On our way back to Missouri, we decided to visit the Cretaceous chalk formations in the Smoky Hill River Valley, south of Oakley, Kansas. The best exposures are at Little Jerusalem State Park, west of Route 83, and at Monument Rocks (photo), east of that highway.
Deposited within a broad seaway that stretched across the American West during the Cretaceous Period (about 80 million years ago), the rocks have been uncovered and sculpted by the river and its tributaries. Access to the above areas is via dirt/gravel roads that cross a High Plains landscape of cattle ranches and oil fields.
Wildlife sightings included pronghorns, sharp-tailed grouse, lesser prairie chickens, ring-necked pheasants, rough-legged hawks, prairie falcons and a host of grassland songbirds. Bugling flocks of lesser sandhill cranes were a special highlight, on their way to their spring staging area on the Platte River in south-central Nebraska.
