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RM: Here's another plant, now, that's been roughed up by the high water. Old
Black Gum tree, again, still surviving. (JW: The power of...) In rough shape. nature.)
Mmmhmm. Look up here.
JW: Beautiful pink!
RM: Isn't that nice? And right by this same raging river, Pinkster Flower or Wild Azalea,
people even call that bush Honeysuckle because the flower does resemble a Honeysuckle flower,
but that really is one of the, uh, one of the Wild Azaleas.
JW: A rose by any other name.
RM: Gosh, that's nice. Well that is beautiful, isn't it? Isn't that fantastic? Now, I see
something else
down here that's interesting, too, just a couple of rocks. We've been talking about
rocks for a
while - two rocks with fossils in them.
JW: The darker rock looks like it has a piece of shell in it.
RM: Yeah, I believe that's probably uh, a, fossil of a Horned Coral, Jim, one of the
solitary corals.
Right here really does stick out, basically it's the same, uh, material that the coral
had it's home
made out of way, way back in time. That's limestoney rock which speaks of an ocean here
far
back in time. And then the other, really, is, uh, leftovers of fossilized wood. I don't
know whether
you can see this from you angle, but you, it looks almost like a piece of wood was right
in here, left
it's impression on the rock as it formed. And a little bit of dark material on the end
which is actually
that wood that's carbonized, so that is a fossil - at least an impression of where wood
used to be,
probably forming in a delta-like situation. And look at all of the reddish-orange, almost
a yellowish
color on that rock which tells us there was also iron dumped on that delta.
JW: How many millions of years ago do these rocks tell us the valley was being formed?
RM: Well probably around 400 million years ago is when the rocks were here. The valley
didn't
start, you remember, until about 300 or so million years ago when the plateau came up.
And then
that river, again, has carved through it since then and exposed fossils and other things
to our
eyes. Isn't that neat the way the past and the present are so close together here - very
interesting.
JW: It's a beautiful, natural setting.
RM: Yeah. And look at that woodpile, so to speak, that the river has jammed up there
as it runs on
down. Let's see if we can work our way to the mouth of this canyon.
RM: These rocks have been rounded by that river out there and deposited here. A few
plants
struggling to get a hold - I imagine it's a pretty rough place to get a start. But the
river isn't quite as
steep here as it was, uh, upstream, gradient is not as great. Nice little waterfall up
there, though.
And how about the canyon walls?
JW: Not as steep right here.
RM: Naw, not as much. It's really-really beginning to open up a great deal more.
JW: Little River Canyon is an amazing place.
RM: Well it is, and when you think of a river flowing on the top of a mountain and cutting
a steep
canyon, and then you add the interesting plants and animals, that combination makes it very
special.
JW: It's at DeSoto State Park on Lookout Mountain near Fort Payne, Alabama. A good place to
visit. Thanks for being with us, and join us again on the next NatureScene.