What kind of land does illinois have

After the American Revolution, Illinois became a U. During the Civil War Illinois hosted no major battles, but more than , troops from Illinois fought for the Union. Disaster struck in when a huge fire swept through Chicago, Illinois.

The name Illinois comes from the Native American tribe living on the land when the area was first explored by Europeans. Illinois is bordered by Wisconsin in the north; Lake Michigan, Indiana , and Kentucky in the east; Kentucky and Missouri in the south; and Missouri and Iowa in the west. The state can be divided into three regions. The Central Plains region covers almost all of the state and contains fertile land and low hills.

These gently rolling fertile plains were carved and leveled by glaciers during the Ice Age. The Driftless Plains In the northwest corner of Illinois, the Driftless Plains offer the highest elevations in the state. Large hills and valleys are present in this small area of Driftless Plains.

This is where Charles Mound, the highest point in Illinois, is located. This area of fertile soil typifies the landscape that helped make Illinois one of the top five corn producing states, one of the leading agricultural states in the nation and gave Illinois one of its nicknames; The Prairie State. This small strip of land, ranging from five to 40 miles wide and about 70 miles long is characterized by higher elevations to 1, feet.

The landscape of the Shawnee Hills consists of rivers, valleys and woodland. This is the land between the Ohio River on the east and the Mississippi River on the west and sometimes referred to as " Egypt " because of its resemblance to the Nile Delta. Thick layers of sandstone were created in Illinois, particularly in the early part of this time period. Oceans also leave behind billions of seashells. These whole shells and fragments, all made of calcium carbonate, combine to form the rock we know as limestone or dolomite.

A glance at a rock from that time may show beautifully preserved seashells and other animals from the ancient oceans of Illinois. During this time, the Paleozoic Era, the rocks that make up Illinois were periodically bent and folded.

In southern Illinois, the Earth's crust periodically sank, creating a broad, bowl-shaped feature—the Illinios Basin. Over time, this basin continued to sink as the ancient oceans of Illinois filled it with thick deposits of limestone and sandstone. Figure 2 left The ancient ocean of Illinois.

Figure 3 right The landscape of million years ago—Illinois under water. Did you know? Brachiopods are a form of sea life that lived near ancient tropical shores by the billions. Many species died out at the end of the Paleozoic; the survivors are much rarer and few types remain. The seashells commonly found today are pelecypods, not brachiopods, and are not even closely related to them!

Crinoids are sometimes called "sea lilies" but they're not plants! They are Echinoderms, cousins of the starfish. When they died, their hard skeletons calcium carbonate broke apart, and the "stems" that held them up became many little round pieces sometimes called "Indian beads!

Trilobites were cousins of crabs and even distant cousins of the insects. They used to be very common and came in many different and bizarre shapes. They are now extinct—totally gone! They died out before the dinosaurs ever lived! We hop back into the time machine and time moves on. The landscape changes. We get out. We're still about million years in the past, but things have changed. We're standing ankle-deep in mud! Nearby we see a muddy river winding its way through a dark woodland.

We're in the middle of a great river delta. This ancient wet, muddy delta swamp Fig. On it grows the first great forests Earth has seen. The trees tower feet or more above us—strange shapes that spread across the low swampy land. The swamps are inhabited by many types of amphibians—cousins of the frogs—but some are 10 feet long, with big teeth! Small reptiles scamper about, rushing to hide in hollow trees. As we walk, huge cockroaches crawl along fallen tree trunks and scramble across the muddy forest floor.

Dragonflies as big as hawks fly overhead, darting through the wet, dark forest hunting for food. What has happened?

The bowl-shaped feature that is the Illinois Basin was still sinking and still filling up. Far to the east, mountains have risen, and rain has washed sand, silt, and clay down the slopes to rivers that carried the sediment westward into the shallow midcontinent ocean.

Where a river enters an ocean or lake, the silt and clay the water carries are deposited in a delta. Deltas are muddy places that constantly change as the river moves back and forth across them.

In Illinois, these rivers deposited mud in a vast delta. For millions of years this process continued. It filled up the warm shallow ocean and turned Illinois into a dark, muddy swamp. The trees and other plants that made up the great delta forests were buried and compacted through time and became a major state resource—COAL!

The delta sediments accumulated to great thicknesses on top of the ancient ocean sediments. Like thick fudge frosting on top of a cake, the mud and underlying layers of seashells and sand changed over time into shale on top of limestone and sandstone Fig.

After the Pennsylvanian Period, vast forces in the earth twisted Illinois, folding and faulting rock and bringing some of the ancient ocean rock to the surface in north-central Illinois. The huge Sandwich Fault formed, slashing across Illinois from southwest of Chicago to southwest of Rockford! Tectonic forces also produced faults and other geologic activity in extreme southeastern Illinois, causing flourite, the state mineral , to be deposited. Geologic activity in the northwest deposited Galena Near what is now Des Plaines, a meteor crashed to Earth, smashing and faulting the bedrock Fig.

Fossil leaves above are commonly found in some parts of Illinois. These leaves represent several types of large trees found in the coal swamps. In some places these leaves are found in oval rocks called concretions. We climb back in the time machine and travel forward. The time machine stops, and we step out into Illinois of the Mesozoic Era.

Illinois is no longer under the ocean, nor is it a dark swamp. Instead, it is a warm, dry place, a landscape of hills and valleys. Around us are strange plants, much different from the coal forests. For the first time on our trip, we see birds! They look strange, almost lizard-like. As they call and fly about, we realize that their mouths are full of sharp teeth! Also overhead are strange creatures with leathery wings—flying reptiles flapping their way above the prehistoric landscape.

On Tuesday, China announced it will stop buying U. Because the impact is not immediately obvious, it can be easy to ignore. Unfortunately, further delay will only make finding solutions more difficult. As the U. A failure to do so could lead to famines, warfare and massive disruptive migrations. As for Illinois, we are remarkably fortunate.

We can drive through our state for hours and see nothing but waving fields of grain. Send letters to letters suntimes.

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