Shiloh National Military Park: Geologic resources inventory report
Thornberry-Ehrlich TL. 2018. Shiloh National Military Park: Geologic resources inventory report. Natural Resource Report. NPS/NRSS/GRD/NRR—2018/1778. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
This report synthesizes discussions from a scoping meeting held in 2009 and a follow-up conference call in 2017 (see Appendix A). Chapters of this report discuss the geologic setting and history leading to the present-day landscape, distinctive geologic features and processes within Shiloh National Military Park, highlight geologic issues facing resource managers, and provide information about the previously completed GRI map data. A poster (in pocket) illustrates these data. The steep bluffs overlooking the Tennessee River and fronting the rolling upland of “Shiloh Hill” set the stage for one of the bloodiest and most influential conflicts of the American Civil War. The battle of Shiloh was critical in deciding the eventual control of the Mississippi River valley during the war. Geologic features and processes created a landscape of battle-relevant sites such as the roads and railroads atop well-drained fluvial deposits, Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River, Dill Branch and many other strategic ravines, as well as Bloody Pond and other wetlands. The Tennessee River bluffs also supported prehistoric American Indian societies and are a well-preserved Mississippian archeological site. Shiloh National Military Park commemorates a great sacrifice on both sides of the Civil War conflict by preserving Shiloh’s battle-era appearance with agricultural fields, forests, and road traces, as well as memorials put in place as early as 1893. More than 66 million years of Earth’s history is recorded in the geologic units underlying Shiloh Battlefield. The oldest are the marine sands and clays of the Cretaceous Eutaw Formation (geologic map unit Ke), deposited along the margin of the uplands present in western Tennessee during a time of rising global sea level. Following a period of erosion, sea level rose again and the fine-grained sands and clays of the Coffee Formation (Kc) were deposited in nearshore and lagoonal environments atop the Eutaw Formation. Sea level fluctuations continued into the Cenozoic Era. Precursors of modern rivers deposited coarse gravels, sands, and silts (QTf). Modern rivers and streams cut down through the sedimentary layers, depositing and constantly reworking the youngest geologic map unit, alluvium (Qal). This report is supported by a GRI-compiled map of the geology of Shiloh National Military Park; the present map data cover only the battlefield unit (including Shiloh Battlefield, Shiloh National Cemetery, and Shiloh Indian Mounds), not the Davis Bridge site, or siege site in Corinth, Mississippi, or the Fallen Timbers area (soon to be part of the legislated park). The GRI map was compiled from a series of four geologic and mineral resources maps produced by E. E. Russell of the Tennessee Division of Geology in the 1960s at 1:24,000 scale. The spatial distributions and unit descriptions of the map units informed a table of geologic features, processes, and associated resource management issues in Shiloh National Military Park in the context of relevant geologic map units that occur within park boundaries.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Thornberry-Ehrlich, Trista
- Date of Issue
- 2018-10
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- CUPN , GRD , GRI , NRSS , SHIL
- Keywords
- Abandoned mineral lands and disturbed lands, and protection, and wetlands, Bedrock exposures and ancient sedimentary features, Erosion, External development, Flooding and climate change, Fluvial (river) features, Geologic Features, Geologic History, Geologic Processes, Geologic Resource Management Issues, Geologic Resources Division, Geologic Resources Inventory, GRD, GRI, inventory, Map Unit Properties Table, Map Units, monitoring, National Park Service, NPS, Paleontological resources (fossils), ponds, Resource Management, Seeps, Seismicity, SHIL, Shiloh National Military Park, Slope movements, springs, Tennessee
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Geology and Soils | Geomorphology | Hillslope Features and Processes , Ecological Framework: Geology and Soils | Geomorphology | Stream/River Channel Characteristics , Ecological Framework: Geology and Soils | Subsurface Geologic Processes | Seismic Activity , Ecological Framework: Geology and Soils | Paleontology | Paleontology