Missing River EarthCache
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How do you lose a River? Well in this case you do not lose it but you cut it off from its head waters.
When the Michigan Airline Rail Road was built from Jackson out to the Spring Arbor Station and then on to Concord they built high bank rail beds across the wetlands. While doing this they put tunnels where the waterways were in order to not block the flow. They did not build the tunnel at this location correctly and water will not flow through it, cutting off the main water for the river causing it to dry up. The water now trapped on the south side of the railbed reversed direction and in stead of flowing west now flows east. This is do to the fact that this wetland sits right on a “sub-continental” divide. What is a continental divide? Most people, when they hear the term, think of the line down the Rockies, which separates the watershed drainage of the Atlantic from the Pacific (watershed: the area of land that catches all precipitation and drains or seeps into a river system or other body of water, such as an ocean or groundwater). However, there are generally considered to be 4 great divides in North America, which separate the 5 major watersheds. The entire state of Michigan falls into the St. Lawrence Seaway drainage area. Within those major watersheds, there are lesser watershed divides, sometimes called "sub-continental" divides. To receive credit for this cache, you need to email me the information of what this divide separates. This information can be gotten at the posted coordinates. Also send the name of the missing river, plus the name of the waterway all the water now flows out. You will find out here why the Indians in this area named it Falling Waters.
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