It is essentially the Grand Canyon of the Ozarks, right?

If we have these other four regions that surround the White River and the Buffalo River, the Buffalo really is the Grand Canyon of the Ozarks.

It is really spectacular.

In fact, the high points of-- the high point of the Ozark uplift is down there.

It's Buffalo Lookout and essentially 2,500 feet above sea level, which is higher than anything in Missouri.

[music playing] There are many ways to define the Ozarks.

Scholars often identify its boundaries by the distinct culture and dialect shared by the people of this region.

But, today, we're going to consider another definition of the Ozarks by looking at the underlying geology exclusive to this area.

My guest today is Dr. Kevin Evans, Professor of Geology at Missouri State University, who has been studying and mapping the Ozarks for more than 20 years.

Join us as we talk about some of the unique rock formations and extraordinary geographic features that make this area unlike any other.

[music playing] ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

[music playing] Well, thanks for being with us today.

This is going to be a special treat for everyone because they're going to get a free lesson in geology of the Ozarks.

And before we get started, why don't you kind of talk a little bit about yourself, your background, and how you got to where you are now.

Kevin Evans, I'm a professor of geology, here, at Missouri State University.

I'm a local kid, in a way, actually, my dad was with the US Geological Survey, and so I moved around a lot.

But I graduated from high school, here, Hillcrest High School, back in the '70s-- a long time ago.

[chuckles] And then, I went to school here.

And I took the indirect route and so I was here for a few years and finished up my undergraduate work and, then, went on to grad school because I just didn't have enough of it yet.

So I did my master's and PhD at the University of Kansas.

Before I finished my PhD, I went to California.

I had the opportunity, in Kansas, to go to Antarctica, three times, actually.

So I was there.

The third year that I was there, I met my future wife at that time, now, ex-wife.

But, anyway, I went to California, then, from Kansas and, then, finished up my degree while I was in California.

The Antarctica experience that was just like a research station you go to in the summertime?

It was deep field is what they call it, actually.

So they would fly us in with C-130s, ski equipped C-130s.

And we'd land in the ice out in the middle of nowhere.

They'd kick us out.

And then, 10 weeks later, they would pick us up.

So it was quite an adventure, actually.

And I was a graduate student, of course.

And I had a wonderful time doing all of this.

So we went to the Harold Byrd Mountains.

We went to the Pensacola Mountains.

I've been to the Argentina Range, the Neptune Range, and the Patuxent Range.

Yeah, I've been contemplating going to the Antarctic.

Trying to figure out how to do that and stuff.

So I think that's the only continent I haven't been to so I was trying to figure out-- at my age I don't know if I want to be too adventurous or not.

It's a spectacular place, I got to tell you.

Yeah, it was quite an adventure for me being a young man.

28 years old I think when I first went down there.

That's the time to go.

I guess that's the time to go to the Antarctic, if you're going to go to the Antarctic.

It sounds to me like you were destined to be a geologist and you didn't have a choice.

Yeah, I love the adventure.

You know, I do it-- I get to-- it takes me around the world kind of in a way.

So I've been to every continent except for two now.

So I still have to make it to Africa and South America.

I've made it to Central America but I haven't made it-- Haven't made it down to there.

Yeah, someday I will.

Yeah.

I think-- yeah, the Antarctic is my hardest one.

The others weren't so difficult but that one's going to be I think a challenge.

You have to really want to go I think because-- Yeah and it's pricey if you're paying your own way.

Oh yeah.

So for me, it was like a free ride so it was kind of nice that way.

So what we're going to talk about today-- and we're going to do another show about the Weaubleau structure and all that, but we want to talk about today is that we normally think of the Ozarks I guess in cultural terms-- history, tradition, all that.

And then we also think about it in geophysical terms, I guess with the karst topography and the caves, and the springs and all that.

And so what we wanted to do on this show is really kind of do a little bit more of a deep dive into the geology that makes the Ozarks such a unique place.

Yep, yeah.

It's not unique to the world, like we were talking earlier.

There's some other places that have karst-- and karst is spread around-- but how did you get interested in the Ozarks particular?

Was it just because you're from here or is it-- That's part of it actually, is I am from here but I'm also-- when I try to explain to people what my title is in geology, it's actually carbonate sedimentologist or carbonate stratigrapher.

And so we look at layered rocks.

So limestones kind of important to you.

[laughter] Yeah, so but limestones are my specialty, I guess you could say.

Not karst so much but the actual rocks themselves and how they form.

So in oceans and things like that.

So roughly 30% of the world is covered with carbonates.

So carbonates would include things like limestone and then also dolomite.

So both of those are very common in the Ozarks.

Those are the two most common sedimentary kind of rock or is it well is there other?

Yeah you get sandstones and shales, and things like that as well.

And we just don't have as much of that in the Ozarks.

There is some, but not much.

And we also get igneous rocks of course in the Ozarks and that makes us a little different from many of the other places in the Midwest anyway.

So on the-- I guess one thing about the Ozarks is-- it's fascinating to me-- is that when you think of the Ozarks you think of mountains.

And I always used to think, well, the Ozarks to me looked geologically like their hills, except for maybe the Boston Mountains and Saint Francois Mountains.

Everything else is like a plateau.

It is, yeah.

And that's about the extent of my knowledge of the geology of this area.

But how does the Ozarks as a landmass-- kind of talk about how large it is-- and then there's a bunch of subregions I know that are there.

So if we could go through those.

Well I don't know exactly how large it is.

It's probably 250 by maybe 150 miles or so.

But it's an area that was uplifted and it's unlike many other mountains, I guess I would say.

Most mountains are actually like the Appalachians.

The Appalachians are a result of tectonic plates colliding with one another.

And the Ozarks more or less came about from a collision some distance away.

Most people don't realize that the southern half of Arkansas didn't use to be there and it was actually a terrain that came in and docked with the rest of North America.

And so when it docked-- that's the Ouachita Mountains and they're a series of folds and thrust plate-- thrust faults and things like that, like the Appalachians.

In fact, they're really an extension of the Appalachians if you dive underneath the Mississippi River.

But when that occurred-- that was about 300 million years ago-- and it uplifted the Ozarks.

And so the Ozarks came up from that-- a result of flexure more or less.

So if you look at the Ouachita Mountains you'll see nothing but a whole bunch of folds and strata that are dipping all over the place, like in the Appalachians, you see a lot of dipping strata.

But here in the Ozarks, it's all flat line for the most part.

It's relatively flat and the whole things just kind of popped up.

So I noticed one thing.

There was-- I was looking one time when they were talking about how some of the mountains-- or some of the features-- were really through erosion as opposed to uplift.

Yep, that's correct.

How did that all operate?

That sounds fairly complex.

So with this flexure-- when you raise things up things will become highly dissected from the water erosion.

Of course we get a lot of rain here.

And we've had a lot of rain for-- Forever.

Forever.

[laughter] I think, yes.

And so you cut in and you leave behind the results of this as a series of plateaus.

And so Saint Francis Mountains-- it's eroded so much, in fact, that it got all the way to what we in geology call basement.

And that's the Precambrian rocks that are the oldest part in the core really of the Ozarks uplift in the eastern part of the state like-- Yeah, is that like a granite or-- it has to be a hard surface.

It is, absolutely.

Granites and then also some rhyolites.

It was volcanic eruptions that were around back then.

But all of that whole terrain developed first before the sedimentary rocks were laid over the top.

And so-- but they made their way through by erosion essentially.

So you start off with there's a hard rock underneath everything, then it's overlaid with sedimentary kinds of rock.

And then a little bit of acid rain or rain-- It happens, yeah.

And it dissolves things.

So from a-- is it erosion or is it mostly a chemical reaction of dissolving?

We break it into two parts, weathering and erosion is where you actually remove the materials.

But the weathering itself is actually where you can dissolve things like carbonates.

And so you get physical weathering and then chemical weathering like that.

And so acid rain is one of those things that will take a limestone away pretty quickly.

Like if you look in the Ozarks, many of our streams have chert gravel in them and the chert is just left behind as a weathering remnant.

And so chert doesn't dissolve very easily whereas the limestone that surrounds it does.

So is chert some kind of a-- is it a different kind of a stone, I guess?

It's a sedimentary rock.

And so a lot of people in fact collect where little crinoid stems may have been in a piece of chert gravel-- from the creeks and things.

And so it's essentially like fossil wood kind of-- or petrified wood-- in the sense that silica comes in and replaces ancient seafloor essentially there.

So it takes that limestone and just replaces it with silica-- SiO2.

So it's a quartz and the quartz is very resistant to weathering, whereas the limestone, as soon as you get it wet it seems like it tries to melt away.

Yeah, I still always kind of look at chert and figure out, OK, where did that come from and why is that here?

Because-- It got left behind.

--trying to figure out-- you got left [laughs] behind.

Yeah.

So one of the-- To answer your question too-- I forgot to mention the five parts to the Ozarks.

Oh yeah.

At least four parts of the Ozarks.

We have the Saint Francois Mountains are the core.

Right.

And so that's kind of around Iron County in that area-- around Ironton and Arcadia and places like that.

That's where there's a lot of lead deposits and-- Or surrounding that there are the lead deposits in the sedimentary rocks.

And so the Viburnum Trend in places like that have a lot of-- Bonne Terre and places like that-- extensive mining that's all around the hard core of the Ozarks.

And so you get that.

And then there's kind of a low area around that that is-- we give names to all of the time periods in geology, right?

So I have my-- I teach my students, it's like you've got to remember these, OK?

Yeah.

Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian-Devonian, Mississippian-- you know, all these things that we rattle off.

But the Cambrian and the Ordovician are what make up the second part of the Ozarks and that's the Salem Plateau.

And so that's the area that is named for Salem, Missouri and that area, and it goes all the way up pretty much to Jeff City and that area.

And then beyond that, there are some younger rocks that are above that that are Mississippian in age and that's what we live on in Missouri and Springfield here.

Springfield Plateau?

Springfield Plateau.

So there's the Saint Francois Mountains, the Salem Plateau, the Springfield Plateau.

And then when you get into Arkansas, you finally get into Pennsylvanian age rocks-- even younger rocks.

Sandstones mostly and shales.

And so that's the high mountains of the Bostons.

It's interesting.

So each geographic region has different dates-- Yes.

--for when it was formed?

Pretty much, yeah.

And so over thousands of years you just have the different combinations.

I'd never heard the explanation before of the Arkansas Mountains coming from-- or something-- That's a surprising one for most people.

Yeah, was that just kind of hanging off in the Gulf of Mexico or where was that?

Well, that's a great-- Texas or?

Well there was something there to begin with that rifted away.

This is the other surprising thing.

The thing that used to be there was called the precordillera terrain and that's in the middle of South America now.

And so it rifted away and it left kind of a gap on the southern margin of what used to be an ancient part of North America we call Laurentia.

So Laurentia was here.

You rift that part away, incorporate it in another continent essentially.

And then we had something that was hanging around somewhere and it came in and collided then, about the same time that we formed the Appalachian Mountains.

And so that's about when Gondwana and all of the rest of the continents got together-- about 300 million years ago.

Yeah, say I was in Panama once and I was looking at it and I thought, OK, how's this little isthmus and how's this thing here?

And the continents have kind of pulled apart.

And there's the-- It's a jigsaw puzzle.

It really is.

That's the fun part of geology, is trying to figure it out.

And I was trying to remember the name of the islands when they're all kind of hooked together and stuff, with the land is-- Pangaea is the ancient continent that was everything.

Yeah.

So it's just really fascinating how that's-- you just have to imagine how things were formed.

There are some movies you can see online that do the animations, that show the-- you know, it's like a dance of the continents essentially, you know?

But they finally-- well they'll get back together at some point again, but that's going to be way in the distant future.

And I don't have to worry about that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I know you do some YouTube stuff that explains a lot of stuff.

I normally, when I think of tectonic plates and stuff, I guess I think of the Rocky Mountains and the upward push.

Yeah.

Or maybe an earthquake or whatever.

Is the-- it just popped in my noggin about earthquakes-- the Madrid Fault or whatever it is-- The New Madrid, yeah.

The New Madrid Fault, yeah.

Is that-- is that on the edge of the Ozarks?

Is it part of it?

Or it's more off in like in the Mississippi?

It's kind of the Eastern edge of that area.

Yeah.

So what makes the-- we have these plateaus essentially, right?

So we have the plateaus that were uplifted but there's basins all around us essentially.

So there's one around Kansas City called the Forest City Basin.

In Illinois they have the Illinois Basin.

In Arkansas they have the Arkoma Basin.

And so all of these things are down dropped blocks.

And the one for the New Madrid Fault zone is a really ancient one called the Reelfoot Rift.

And so the Reelfoot Rift was-- when the thing first broke apart from the precordillera terrain, falling away, that's a remnant of what was left actually.

So it runs all the way into Indiana essentially.

And it still-- It's still active.

Still wants to move a little bit.

Just a little bit.

Which causes the occasional-- Yeah.

We get a few earthquakes but not very many here.

Yeah.

People would be surprised at how many faults there are in the Ozarks.

There are a lot of them in fact.

And so they kind of dictate how water flows in the underground.

And so there's-- they have a huge impact, even though you can look right across them and not know that they were there.

There are some that run right through Springfield in fact.

[laughs] And so there's not only local faults that affect the carbonates.

It affects where you dissolve the carbonates and things like that.

But it also-- at least back during Pennsylvanian time, when this collision occurred-- it affected how things move.

And so there was a lot of-- there's a fellow at-- he's at Memphis-- University of Memphis-- Randy Cox-- Randall Cox-- and so he describes how many of these things are actually strike slip faults, and so they move side by side.

What's the difference between-- I should have taken-- paid more attention to my geology classes I guess-- the difference between like a fault and then like-- if you-- like in the cave system there's all kinds of places where water moves all over the place.

And so that's from either I guess erosion or cracking or whatever.

But are there faults inside of all that stuff?

Or is that-- are the faults generally deeper?

Sometimes is the-- yeah.

So there's always exceptions, right?

So most of those are either fractures, but they could be faults as well.

So for instance, one of the big caves we have around here is Marvel Cave, right?

In Silver Dollar City.

It's pretty much right on a fault zone.

It's called the Ten O'Clock Run Fault and it runs up at about a 10:00 angle on the clock essentially.

I should say this way, right?

So-- but it's-- so that fault system affected how the rocks were kind of warped.

And so that's where the cave kind of focused.

And so it makes it easier for water to get in-- percolate into these systems-- and then open up the cave passages in the rooms and so forth.

So I can-- in the losing streams and all these other kinds of things-- is there a definition or kind of a definition difference between a fault line and then some of these other fissures and cracks and things that are out there?

So-- so a fracture-- a fault is really a fracture that shows some sort of offset.

And so you have to have a key marker bed that shows that it's moved a little bit in some way or another.

So there is a distinction?

Yeah, they can either go-- they can slip either along their dip direction or they can slip in a strike direction, which is like parallel to the fault that way.

One of the things that-- and I guess I wanted to talk to you about too-- is like on the Buffalo River and all these places, you have these literally sheer cliffs.

I mean everything is kind of just like this.

How were those formed?

Is that part of-- [laughs] How did that-- It's interesting in the sense that it is essentially the Grand Canyon of the Ozarks, right?

If we have these other four regions that surround the White River and the Buffalo River, the Buffalo really is the Grand Canyon of the Ozarks.

It's really spectacular.

In fact, the high points of-- the high point of the Ozark uplift is down there.

It's Buffalo Lookout and essentially 2,500 feet above sea level, which is higher than anything in Missouri.

And so it's the weathering.

It's the actual cutting in essentially.

Either the weathering from eroding the limestones through dissolution and then removing things through erosion.

And so-- So do-- do parts of this surface tend to fall off and flake off and over time you just have-- it loses some of the underpinnings?

If they're not eaten away from the-- you know-- undercutting and things like that, they're dissolved away essentially.

If you're floating along and stuff and you look at those things you think, man how did this-- how did this happen?

You know, it's because it's so spectacular.

It takes millions of years.

Even Lake Springfield, for example.

It's got some sheer cliffs-- they're not cliffs but they're bluffs or whatever you want to call them.

It's pretty spectacular still though.

Yeah.

So it is really-- where do these things initiate?

Usually along fractures and faults.

But also long cave systems, right, also were concentrated there.

So if you link enough cave systems together you have another canyon essentially forming.

Solution valleys essentially.

And then, one of the things I want to talk to you about is the bluff shelters that occur because all of a sudden-- I was reading the difference between a cave and a bluff shelter.

It was interesting.

So can you kind of explain that a little bit?

Well I'll try to.

[laughs] I know-- [interposing voices] --study that.

I'll give you a simple question.

It's essentially caves that kind of failed in some ways, I guess.

They just get etched out from below.

I think they're little microclimates essentially that form and help to weather away part of that shelter bluff or-- one of my favorite ones is actually in Lost Valley in Arkansas.

Beautiful area.

At Lost Valley there's Cobb Cave.

You could fit a tennis court easily-- maybe three or four tennis courts-- underneath-- as big as a basketball court-- underneath of that cave.

And of course, they became the focus for where Native Americans would want to dwell, of course for that.

And so keeps them out of the rain and a good place to cook, you know?

Nobody-- Yeah.

When I was growing up in south eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, we used to go hiking all the time and we would find these.

They were just-- I didn't know they were called bluff shelters.

I thought they were kind of the start of a cave.

But you could-- just the ends-- and you could still see the light and everything.

So it doesn't have all the characteristics of a true cave-- That's right.

--and stuff like that.

Plus you have to worry about having critters coming out after you because you can see everything.

But they make great shelters.

I can see the name for-- And Native Americans would use them.

Yeah.

So there's some very famous ones in Missouri as well.

So some of them are-- they've been lived in for thousands of years.

So-- but interesting features of the Ozarks.

Those are because you won't see anything like that so much in places like the Appalachians, where it's more overhangs and things like that, but the rocks are dipping more steeply.

So you were talking a little bit about-- generally we talk about karst, I guess-- topography-- which is really a lot of limestone, et cetera, et cetera.

Caves, sinkholes.

Yeah.

I always am afraid that I may have a sinkhole under my house.

Yes.

Somewhere.

Who knows.

But they start-- sinkholes start off as caves that cave in, I guess.

Is that usually how it works?

Usually, yeah.

So there are different kinds of sinkholes obviously too, right?

So some of them get bridged over with sediments and they'll get filled up with rock and then eventually they can be eaten out from underneath sometimes because water flows underground, right?

And so-- You were saying that karst can cover a good part of different areas, different states, different countries?

Yes.

Yeah, roughly 30% of the world is carbonates and so you get karst in pretty much everywhere that has carbonates.

Yeah, and I was just thinking, when I was looking to do this show, I was in Kunming, China, which is southwestern China, and I thought I'd gone back to the Ozarks as I was walking around.

I mean, it was just amazing.

The only difference was they had these-- it's called the stone forest-- and it's these limestone deposits.

And it looks like trees but they're huge.

Yeah.

So how would those form?

I mean, that's a different kind of-- we don't have those.

They were just separate like a series of-- literally like trees.

I've not been to China yet.

[laughs] Someday I would love to go.

It's a great place.

Invite me along.

[laughter] I know-- I'm familiar with the haystack kind of karst there.

They get these huge mounds and essentially the valleys are eroded away.

Right.

From weathering first and then the erosion carries away all the materials that were in between these sort of haystacks.

And so the stone forest I think is probably a little bit like some of the material that's in-- some of the landscape that's in Madagascar.

They have these sort of fluted-- Right.

--sort of like features essentially and you're looking up in little narrow canyons.

Yeah.

And you can see limestone all the way to the top.

I think Indonesia has those sort of features as well.

So I think it'll follow the creeks essentially.

So it just makes an easy way for things that have been uplifted a little bit to be able to-- Yeah, when I was looking at those things I thought, OK, if limestone is a softer material, how come it's still hanging up here you know like this?

And the erosion or whatever is happening is taking place around it?

And I just never understood.

It's fascinating and it's a beautiful place.

All you have to do is add a little tiny bit of acid to it, right?

So acid rain is something that occurs naturally.

And not just from smoke and things like that but also from leaf litter and things like that.

It becomes more acidic.

And so anything that can dissolve away the limestone-- and limestone is relatively soft compared to other rocks too.

So it has a hardness of three essentially-- we say for calcite.

Calcite's the main mineral that makes-- Is dolomite a little bit harder?

It's a little bit harder, yeah.

And a little bit denser also too.

And so whenever you-- for instance, if we go back to Marvel Cave, you can see that giant bell-shaped room at the very beginning of Marvel Cave, and then it all necks down to a narrow little channel.

Well that's right where the limestone hits the dolomite, right at that contact essentially.

I was always kind of curious about whether that was a harder surface or not.

We just got a couple of minutes but before I go I wanted to-- what's your research area right now?

What are you working on or what do you what's your-- Oh gosh.

--area of interest?

I think I have ADD a little bit probably-- Yeah, I know you're very active.

--but I think it's OK to-- Yeah, I know you're active.

--be that way.

So I'm looking at some of the carbonates in Jamaica.

I go to Jamaica on a regular basis now with some of my colleagues from Missouri State here.

And I'm looking at a story of uplift associated with-- maybe about 1,000 years ago there was some sort of tectonic event-- a seismic event, if you will, that raised up some carbonates.

And so we've got some age dates of about 1,000, 1,200 years old on that uplift.

And so there were native Caribbean cultures that were affected by that sort of event perhaps.

And so that's one of the things we're looking-- I'm looking at personally right now.

I'm also looking at-- well the Ozarks are famous for another thing and that is that the rocks that crop out in the southwestern corner of our state are essentially oil reservoirs when you get to southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma.

And they call it the Mississippi Lime play there.

It's the age of the rocks, right?

So Mississippian.

And so I'm looking at some of that still.

And we've found recently here-- in about the last year or so here-- some worm tubes and chert again.

And the worm tubes apparently are related-- it seems to be-- to a methane seep and so when they were deposited.

So I think that's kind of important actually.

So I've contacted some folks from Britain to help along with some of this work.

We could talk forever.

Specialists-- we can talk a lot more.

We could talk forever about this.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that.

So those are a couple of things.

I'm still working on Weaubleau impact structure as well.

So Weaubleau-- We're going to do a show about the Weaubleau structure.

I'm looking forward to that as well.

So thanks for being with me today.

I really appreciate.

Absolutely, it was my pleasure to be here.

Thank you, Jim.

We'll be right back.

[MUSIC - ART GALBRAITH,"SUNDAY NIGHT REEL"] Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present OzarksWatch Video Magazine, a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

I'd like to thank our guest, Dr. Kevin Evans, for talking with us today about the fascinating geology that defines the Ozarks.

Thank you for watching and join us again next time on OzarksWatch Video Magazine.

[MUSIC - ART GALBRAITH, "SUNDAY NIGHT REEL"]