Mark your calendars for the Loess Hills Seminar.  The Iowa Chapter ExCom
will also meet in the Loess Hills on June 3rd.  More details later.
Jane Clark
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June 1-3, 2001
Loess Hills Wildlife Area, Onawa, Iowa
The Loess Hills Prairie Seminar is sponsored annually by Western Hills Area
Education Agency for educators, students, park and conservation persons,
community leaders, and citizens. It's held in the Loess Hills Wildlife Area
northeast of Onawa, Iowa.
The seminar is a living memorial to its founder, Carolyn Frerichs Benne,
Western Hills Area Education Agency environmental educator. She started the
seminar in 1977 as part of the Western Hills AEA's role in providing
education and training for K-12 educators in the areas of conservation,
environmental and science education. From 250 to 300 adults and students
regularly attend the weekend event.
The philosophy and rationale is grounded in the concept of the "total
village"--the belief that schools are part of the larger community that must
come together to share and learn about the natural world and how to protect
it.

From the Loess Hills Seminar WebPage
By Jean Cutler Prior:
The Loess Hills are one of Iowa's seven principal landform regions. This
unique topography is found in a narrow band of high-relief terrain
approximately 3 to 5 miles wide that extends from north of Sioux City south
into Missouri. The hills typically display narrow ridge crests, steep side
slopes, numerous branching spurs, stair-step features called "catsteps,"
steep-sided gullies, and tracts of native prairie on exposed summits and
sideslopes. The hills lie directly adjacent to the Missouri River valley,
and this proximity helps explain the geologic evolution of the Loess Hills
landscapes and also creates some of the most scenic vistas to be seen in
Iowa.
Loess is wind deposited silt. The Missouri River carried enormous loads of
silt ("rock flour" ground by the glaciers) during episodes of glacial
melting to the north. During low-flow seasons, exposed silt was swept from
the floodplain by the wind, with the thickest deposits accumulating leeward,
nearest the Missouri Valley source area. Deposits typically range from 60 to
100 feet in thickness, and most of the loess accumulated between 55,000 and
12,000 years ago. It is the unusual depth of the loess, and the subsequent
sculpture of this uniformly textured material by erosion, that accounts for
the distinct hill forms.

The remarkable association of geological and ecological attributes found
here resulted in the designation of about 10,000 acres of the region as a
National Natural Landmark. This designation highlights the national
significance placed on this landscape's geological origins and biological
habitats.

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