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During my 42 years with the Geological Survey (1962 – 2004), I worked on nearly every facet of North Dakota geology: the rocks that produce oil, gas, coal, gravel, ground water and our other mineral resources. My studies of the glacial sediments near Devils Lake helped me to gain detailed insights into North Dakota’s past […]

Glaciation was the main geologic influence on much of North Dakota’s landscape. The Ice Age, a time geologists also refer to as the Pleistocene Epoch, includes most of the past three million years of geologic time. Glaciers advanced over the northern plains several times during the Ice Age,  reaching northern and eastern North Dakota. When it wasn’t glaciated, […]

Field stones are common in parts of North Dakota that have been glaciated. Early settlers used the stones for the foundations of their homes and farm buildings and some people built entire structures with them. Today, field stones are used in landscaping, as rip rap along the faces of dams and shorelines, or as decorations […]

Late in the Cretaceous, beginning about 70 million years ago, and continuing through the Paleocene, until about 56 million years ago, western North Dakota’s climate was subtropical. Trees up to 12 feet in diameter and more than 100 feet tall grew in a setting similar to today’s Dismal Swamp in Virginia, or the Florida Everglades, […]

Eskers and kames are among the best-known of the various features formed by glaciers and by the running water associated with melting glaciers. Eskers come in all sizes: ridges snaking across the countryside ranging from a few hundred feet to several miles long, and up to 50 or 100 feet high. Kames may be cone […]

As you travel through western North Dakota, notice the multicolored layers and brick- or glass-like masses of baked and fused clay, shale, and sandstone. These baked materials, known as clinker, but often referred to locally as “scoria,” formed in areas where seams of lignite coal burned, baking the nearby sediments to a natural brick. Clinker […]

If asked what he or she knows about North Dakota’s geology, an average resident will likely mention the badlands first. That’s true too of visitors, many of whom come to the state to see our best-known natural feature, the scenic badlands along the Little Missouri River. The badlands landscape is a rugged and hilly one, […]

Rain and melting snow, wind, frost, and other forces of erosion have carved our badlands into intricate shapes. Since the Little Missouri River began to form the badlands, it has removed an enormous amount of sediment from the area. In the southern part of the badlands, near the river’s headwaters and close to Devils Tower […]

Agreement on the origin of the name of the “Missouri” River is difficult because too many contradictory explanations exist. The name apparently comes from a Siouan Indian word, “ouemessourita” or “emissourita,” translated by early French explorers as “those who have wooden dugout canoes,” or “river of the large canoes,” or “town of the large canoes,” […]

Glaciers in North Dakota: Part One   Glaciers are giant bodies of ice, formed from snow that survives from year to year. Accumulations of snowfall from past years compact into a substance called firn, a recrystallized residue of snow left over from past seasons. During the summers, when temperatures are warm enough for rain instead […]

Every summer, even during the coldest part of the Ice Age, some melting took place on a glacier’s surface and along its margin.  Melting occurred during each summer season – even more when the climate warmed for periods of several years at a time – 20 or 30 years – periods of time comparable to […]

Geologists tend to concoct unusual names for the things they study. “Dead-ice moraine” may sound odd to some of you. It’s a name for a kind of landform found in parts of North Dakota. Dead-ice moraine sounds odd enough, but can you believe it is found along with things called “doughnuts” and “puckered lips”? First […]

Governor William L. Guy’s secretary thought she felt a sonic boom on Monday, July 8, 1968. The State Capitol Building shook a bit, but most people did not feel the shaking or, if they did, they did not recognize it for what it was, a 4.4-magnitude earthquake. The earthquake was centered just southwest of Huff […]

  Several years ago, billboards were posted around North Dakota in an effort to entertain and catch motorists’ attention. One of them, outside of Mandan, read “North Dakota Mountain Removal Project Completed.” The billboard referred to the image many people have of North Dakota as a flat and featureless land, but the sign ignored the […]

            The origin of the name “Turtle Mountain” has never been definitely explained. Between 1810 and 1870, Métis hunters from the Red River area followed trails north and south of the feature, to reach the buffalo herds. When viewed from the south, the upland appeared to the Métis as a turtle on the horizon with […]