Week Three - Running Water

While it is great to travel sometimes, you don’t have to even leave home to observe the science of geology that happens all around us.  In Indiana we own a house and 30 acres (attached picture).  On this property there are two streams, but one in particular is far more interesting from a geological perspective.  The characteristics common to all rivers are quite obvious in our stream.  Even though the overall discharge of river is low, this small seasonal stream has eroded the ‘red’ shaded area and cut a wide channel that is 10 feet deep into the surrounding hill.  Much of the transported sediment, or bedload, is deposited into our pond/swamp, the orange shaded area, near the front of the property.  Additionally, during rainy seasons the area shaded in ‘yellow’ floods, and because of this the bars of this particular stream become prevalent.  Learning these geological concepts has made this small stream more interesting and it will be a neat learning tool for my children.

Picture description:  The property original 40 acres is now split into three sections, with the outline in blue owned by my family.  The many local ponds feed into this seasonal stream, that cuts across the property, and eventually it flows into the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.