| Alexander
Ramsey Park in Redwood Falls is the largest municipal park in
Minnesota.
It follows the Redwood river where it joins Ramsey Creek just before
the
Redwood River empties into the Minnesota River.
The photo at the right is from an overlook near one of the entrances to the park. This area of Minnesota is supposed to have kaolinite, a clay important in the making of porcelain. I was not able to see a close up sample of this formation but I think it is too coarse to be clay. I wanted to collect a sample of kaolinite but was not able to find any here. |
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| This is a road cut
in the park.
The rock between the lines is what I interpreted to be well weathered phyllite,
a bed about 6 feet thick. Notice that the bed has been tipped to
about a 40 degree angle. I was not able to find records of
earthquakes
or fault lines in this area but with the Morton Gneiss just a few miles
away faulting activity must have been present here.
Legends say that the word redwood is in reference to the native American tribes of the Dakota and Chippewa. The Dakotas painted some trees red to signify to the Chippewa that their blood would flow as the red paint on the trees if they continued to hunt in the area. |
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The photo at the left is of the Ramsey Falls near the center of the park. The sign at the overlook says that the park overlies decomposed granite that is the oldest rock in the world at about 1.2 billion years. We know that the oldest rock is closer to 3.8 billion years old and that the bedrock at Morton is about 3.6 billion years old so this sign could use some updating. |
