress-tupelo swamp and bottomland
hardwood forest habitat is protected. It includes a 2.5-mile
walking levee trail and connected 1-mile trail system that is open
from the fall to the spring and is suitable for children. Because
this remarkable natural area is easily accessible and affords
visitors with incredible wildlife viewing opportunities, the
Cypress Island Preserve receives thousands of visitors a
year.
To log this earthcache we
recommend (it is optional) that you take a picture of with you
and/or your GPS at the listed coordinates. You are required to
email the cache owner the answer to the following
questions:
1. (Optional) Is this area
classified as a Cypress-Tupelo, Marsh or Bottom Land Hardwood
Forest? The answer is on one of the signs at the start of one of
the entrances to the
boardwalk.
2. What kind of
rock could be eventually be formed here (sedimentary, igneous, or
metamorphic)?
3. What is the
elevation reading at the
coordinates?
Optional bonus
question: why would you not want to swim
here?
To learn more about earthcaches, including how to develop
one of your own click here Earthcache.org. You can also
obtain one or more of the following levels of the Earthcache
Masters
Program:
BRONZE (log three or more earthcaches
in at least two or more
states/countries),
SILVER (log six
or more earthcaches in at least three or more states/countries and
develop one
earthcache),
GOLD (log twelve or more earthcaches in at least four or
more states/countries and develop two earthcaches),
or
PLATINUM (log twenty or more
earthcaches in at least five or more states/countries and develop
three
earthcaches).
