Rochester, Minnesota — Since Team Minnesota efficiently finished its fieldwork yesterday, we have two days before the students fly out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. The good weather has given us a gift of time, so we’re using it like enthusiastic geologists.
This morning we drove down to Harmony, Minnesota, near the Iowa border to visit Niagara Cave. This cave is unusual because it has a stream with a 60-foot waterfall and (a new term to me) active vadose canyons. The cave is entered down a sinkhole into the Dubuque Formation, and then it descends through the Stewartville Formation and reaches its lowest level in the Prosser Formation. These are Ordovician units above the Platteville-Decorah-Cummingsville sequence we did our work with. The cave passages follow joint patterns inn these limestones. It is plenty wet down there.
My cave photos are not the best with my small flash. Here at least we can see a vertical joint passage and flowstone structures.
The fast-moving stream running through Niagara Cave.
The top of the 60-foot waterfall.
This view up into a dome shows the internal stratigraphy visible in the limestones.
Plenty of fossils are exposed in the cave. These are sections of gastropods in the ceiling of one section. They were high up so I have little idea of their sizes. I’m just amazed the photo worked out.
In the afternoon we drove northeast to Great River Bluffs State Park on the Mississippi. We had spectacular views of the river and its opposite bank in Wisconsin. Above is a view eastward of Queen’s Bluff overlooking the river.
The main navigation channel of the Mississippi is in the foreground, with the Black River Delta in the middle ground. In the distance are the bluffs on the Wisconsin side, about 4-5 miles away.
Team Minnesota is ready to answer any geological questions!
