An active pipestone quarry pit. NPS
Pipestone National Monument lies just north of the city of Pipestone, in Pipestone County, southwestern Minnesota. Established on August 25, 1937, it covers about 114 hectares (282 acres) and protects pipestone (catlinite) quarries that Native American peoples have worked from prehistoric times to the present.
A sacred stone
Quarrying at the monument is reserved for Native Americans. The brick-red stone is prized for being soft yet durable; it is carved into objects such as pipes used in sacred ceremonies, and it was a popular trade item among the tribes of the Great Plains and beyond. The quarries remain part of a spiritual landscape and a place of pilgrimage for many Native Americans, and tribal members still gather and carve pipestone here for ceremony.
The monument is listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its cultural significance, its extensive archeological resources, and the Three Maidens petroglyphs in its southern part.
Two very different ages of rock
| Sioux Quartzite | Surficial deposits | |
|---|---|---|
| Age | Paleoproterozoic: laid down about 1.76 to 1.60 billion years ago | Quaternary |
| Origin | sediment deposited by rivers, later metamorphosed during the Mazatzal Orogeny | glacial till, loess, calcareous sand and gravel, and narrow strips of stream alluvium along Pipestone Creek |
| Character | a thick unit, mostly quartzite | a loose veneer covering most of the bedrock |
The catlinite occurs within the quartzite as discontinuous layers and lenses up to 1 meter (3 feet) thick. These deep-red to pale-orange beds are claystone: accumulations of very fine silt and clay with little or no quartz.
Pipestone belongs to the Central Lowland Physiographic Province, sharing its geologic history and some of its formations with a region reaching far beyond the monument.
Geologic map of the monument, from the Geologic Resources Inventory. NPS
Maps, reports and soils
The NPS Geologic Resources Inventory produces digital geologic maps and reports for more than 270 natural resource parks: scoping summaries, GIS maps, reports on each park's geology and its management, and posters. Pipestone's products are listed in the NPS DataStore. A Soil Resources Inventory for the monument has also been completed.
More: the park's pages on its geologic formations and glaciers and glacial features; the NPS Geodiversity Atlas; and the Minnesota Geological Survey.
Sources
Based on "NPS Geodiversity Atlas — Pipestone National Monument, Minnesota," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The Park Service cites Jirsa and others (2015), Morey (1983) and Graham (2017).
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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