Even More Interesting Natural Features & Locations in the U.S.

Even More Interesting Natural Features & Locations in the U.S.

Audi it’s Kyle with another installment of interesting natural features and locations in the US this is the second video in the series where I take a look at some natural locations that might not be very well known outside of the local area I’ll leave a link in the description to part one in the series but this is part two more interesting natural features and locations in the US I want to first start off by talking about shirakawa National monument in Arizona it’s in the Southeastern portion of the state about 40 m north of the Mexican border it was created in 1924 to protect a relatively small area of some really cool erosion remnants including hoodo and balanced rocks the formations that you see are volcanic in nature it’s actually solidified Ash is referred to as tough and this is stuff that was released from the volcanic eruption from the Turkey Creek Caldera so how you end up with hoodo and balanced rocks like this is that the rock that makes up the formations is relatively strong and the rock that surrounded it was much more easily eroded by wind and water so in this part of the country it’s often sandstone and Limestone that gets eroded down to these beautiful canyons and erosary Remnants and this is a relatively small park at about 19 square miles but it packs a pretty big punch and most people when they go to Arizona to visit national parks are going to be in the northern portion of the state around the Grand Canyon and not many folks visit these parks in the Southeastern portion of the state but do check out chirawa the Beautiful place next I want to mention the city of rocks in Southeastern Idaho this is both a national reserve and a state park it’s administered by both the feds and the state the park is about 22 square miles and protects a large area of granite outcrops and granite spires that are very prominent rising from the high plains these can sometimes look like mountains but they’re actually erosion so mountains are created by uplift and formations like this are created by the weaker rock around it being eroded leaving something else behind so what happened here to get some of these formations is that tectonics broke apart much of this rock and erosion removed some of the weaker Rock away leaving some of these Granite spires the process is called exfoliation and some of the tallest spires can reach about 600 ft many of these have flat tops or perhaps even concave tops including bath Rock which is well known because it has concave tops that can fill with water like a bathtub and this was a popular spot for many pioneers from the Eastern us to cross over to get to the West Coast there’s a spot there called register Rock which has many traveler carvings and ridings along these rocks that are signatures of people that were moving from the East to the west and you fast forward to today this is a very popular spot for rock climbers to come to show their stuff with three national parks Yellowstone Grand Teton and Craters of the Moon all in the region people often miss the City of Rocks but don’t it’s a beautiful spot from City of Rocks Idaho I’m now going to Starved Rock Illinois this this is a state park located in the north central part of the state it’s actually the busiest State Park in Illinois it’s about 80 mi from Chicago and about 45 miles from the southwestern most suburbs the park protects a series of canyons along the Illinois River some are larger than others but most of them have some nice waterfalls in them some of the largest and most well-known ones in the park include Wildcat Canyon casasia Canyon and St Louis Canyon all of which have nice waterfalls with them overall there are about 18 canyons in the park and of course the smaller Creeks carve out the smaller ones and the Illinois River carved out the largest one and these canyons are exposed Sandstone that is common in the region but is usually well underground the Illinois River carved out this Canyon in the Sandstone but this park is also well known for having many archaeological sites including evidence of habitation over 10,000 years ago there are 13 ancient ceremonial Mounds that are approximately 2,000 years ago and these are fairly common throughout the region to find some of these prehistoric mounds and with all this exposed rock many prehistoric groups use some of these areas as rock shelters there are 14 known spots that were used as rock shelters and this is an unexpected spot in this part of Illinois there’s lots of hiking trails there’s some big overlooks including the lovers leap Overlook in the winter time there’s ice climbing on the Frozen waterfalls and again this is the most crowded State Park in Illinois but you can go on a weekday in the offseason and you’ll have most the park to yourself next I’m going Going Back East to senica rocks West Virginia this is in the western part of the Eastern Panhandle and it’s part of the Spruce Knob National recreation area that was founded in 1965 and the senica rocks are what are called Crags and these are usually metamorphic rock that is very resistant that’s surrounded by much weaker Sandstone or Limestone that gets eroded and this much stronger metamorphic rock gets left behind and for something to be called a crack it has to have the same degree angle as a cliff the same amount of vertical it but it’s much thinner has a much smaller surface area and the senica Rocks rise about 900 ft above the Confluence of senica Creek and the North Fork of the bomic river there are two peaks of the Sena rocks one can be hiked to and on and the other is too vertical it can only be accessed by ascending and repelling on rope there’s also an open Notch between the two peaks that is inaccessible to hikers and similar to City of Rocks senica rocks is also a very well-known spot for pop rock climbing you’ll have people come from all around to repel down these beautiful rocks and this is in the same part of the state as the dolly sods that I mentioned in part one of this series so this part of West Virginia has some really cool interesting natural features all right I’m headed back to the Midwest and white but North Dakota this is located in the southwestern portion of the state and it’s in the Badlands region of the Western Dakota is where you have several national parks including Theodore Roosevelt in North Dakota as well as Badlands and the black Black Hills in South Dakota white but is the highest point in the state it stands at about 3,500 ft and it ranks as a 31st highest point amongst the states not too far from white but is black but which stands at 3,470 FT about 30 ft less than white but and a but is an erosion Remnant formed in a similar way as a Mesa or a plateau but is much smaller and usually has kind of a flat type top and white but is a result of wind and water erosion despite being this far north it was outside of the range of glaciation during the last ice age and The Rock you see is a white Capstone of sandstone that’s common in Badlands National Park but is usually underneath the Sandstone you find in some of the other areas in the region and in general this part of the country offers some surprisingly beautiful scenery so don’t sleep on the western Dakotas including white but in North Dakota heading over to the Northeast I’m going to New York State and leworth State Park the is located in Western New York not too far from Rochester or Buffalo and this park protects a series of canyons and waterfalls along the Gennesse River there are three fairly large waterfalls along the genee the tallest Canyon walls are about 550 ft above the river level and the tallest waterfall is called inspiration Falls at about 350 ft although that isn’t along the largest canyon in the park and what these canyons are are exposed sedimentary rock layers that in the last ice age water flow altered and helped carve the gourge so the last ice age was only about 10 to 20,000 years ago so this is a relatively young geologic formation and this is a really nice state park lots of hiking in the summer lots of CrossCountry skiing and snowmobiling in the winter there’s paddling there’s hot air balloon rides there’s white water and near the park is the Mount Morris Dam which is the largest dam in the Eastern us so most people know about the Adera and some of the beautiful mountains in Upstate New York but there also many beautiful spots in Western New York including leworth State Park heading out west I’m going to Oregon and Newberry crater this is part of the Newberry National volcanic Monument located right in the middle of the state not too far from Bend and even though it’s called a crater it’s actually a Caldera which is a collapsed empty magma chamber that’s been exposed after seismic activity the most recent volcanic activity there was approximately 1,300 years ago and it created a large obsidian flow about a mile wide the tallest peak in the area is Paulina Peak at just under 8,000 ft and there are also two fairly large Alpine Lakes there and the lakes are filled in portions of the Caldera and this area around Newberry is still very seismically and geothermally active it’s a high alert volcano with a high risk for eruption as a park it’s great to visit with lots of hikes going around the Caldera and the surrounding area there’s paddling in the lakes and there’s CrossCountry skiing and snowmobiling in the winter I can can imagine with so much population growth going on around bend that this park is more popular than it used to be but it is a great place to visit staying on the west coast I’m going down to California and Mono Lake this is located in the eastern part of the state east of the Sierra Nevada not too far from the state line with Nevada the lake is at a relatively high elevation at 6,383 FT and this is a saline Lake it’s very salty there’s no outflow so any water that enters the lake doesn’t go out by a creek out to the ocean it just stays there and gets evaporated and you get some evaporate left behind and this is another Spa that has lots of active volcanoes and recent volcanic activity there are two islands in the lake one called pooa and one called negot and neither one of these are very old POA is in fact only 350 years old the other island neet island is only 1,700 years old so these are both very young geologically and both of these islands are lake bed sediments and Volcanic I tough that have been exposed by lowering water levels and at times the water level can be so low that both of these islands are actually connected by a land bridge the park is famous for its twofa towers and these are limestone formations formed along subsurface spring so what happens is sediment is released underwater and these towers are formed and they end up being exposed by the lowering lake levels and similar to Great Salt Lake in Utah a lake like this could be dried out if taking out too much water in the region was a lake called Owens Lake that was dried up in the 1920s after Los Angeles diverted much of the water for its water supply so Mono Lake is a beautiful spot surrounded by many popular tourist attractions like yuse Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes but not many folks make it to Mono Lake it’s a beautiful spot now heading over to New Mexico I’m going to the Santa Rosa blue hole and it is how it sounds it’s a big hole that’s filled with water to make it a blue hole and so by definition that makes this a cenot which is a vertical cave pit that’s been filled with water and the center Rosa Blue Hole is an artisian well and what this is is a natural pump essentially so high pressure below the surface pushes aquafer water up to the surface and as a result the surface water is always the same temperature it’s always about 62° F the main Blue Hole itself is about 80 ft deep and also about 80 ft in diameter however at the bottom of the main pit are small passages that go off to the side and these are just small tight Cave Diving sections the deepest part of these smaller caves go down about 194 ft below the surface however these tighter sections that go off the larger hole down deeper into the cave are off limits there’s a gate on them this is a popular spot for surface swimming in the summer but also scuba training all year long because the Blue Hole is located at an elevation of 4600 ft you need high altitude scuba gear to do this and this is a popular spot to do the training for it the entire cave system has been fully explored and mapped by experienced cave divers but even then there have been multiple deaths Through The Years including an experienced Navy diving rescue and Recovery member cave diving is a very dangerous recreational activity so even a relatively small cave like the Santa Rosa Blu hole can be dangerous and this is located right off of Interstate 40 so if you’re on a road trip and it’s really hot you want a quick break you can take a nice little dip in the S Rosa Blue Hole now heading to the southeast I’m going to go to a place I’m very familiar with and that’s land Canyon State Park in Northwestern Georgia this is located near the Tri-State point where Georgia meets Tennessee and Alabama it’s about a half an hour Southwest of downtown Chattanooga and this is a large Canyon created by the sitting go Creek and its tributaries it’s over 1,000 ft deep in its deepest section it’s located on the top of Lookout Mountain which despite its name was actually a Limestone Ridge the canyon itself is made up of sandstone and Shale there’s much sedimentary rock in the region including many Limestone caves and this part of the country with much Limestone and much water means you get a lot of cars topography which is where you get many caves being formed but you also have many beautiful waterfalls in this park as well the largest ones are 90 ft and 60 ft and this is a great Park to visit there are lots of different hiking trails some go around the rim of the canyon some go through the bottom of it there are mountain biking and extended Backcountry trails and there are also those cave tours so I always tell people to visit the Chattanooga area if they want to see some beautiful scenery to check out this park it’s often not mentioned in the Chattanooga literature because they want people to stay in Tennessee but this is a beautiful State Park check it out and the last place I want to mention in the video is the most well-known one it’s a national park Kenai FS National Park in Alaska this is located in the south central part of the state along the boundary between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates and what a fiord is is a glacier carved out Valley that’s been inundated with water so the Kenai FS the Pacific Plate is being subducted underneath a North American Plate which pushes the continental crust of the North American Plate upward but because this area is so seismically active a major earthquake can cause a collapse of this uplifted continental shelf and in fact in 1964 there was a large 9-point earthquake that hit this part of the state and it caused the coastal areas in this region to drop several feet so over the course of thousands and thousands of years many earthquakes have caused this land that was carved out by glacier to subside water levels Rose filled it up and that’s a fur the national park also protects 30 glaciers on an ice field and also some wooded Wilderness nearby the best way to see this park is by boat there are multiple cruises offered by the National Park Service and private companies as well as kayak tours in fact my adviser in college his job before being a professor was to be a naturalist on some of these cruises talking about some of the geography and geology of the kai Ys so I’ve never been to Alaska would love to go and this is one place I would certainly love to see it’s a beautiful spot so that was part two of interesting natural features and locations in the US and check back in the future for future installments in this series and look in the description box for the link to part one in the series but if you enjoyed this video please give me a thumbs up to let me know you approve And subscribe to this channel if you’re interested in learning more about geography from a nerd but yeah thanks for watching geography King signing out I’d like to give a special thanks to my Superior patrons for their support especially Mo be welcome to the club sorry I missed you when you set up a couple of weeks ago but here you go if you’re interested in supporting the channel you can check out my patreon page the link is in the description as always thank you very much

A look at 11 cool natural locations in the U.S., to include lesser-known state parks and less-visited areas. This is the second video in this series and I take a look at 11 more interesting spots from different parts of the country.

Part 1 of this video series:

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0:00 Intro
0:27 Chiricahua National Monument, AZ
1:31 City of Rocks, ID
2:55 Starved Rock State Park, IL
4:29 Seneca Rocks, WV
5:44 White Butte, ND
6:54 Letchworth State Park, NY
8:04 Newberry National Volcanic Monument, OR
9:07 Mono Lake, CA
10:46 Blue Hole, Santa Rosa, NM
12:25 Cloudland Canyon State Park, GA
13:40 Kenai Fjords National Park, AK
15:03 Outro/ Patron Shoutout