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The Flint Hills, historically known as Bluestem Pastures, are a band of hills in eastern Kansas stretching into north-central Oklahoma, extending from Marshall County in the north to Chautauqua County, Kansas and Osage County, Oklahoma in the south.[1]
[edit] Description
The World Wide Fund for Nature has designated the Flint Hills as an ecoregion, distinct from other grasslands of the Great Plains.[2] They were named by explorer Zebulon Pike in 1806 for the cobbles of flint-like chert that glinted through the tall prairie grasses.
Regions of Kansas and Oklahoma, showing the Flint Hills
The Flint Hills were created approximately 250 million years ago during the Permian Period. During this time much of the Midwest, including Kansas and Oklahoma, were covered with shallow seas. As a result, much of the Flint Hills are composed of limestone and shale with plentiful fossils of prehistoric sea creatures. The most notable layer of chert-bearing limestone is the Florence Limestone Member. It is approximately 45 feet thick; numerous roadcuts of the Florence Member are prominent along Interstate 70 in Riley County, Kansas. Many of the honey-colored limestones have been used for building blocks. The non-chert-bearing limetones are best for this, since the chert is extremely hard to cut, but yet it can fracture quite easily.
Beginning in the mid-1800s homesteaders replaced the American Indians in the Flint Hills. Due to chert in the soil, farming was not practical, and cattle ranching became the main agricultural activity in the region. Sparsely populated today, the Flint Hills contain most of the remaining tallgrass prairie in the world[1] and have some of the largest cattle ranches in Kansas and Oklahoma. There are three official tallgrass prairie preserves in the Flint Hills, the largest of which, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, also boasts one of the largest populations of bison in Oklahoma. The other preserves, both located in Kansas, are the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and the Konza Prairie.
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