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Lower Plains: Kansas, Nebraska

A farm’s windpump on the Kansas prairie. Since the 19th century, windpumps have been used on the Great Plains to pump water from farm wells for cattle.

were created some 80 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, when most of Kansas was covered by a shallow inland sea. Scientists have dis- covered extensive fossil deposits in the chalk beds, including the remains of extinct species of fish, flying rep- tiles, and prehistoric birds. Most of eastern Kansas lies in the fertile Central Lowlands. Some 600,000 years ago, glaciers covered this part of the state. Massive sheets of ice, some as thick as 500 feet (152 m), moved across the landscape from the north. In the process, rocks and soil were transported hundreds of

expanse of open, windswept prairieland, this is Kansas’s driest and flattest region. The High Plains were once carpeted with a lush lawn of short green grass. Millions of buffalo (bison) grazed here in great herds. When white settlers moved in, much of the prairie was plowed up and the buffalo were killed off. Today, cattle graze in their place. The Smoky Hills region in north- central Kansas is home to the Monument Rocks, also called the Chalk Pyramids. These are a group of striking chalk formations, sometimes as tall as 70 feet (21 m) high. They