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miles from their origin. When the gla-
ciers melted, this
sediment
was
deposited, creating the rich soils that
make this area so good for farming.
The Flint Hills area in the east-cen-
tral part of the state is characterized
by sloping hills and rolling grasslands.
It is prime pastureland for cattle. The
area gets its name from the flint
deposits in the limestone underlying
the hills. These deposits made the soil
too rocky to be plowed up and con-
verted to farmland, as was done in
Illinois and other prairie states. As a
result, Flint Hills has the nation’s
largest remaining tallgrass prairie pre-
serve. At one time, the United States
had some 142 million acres (57.5 mil-
lion hectares) of tallgrass prairie. Now
less than 5 percent of that remains,
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Lower Plains: Kansas, Nebraska
The chalk (soft limestone) deposits that form Monument Rocks were created 80 million years ago,
when this region was part of a vast inland sea. Today abundant fossilized remains of shells and
ancient sea creatures can be found here.