Stop 7
The white rock you see sticking out of the trail in places is limestone and this rock forms the distinctive terraces of the Flint Hills. Water seeps through cracks in the limestone and forms springs just beneath the rock layers. Bands of shrubs form on the hillsides with their roots tapping into the springs below.
The thin, shallow soil of the Flint Hills is why much of it was never plowed. The rocks saved the prairie! However, because of all the rocks, the soil is not very thick or deep. Much of the original tallgrass prairie was characterized by having very deep, rich soil that was all held together by a thick network of prairie plant roots. The prairie soil and all of this roots together was talled “sod”. The sod was very difficult to cut, but the sharp steel plow invented by John Deere did the trick. Once the prairie is plowed it is very difficult to restore the complex network of roots and soil organisms. Prairie restoration is one of the questions being researched at Konza Prairie.
