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121-702: In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states, from north to south, of North Dakota , South Dakota , Nebraska , Kansas , and Oklahoma , and sizable parts of the states of Montana , Wyoming , Colorado , New Mexico , Texas in the west, and to the east, Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Missouri , Illinois , and Indiana . The Palouse of Washington and the Central Valley of California are also prairies. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba , Saskatchewan , and Alberta . Prairies may contain various lush flora and fauna , often contain rich soil maintained by biodiversity , with

242-566: A temperate climate and a varied view. According to Theodore Roosevelt : We have taken into our language the word prairie , because when our backwoodsmen first reached the land [in the Midwest ] and saw the great natural meadows of long grass—sights unknown to the gloomy forests wherein they had always dwelt—they knew not what to call them, and borrowed the term already in use among the French inhabitants. Prairie ( pronounced [pʁɛʁi] )

363-463: A 12-hour period, from a low of -33 °F to a high of 50 °F. Another weather record set in Langdon in the winter of 1935–36, with the temperature staying below 0 °F (−17.8 °C) for 41 consecutive days, January 11 though February 20. This is a record for any location in the contiguous U.S.). At the 2023 estimate North Dakota's population was 783,926 on July 1, 2023, a 0.62% increase since

484-522: A bank or mortgage company. Furthermore, the Bank of North Dakota, having powers similar to a Federal Reserve branch bank, exercised its power to limit the issuance of subprime mortgages and their collateralization in the form of derivative instruments, and so prevented a collapse of housing prices within the state in the wake of 2008's financial crisis. The original North Dakota State Capitol in Bismarck burned to

605-407: A cliff (called a buffalo jump ), to kill or injure the bison en masse . The introduction of the horse and the gun greatly expanded the killing power of the plains Natives. That was followed by the policy of indiscriminate killing by European Americans and Canadians for both commercial reasons and to weaken the independence of plains Natives, and caused a dramatic drop in bison numbers from millions to

726-402: A few hundred in a century's time, and almost caused their extinction. The very dense soil plagued the first European settlers who were using wooden plows , which were more suitable for loose forest soil. On the prairie, the plows bounced around, and the soil stuck to them. This problem was solved in 1837 by an Illinois blacksmith named John Deere who developed a steel moldboard plow that

847-550: A few millimeters in length. He also documented 22 species of snails in the state. North Dakota has a continental climate with warm summers and cold winters. The temperature differences are significant because of its far inland position and being roughly equal distance from the North Pole and the Equator. °F (°C) °F (°C) On February 21, 1918, Granville, North Dakota experienced a record-breaking 83 °F temperature increase over

968-420: A gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a brushfire or wildfire . A firebreak may occur naturally in areas without vegetation or other fuel, such as a river , lake or canyon around their settlements. These fuel breaks would also entice large herbivores to patches of fresh new growth. European explorers, trappers, and fur traders began to settle

1089-817: A grassland and cast shade, which suppresses the understory . Prairie and widely spaced oak trees evolved to coexist in the oak savanna ecosystem. Prairie ecosystems in the United States and Canada are divided into the easternmost tallgrass prairie , the westernmost shortgrass prairie , and the central mixed-grass prairie. Tallgrass prairies receive over 30 inches of rainfall per year, whereas shortgrass prairies are much more arid, receiving only 12 inches or so, and mixed-grass prairies receive intermediate rainfall. Wet, mesic, and dry prairie ecosystems can also form more locally due to soil and terrain characteristics. Wet prairies may form in low-lying areas with poor drainage; dry prairie can be found on uplands or slopes. Dry prairie

1210-403: A higher overall number . Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one Hispanic group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race. Throughout the mid-19th century, Dakota Territory was still dominated by Native Americans; warfare and disease reduced their population at the same time Europeans and Americans were settling in the area. Throughout

1331-598: A large channel in which the Minnesota River evident today. The Red River of the North flows northward through a plain formerly covered by Lake Agassiz. Certain extraordinary features were produced when the retreat of the ice sheet had progressed so far as to open an eastward outlet for the marginal lakes. This outlet occurred along the depression between the northward slope of the Appalachian plateau in west-central New York and

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1452-688: A lot of artists and photographers to this area in seek of fame and economic opportunities. The shortgrass prairie is located on the western side of the Great Plains with the Colorado Rockies to its West and the mixed grass prairie to its East. The prairie extends to the eastern part of the Rocky Mountains to the West, up to Canada to the North, as far as Nebraska to the East, and as far as parts of Texas to

1573-651: A number of Indians entered into treaties with the United States. Many of the treaties defined the territory of a specific tribe. The first European to reach the area was the French-Canadian trader Pierre Gaultier, sieur de La Vérendrye , who led an exploration and trading party to the Mandan villages in 1738 guided by Assiniboine Indians. From 1762 to 1802, the region formed part of Spanish Louisiana . European Americans settled in Dakota Territory only sparsely until

1694-610: A populist political movement centered in the Non Partisan League ("NPL") around the time of World War I . The NPL ran candidates on the Republican ticket (but merged into the Democratic Party after World War II ). It tried to insulate North Dakota from the power of out-of-state banks and corporations. In addition to founding the state-owned Bank of North Dakota and North Dakota Mill and Elevator (both still in existence),

1815-408: A range that historically spanned 11 states but now live in 1 percent of their former range. The decrease has been driven by poisoning campaigns, habitat disruption, and hunting. The decline in prairie dogs has significantly impacted many of the other animals that reside in the shortgrass prairie, including the black-footed ferret , whose diet relies on prairie dogs. Other animals negatively affected by

1936-505: A rich growth of natural grass and annual flowering plants, but today, they are covered with farms. North Dakota North Dakota ( / d ə ˈ k oʊ t ə / də- KOH -tə ) is a landlocked U.S. state in the Upper Midwest , named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux . It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by

2057-665: A substantial portion of global energy needs, and leave fertile land for food production." Unlike corn and soybeans, which are both directly and indirectly major food crops, including livestock feed, prairie grasses are not used for human consumption. Prairie grasses can be grown in infertile soil, eliminating the cost of adding nutrients to the soil. Tilman and his colleagues estimate that prairie grass biofuels would yield 51 percent more energy per acre than ethanol from corn grown on fertile land. Some plants commonly used are lupine, big bluestem (turkey foot), blazing star, switchgrass , and prairie clover . Because rich and thick topsoil made

2178-529: Is Bismarck while the most populous city is Fargo , which accounts for nearly a fifth of the state's population; both cities are among the fastest-growing in the U.S., although half of all residents live in rural areas. What is now North Dakota was inhabited for thousands of years by various Native American tribes, including the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara along the Missouri River ; the Ojibwe and Cree in

2299-415: Is galleta grass ( Hilaria ). These grasses are native to the shortgrass prairie and therefore are drought and grazing resistant. Not many plant varieties appear in the shortgrass prairie because of its extreme changes in annual precipitation and temperature from one year to the next. Two of the main plants that are able to thrive are soap weed yucca ( Yucca glauca ) and plains prickly pear ( Opuntia ). In

2420-520: Is a garden consisting primarily of plants from a prairie. The originally treeless prairies of the upper Mississippi basin began in Indiana and extended westward and north-westward until they merged with the drier region known as the Great Plains . An eastward extension of the same area, originally tree-covered, extended to central Ohio . Thus, the prairies generally lie between the Ohio and Missouri rivers on

2541-566: Is a nonprofit organization in Montana that seeks to build a nature reserve called the American Prairie through land acquisition and public land integration. There are two significant population trends currently impacting the shortgrass prairie region. Firstly, the population of rural areas in the region is decreasing, with many of those people moving westward. Additionally, more people are moving to metropolitan areas , with about three quarters of

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2662-427: Is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America . The two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama ( Bouteloua gracilis ) and buffalograss ( Bouteloua dactyloides ), the two less dominant grasses in the prairie are greasegrass ( Tridens flavus ) and sideoats grama ( Bouteloua curtipendula ). The prairie was formerly maintained by grazing pressure of American bison , which

2783-460: Is estimated at over 6,000, and in southern Wisconsin, where it is placed at 5,000. They completely dominate the topography of their districts. A curious deposit of an impalpably fine and unstratified silt, known by the German name bess (or loess ), lies on the older drift sheets near the larger river courses of the upper Mississippi basin. It attains a thickness of 20 ft (6.1 m) or more near

2904-463: Is evidenced by the angularity of its grains (a bank of it will stand without slumping for years), whereas, if it had been transported significantly by water, the grains would have been rounded and polished. Loess is parent material for an extremely fertile, but droughty soil. Southwestern Wisconsin and parts of the adjacent states of Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota are known as the driftless zone , because, although bordered by drift sheets and moraines, it

3025-400: Is free from glacial deposits. It must therefore have been a sort of oasis, when the ice sheets from the north advanced past it on the east and west, and joined around its southern border. The reason for this exemption from glaciation is the converse of that for the southward convexity of the morainic loops. While they mark the paths of greatest glacial advance along lowland troughs (lake basins),

3146-460: Is home to three freshwater shrimp species, gammarus, hyalella and mysis. The latter is an introduced species stocked in Lake Sakakawea in the early 1970s to add to the forage base. Cvancara's Aquatic Mussels of North Dakota from 1983. He documented 13 species of what are generally referred to as clams in the state along with 13 species of pill clams, which are very small clams, in the order of

3267-596: Is in cemetery prairies , railroad rights-of-way, or rocky/sandy/hilly places unsuitable for agriculture. States formerly with landcover in native tallgrass prairie including Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Missouri have become valued for their highly productive soils and are included in the Corn Belt . As an example of this land use intensity, Illinois and Iowa rank 49th and 50th, out of 50 US states, in total uncultivated land remaining. Drier shortgrass prairies were once used mostly for open-range ranching. With

3388-587: Is land, North Dakota is the 19th largest state. The western half of the state consists of the hilly Great Plains as well as the northern part of the Badlands , which are to the west of the Missouri River . The state's high point, White Butte at 3,506 feet (1,069 m), and Theodore Roosevelt National Park are in the Badlands. The region is abundant in fossil fuels including natural gas , crude oil and lignite coal. The Missouri River forms Lake Sakakawea ,

3509-414: Is not known if that is because of inherent differences in the species or because farmed cattle tend to be confined in smaller areas. Bison dung is a vital source of nutrients for prairie soil, spreads seeds, and supports over 1,000 insect species, including specialist dung beetles which cannot subsist on the feces of any other animal. In spite of long recurrent droughts and occasional torrential rains ,

3630-430: Is now buried under the drift. The most significant area of the prairies, from Indiana to North Dakota , consists of till plains, that is, sheets of unstratified drift. The plains are 30, 50 or even 100 ft (up to 30 m) thick covering the underlying rock surface for thousands of square miles except where postglacial stream erosion has locally laid it bare. The plains have an extraordinarily even surface. The till

3751-519: Is presumably made in part of preglacial soils, but it is largely composed of rock waste mechanically transported by the creeping ice sheets. Although the crystalline rocks from Canada and some of the more resistant stratified rocks south of the Great Lakes occur as boulders and stones, a great part of the till has been crushed and ground to a clayey texture. The till plains, although sweeping in broad swells of slowly changing altitude, often appear level to

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3872-461: Is significantly colder on average then the temperature in the South. Also, there is more precipitation to the south, and more precipitation to the East. The shortgrass prairie has a one to two month summer drought unlike the tall and mixed grass prairies. It also the driest of the three prairie types. This region has hailstorms , blizzards , tornadoes , and dust storms . The shortgrass prairie

3993-400: Is similar to the Appalachian piedmont which though not exhausted by the primeval forest cover, are by no means so rich as the till sheets of the prairies. Moreover, whatever the rocky understructure, the till soil has been averaged by a thorough mechanical mixture of rock grindings. Hence, the prairies are continuously fertile for scores of miles together. The true prairies were once covered with

4114-713: Is the French word for "meadow", formed ultimately from the Latin root word pratum (which has the same meaning). The formation of the North American Prairies started with the uplift of the Rocky Mountains near Alberta . The mountains created a rain shadow which resulted in lower precipitation rates downwind. The parent material of most prairie soil was distributed during the last glacial advance that began about 110,000 years ago. The glaciers expanding southward scraped

4235-494: Is the keystone species . Due to its semiarid climate , the shortgrass prairie receives on average less precipitation than that of the tall and mixed grass prairies to the east. The prairie includes lands to the west as far as the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and extends east as far as Nebraska and north into Saskatchewan . The prairie stretches through parts of Alberta , Wyoming , Montana , North Dakota , South Dakota , and Kansas , and passes south through

4356-811: Is the dominant habitat type in the Southern Canadian agricultural and climatic region which is known as Palliser's Triangle . It was once thought to be completely unarable, but is now one of the most important agricultural regions in Canada thanks to advances in irrigation technology. The dominant plant life in prairies consists of grasses , which may include 40 to 60 different grass species. In addition to grasses, prairies can include over 300 species of flowering plants. The Konza Tallgrass Prairie in Kansas hosts 250 species of native plants and provides habitat for 208 birds, 27 mammals, 25 reptiles, and over 3,000 insects. Some of

4477-405: The 2020 United States census . North Dakota is the fourth least-populous state in the country; only Alaska , Vermont , and Wyoming have fewer residents. From fewer than 2,000 people in 1870, North Dakota's population grew to near 680,000 by 1930. Growth then slowed, and the population fluctuated slightly over the next seven decades, hitting a low of 617,761 in the 1970 census, with 642,200 in

4598-454: The Bakken formation in the northwest has played a major role in the state's prosperity. Such development has led to population growth (along with high birth rates) and reduced unemployment. It ranks relatively well in metrics such as infrastructure, quality of life , economic opportunity, and public safety. It is believed to host the geographic center of North America, Rugby , and is home to what

4719-564: The Enabling Act of 1889 , on February 22, 1889, during the administration of President Grover Cleveland . His successor, Benjamin Harrison , signed the proclamations formally admitting North Dakota and South Dakota to the Union on November 2, 1889. There was a rivalry between the two new states that which one would be admitted first. So Harrison directed Secretary of State James G. Blaine to shuffle

4840-597: The Great Plains ecoregion. The Dust Bowl was a major reason for the Great Depression . Nomadic hunting has been the main human activity on the prairies for the majority of the archaeological record. This once included many now-extinct species of megafauna . After the other extinctions, the main hunted animal on the prairies was the plains bison . Using loud noises and waving large signals, Native peoples would drive bison into fenced pens called buffalo pounds to be killed with bows and arrows or spears, or drive them off

4961-570: The Homestead Act of 1862 precipitating significant population growth and development. The traditional fur trade declined in favor of farming, particularly of wheat. The subsequent Dakota Boom from 1878 to 1886 saw giant farms stretched across the rolling prairies, with the territory becoming a regional economic power. The Northern Pacific and Great Northern railway companies competed for access to lucrative grain centers; farmers banded together in political and socioeconomic alliances that were core to

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5082-625: The Red River of the North with Minnesota to the east. South Dakota is to the south, Montana is to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba are to the north. North Dakota is near the middle of North America with a stone marker in Rugby, North Dakota marking the "Geographic Center of the North American Continent". With an area of 70,762 square miles (183,273 km ), 69,001 square miles (178,712 km ) of which

5203-719: The gray wolf , swift fox , caribou and grizzly bear . List of insects of North Dakota 1,126 Species known in North Dakota List of fish of North Dakota 98 Species are currently known in North Dakota List of reptiles/amphibians of North Dakota Archived March 2, 2023, at the Wayback Machine 16 Species of Reptiles and 12 Amphibians found in the state. List of crustaceans/mussels of North Dakota Three species of crawfish are found in North Dakota: Devil, Calico, and Virile North Dakota

5324-432: The high plains of Colorado , Oklahoma , Texas , and New Mexico . The shortgrass prairie has a long human history. The Kiowa , Comanche , and Arapaho peoples occupied the land and hunted bison and pronghorn . Seasonally, these tribes would stage hunts in the adjacent mountains such as the Rocky Mountains . To manage the prairie, those tribes and their predecessors likely used fire. They would create fuel breaks,

5445-796: The 2000 census. In the 21st Century North Dakota has experienced significant growth reaching a record population of 783,926 in 2023. Except for Native Americans , the North Dakota population has a lesser percentage of minorities than in the nation as a whole. As of 2011, 20.7% of North Dakota's population younger than age   1 were minorities. The center of population of North Dakota is in Wells County , near Sykeston . According to HUD 's 2023 Annual Homeless Assessment Report , there were an estimated 784 homeless people in North Dakota. Note: Births in table don't add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving

5566-857: The Missouri River in what would become west-central North Dakota. Crow Indians traveled the plains from the west to visit and trade with the related Hidatsas after the split between them, probably in the 17th century. Later came divisions of the Sioux : the Lakota , the Santee and the Yanktonai . The Assiniboine and the Plains Cree undertook southward journeys to the village Indians, either for trade or for war. The Shoshone Indians in present-day Wyoming and Montana may have carried out attacks on Indian enemies as far east as

5687-458: The Missouri. A group of Cheyennes lived in a village of earth lodges at the lower Sheyenne River ( Biesterfeldt Site ) for decades in the 18th century. Due to attacks by Crees, Assiniboines and Chippewas armed with firearms , they left the area around 1780 and crossed Missouri some time after. A band of the few Sotaio Indians lived east of Missouri River and met the uprooted Cheyennes before

5808-505: The NPL established a state-owned railroad line (later sold to the Soo Line Railroad ). Anti-corporate laws virtually prohibited a corporation or bank from owning title to land zoned as farmland. These laws, still in force today, after having been upheld by state and federal courts, make it almost impossible to foreclose on farmland, as even after foreclosure, the property title cannot be held by

5929-569: The North Dakota Bird Records Committee (NDBRC) review list with some additions from Avibase . The combined lists contain 420 species. Of them, 194 and a subspecies are on the review list (see below). The NDGFD list considers 44 species to be accidental, and eight species have been introduced to North America. List of mammals of North Dakota 87 species are known to live in the state. This includes mammals that are currently extirpated or locally extinct in North Dakota such as

6050-420: The U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south, and Montana to the west. North Dakota is part of the Great Plains region, characterized by broad prairies , steppe , temperate savanna , badlands , and farmland. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state , but with a population of less than 780,000, it is the fourth-least populous and fourth-most sparsely populated . The state capital

6171-448: The United States are used for intensive agriculture. It is estimated that about 50 percent of the shortgrass prairie is still uncultivated. The shortgrass prairie yields for a lot of crop production, and in this specific prairie wheat is the major crop grown. Other major crops grown are maize , soybeans , and cotton . The dry grasslands of the shortgrass prairie yield for extensive grazing operations. Typically cow-calf operations with

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6292-461: The area is still very prone to extended periods of drought, which can be disastrous for the industry if it is significantly prolonged. Research by David Tilman , ecologist at the University of Minnesota , suggests " Biofuels made from high-diversity mixtures of prairie plants can reduce global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Even when grown on infertile soils, they can provide

6413-455: The broader Populist Movement of the Midwest. North and South Dakota were admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, as the 39th and 40th states. President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the statehood papers before signing them so that no one could tell which became a state first; consequently, the two states are officially numbered in alphabetical order. Statehood marked the gradual winding-down of

6534-399: The decline of prairie dogs are the mountain plover , swift fox , ferruginous hawk and the burrowing owl. In Colorado , which contains a substantial portion of the shortgrass prairie biome, no legal ecosystem protection exists. More than 85% of prairie is privately owned and used for agriculture, particularly for dry land wheat , irrigated corn , soybeans and alfalfa . Roughly half of

6655-541: The development of barbed wire in the 1870s and improved irrigation techniques, this region has mostly been converted to cropland and small fenced pastures. In southern Canada, Palliser's Triangle has been changed into one of the most important sources of wheat in the world as a result of improved methods of watering wheat fields (along with the rest of the Southern prairie provinces which also grow wheat, canola and many other grains). Despite those advances in farming technology,

6776-405: The development of gold , silver , and copper mining communities. In the 1920s, El Niño played a big role in the success of crop growing in the shortgrass prairie by causing more precipitation throughout the prairie and promoting plant growth. The success encouraged farmers to buy more efficient farming equipment. With the new equipment, farmers turned up the native land, exposing the soil. By

6897-469: The diverse grasses and herbaceous plants. Prairies also depend on the presence of large grazing animals, particularly bison . Bison are important to the prairie ecosystem because they shape and alter the environment by grazing, trampling areas with their hooves, wallowing, and depositing manure. Bison eat more grass than flowering plants, increasing the diversity of plants in the prairie. Cattle are thought to prefer to eat flowering plants over grasses, but it

7018-430: The dominant grasses of prairies are Indian grass , big bluestem , side-oats grama , Canada wildrye , and switchgrass . Prairies are considered to be fire-dependent ecosystems . Regular controlled burning by Native Americans, practices developed through observation of non-anthropogenic fire and its effects, maintained the biodiversity of the prairie, clearing away dead vegetation and preventing trees from shading out

7139-563: The drift on the under rock. Further south, as far as the entrance of the Ohio River, the Mississippi follows a rock-walled valley 300 to 400 ft (91 to 122 m) deep, with a flood-plain 2 to 4 mi (3.2 to 6.4 km) wide. This valley seems to represent the path of an enlarged early-glacial Mississippi, when much precipitation that is today discharged to Hudson Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence

7260-452: The driftless zone is a district protected from ice invasion by reason of the obstruction which the highlands of northern Wisconsin and Michigan (part of the Superior upland) offered to glacial advance. The course of the upper Mississippi River is largely consequent upon glacial deposits. Its sources are in the morainic lakes in northern Minnesota. The drift deposits thereabouts are so heavy that

7381-508: The eastern tallgrass prairies were plowed and turned into agricultural lands, the prairie grasses with their strong root systems were destroyed. In combination with severe droughts that resulted in the Dust Bowl , a major ecological disaster in which winds picked up the dry, unprotected prairie soil and formed it into "black blizzards" of airborne dirt that blackened the skies for days at a time across 19 states and forced 400,000 people to abandon

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7502-653: The end of the century. They soon followed the Cheyennes across Missouri and lived among them south of Cannonball River . Eventually, the Cheyenne and the Sutaio became one tribe and turned into mounted buffalo hunters with ranges mainly outside North Dakota. Before the middle of the 19th century, the Arikara entered the future state from the south and joined the Mandan and Hidatsa. With time,

7623-670: The escarpment to the lower, Lake Ontario . That gave rise to Niagara Falls . Lake Ontario's outlet for a time ran down the Mohawk Valley to the Hudson River. At the higher elevation, it was known as Lake Iroquois . When ice melted from the northeastern end of the lake, it dropped to a lower level, and drained through the St. Lawrence area creating a lower base level for the Niagara River and increasing its erosive capacity. In certain districts,

7744-507: The establishment of the diversity of graminoid and forbs species. Fire has the effect on prairies of removing trees , clearing dead plant matter, and changing the availability of certain nutrients in the soil from the ash produced. Fire kills the vascular tissue of trees, but not prairie species, as up to 75% (depending on the species) of the total plant biomass is below the soil surface and will re-grow from its deep (upwards of 20 feet) roots . Without disturbance , trees will encroach on

7865-457: The expansive, diverse grasslands before European colonization of the Americas . For 10,000-20,000 years, native people used fire annually as a tool to assist in hunting, transportation, and safety. Evidence of ignition sources of fire in the tall grass prairie are overwhelmingly human as opposed to lightning. Humans, and grazing animals, were active participants in the process of prairie formation and

7986-435: The eye with a view stretching to the horizon. Here and there, faint depressions occur, occupied by marshy sloughs or floored with a rich black soil of postglacial origin. Thus, by sub-glacial aggradation, the prairies have been leveled up to a smooth surface, in contrast to the higher and non-glaciated hilly country just to the south. The great ice sheets formed terminal moraines around their border at various stages. However,

8107-474: The father of waters, like so many other rivers in the Northern states, owes many of its features more or less directly to glacial action. The fertility of the prairies is a natural consequence of their origin. During the mechanical transportation of the till, no vegetation was present to remove the minerals essential to plant growth, as is the case in the soils of normally weathered and dissected peneplains. The soil

8228-459: The grasslands of the Great Plains were not subject to great soil erosion . The root systems of native prairie grasses firmly held the soil in place to prevent run-off of soil. When the plant died, the fungi and bacteria returned its nutrients to the soil. These deep roots also helped native prairie plants reach water in even the driest conditions. Native grasses suffer much less damage from dry conditions than many farm crops currently grown. When

8349-596: The ground on December 28, 1930. It was replaced by a limestone -faced art-deco skyscraper that still stands today. A round of federal investment and construction projects began in the 1950s, including the Garrison Dam and the Minot and Grand Forks Air Force bases. Western North Dakota saw a boom in oil exploration in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as rising petroleum prices made development profitable. This boom came to an end after petroleum prices declined. In 2010,

8470-417: The head of the gorges are now occupied by little lakes. The most significant stage in this series of changes occurred when the glacio-marginal lake waters were lowered so that the long escarpment of Niagara limestone was laid bare in western New York. The previously confluent waters were then divided into two lakes. The higher one, Lake Erie , supplied the outflowing Niagara River , which poured its waters down

8591-607: The hills around Devils Lake, in the dunes area of McHenry County in central North Dakota, and along the Sheyenne Valley slopes and the Sheyenne delta. This diverse terrain supports nearly 2,000 species of plants. Soil is North Dakota's most precious resource. It is the base of the state's great agricultural wealth. North Dakota also has enormous mineral resources. These mineral resources include billions of tons of lignite coal. In addition, North Dakota has large oil reserves. Petroleum

8712-416: The ice of the last glacial epoch had retreated so far that its front border lay on a northward slope, belonging to the drainage area of the Great Lakes, bodies of water accumulated in front of the ice margin, forming glacio-marginal lakes. The lakes were small at first, and each had its own outlet at the lowest depression of land to the south. As the ice melted further back, neighboring lakes became confluent at

8833-483: The ice sheets advanced in lobes along the lowlands of the Great Lakes . Neighboring morainic loops join each other in re-entrants (north-pointing cusps), where two adjacent glacial lobes came together and formed their moraines in largest volume. The moraines are of too small relief to be shown on any maps except of the largest scale. Small as they are, they are the chief relief of the prairie states, and, in association with

8954-471: The ice sheets extended to the land sloping southward to the Ohio River , Mississippi River and Missouri River , the drift-laden streams flowed freely away from the ice border. As the streams escaped from their subglacial channels, they spread into broader channels and deposited some of their load, and thus aggraded their courses. Local sheets or aprons of gravel and sand are spread more or less abundantly along

9075-473: The increase. North Dakota is located in the Upper Midwest region of the United States. It lies at the center of the North American continent and borders Canada to the north. The geographic center of North America is near the town of Rugby . Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, and Fargo is the most populous city. North Dakota is in the U.S. region known as the Great Plains . The state shares

9196-515: The land well suited for agricultural use, only 1% of tallgrass prairie remains in the U.S. today. Shortgrass prairie is more abundant. Significant preserved areas of prairie include: Virgin prairie refers to prairie land which has never been plowed. Small virgin prairies exist in the American Midwestern states and in Canada. Restored prairie refers to a prairie that has been reseeded after plowing or other disturbance. A prairie garden

9317-434: The landscape, picking up geologic material and leveling the terrain. As the glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago, they deposited this material in the form of till . Wind-based loess deposits also form an important parent material for prairie soils. Tallgrass prairie evolved over tens of thousands of years with the disturbances of grazing and fire. Native ungulates such as bison , elk , and white-tailed deer roamed

9438-514: The largest natural lake in the state, is also found in the east. Most of the state is covered in grassland ; crops cover most of eastern North Dakota but become increasingly sparse in the center and farther west. Natural trees in North Dakota are found usually where there is good drainage, such as the ravines and valley near the Pembina Gorge and Killdeer Mountains , the Turtle Mountains ,

9559-459: The late 19th century, when railroads opened up the region. With the advantage of grants of land, they vigorously marketed their properties, extolling the region as ideal for agriculture. Differences between the northern and southern part caused resentments between the settlers. The northern part was seen by the more populated southern part as somewhat disreputable, "too much controlled by the wild folks, cattle ranchers, fur traders" and too frequently

9680-522: The latter half of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, North Dakota, along with most of the Midwest U.S., experienced a mass influx of newcomers from both the eastern United States and immigrants from Europe. North Dakota was a known popular destination for immigrant farmers and general laborers and their families, mostly from Norway , Iceland , Sweden , Germany and the United Kingdom . Much of this settlement gravitated throughout

9801-446: The level of the lowest outlet of the group. The outflowing streams grew in the same proportion and eroded a broad channel across the height of land and far down stream, while the lake waters built sand reefs or carved shore cliffs along their margin, and laid down sheets of clay on their floors. All of these features are easily recognized in the prairie region. The present site of Chicago was determined by an Indian portage or carry across

9922-500: The low divide between Lake Michigan and the headwaters of the Illinois River . This divide lies on the floor of the former outlet channel of the glacial Lake Michigan. Corresponding outlets are known for Lake Erie , Lake Huron , and Lake Superior . A very large sheet of water, named Lake Agassiz , once overspread a broad till plain in northern Minnesota and North Dakota. The outlet of this glacial lake, called river Warren, eroded

10043-416: The lowest in the United States. In recent years, however, while still below the national average, crime has risen sharply. In 2016, the violent crime rate was three times higher than in 2004, with the rise occurring mostly in the late 2000s, coinciding with the oil boom era. This happened at a time when the national violent crime rate declined slightly. Workers in the oil boom towns have been blamed for much of

10164-419: The morainic belts are of slight relief in comparison to the great area of the ice. They rise gently from the till plains to 50, 100 or more feet. They may be one, two or three miles (5 km) wide and their hilly surface, dotted over with boulders, contains many small lakes in basins or hollows, instead of streams in valleys. The morainic belts are arranged in groups of concentric loops, convex southward, because

10285-406: The nearly imperceptible slopes of the till plains, they determine the course of many streams and rivers, which as a whole are consequent upon the surface form of the glacial deposits. The complexity of the glacial period and its subdivision into several glacial epochs, separated by interglacial epochs of considerable length (certainly longer than the postglacial epoch) has a structural consequence in

10406-504: The northeast; and several Sioux groups (the Nakota , Dakota , and Lakota ) across the rest of the state. European explorers and traders first arrived in the early 18th century, mostly in pursuit of lucrative furs. The United States acquired the region in the early 19th century, gradually settling it amid growing resistance by increasingly displaced natives. The Dakota Territory , established in 1861, became central to American pioneers , with

10527-417: The original prairie extent is still present, however conservation in the long run is uncertain. Urban expansion is likely to continue having an impact. Climate change has less of an effect here than in other areas of Colorado due to the lower elevation, but can still be expected to affect the biome. The Prairie Dog Coalition is a non-profit group of scientists, organizations and citizens who are fighting for

10648-417: The outer side of the morainic belts. Long trains of gravel and sands clog the valleys that lead southward from the glaciated to the non-glaciated area. Later, when the ice retreated further and the unloaded streams returned to their earlier degrading habit, they more or less completely scoured out the valley deposits, the remains of which are now seen in terraces on either side of the present flood plains. When

10769-555: The papers and obscure from him which he was signing first to keep both the states happy and to avoid showing favor to either state. The actual order went unrecorded, thus no one knows which of the Dakotas was admitted first. However, since North Dakota alphabetically appears before South Dakota , its proclamation was published first in the Statutes At Large. Unrest among wheat farmers, especially among Norwegian immigrants , led to

10890-453: The pioneer period, with the state fully settled by around 1920. Subsequent decades saw a rise in radical agrarian movements and economic cooperatives, of which one legacy is the Bank of North Dakota , the only state-run bank in the U.S. Beginning in the mid-20th century, North Dakota's rich natural resources became more critical to economic development; into the 21st century, oil extraction from

11011-432: The population in this region residing in those metropolitan areas. The growth of these urban areas may negatively affect their local ecosystems due to the potential introduction of invasive species , decreasing the biodiversity in impacted areas. The human population today is still mainly dependent on agriculture , but fields such as energy exploration and mining are expanding. Large portions of central grasslands in

11132-486: The present divides between the drainage basins of Hudson Bay , Lake Superior , and the Gulf of Mexico evidently stand in no very definite relation to the preglacial divides. The course of the Mississippi through Minnesota is largely guided by the form of the drift cover. Several rapids and the Saint Anthony Falls (determining the site of Minneapolis ) are signs of immaturity, resulting from superposition through

11253-463: The program agree to abolish environmentally destroyed land from agricultural production and cattle grazing to improve and regrow healthy grass and habitats in exchange for a yearly rental payment. Much of the shortgrass prairie is grazed by domestic livestock, with a human population that is dependent upon agriculture . However, energy and mining exploration have increased. There has been a precipitous decline of many species, but farmers and ranchers of

11374-522: The protection of prairie dogs and their environments. The alliance educates people on the declining populations of prairie dogs and engages with projects likely to destroy prairie dog habitat. The Southern Plains Land Trust (SPLT) creates and protects a network of shortgrass prairie preserves to ensure the future of all native animals and plants in the region. As of 2019, over 25,000 acres are included in SPLT's preserve network. The American Prairie Foundation

11495-496: The real reason for the split was a political lure for four Republican senators instead of two from the Republican dominated Dakota Territory and in their push to split the territory, Republican congressmen also ignored the uncomfortable fact that much of the land in the anticipated state of South Dakota belonged to the Sioux. Congress passed an omnibus bill for statehood for North Dakota, South Dakota , Montana , and Washington , titled

11616-401: The region are demonstrating that sound land management practices can help sustain the native species, natural communities, and ecosystems. The shortgrass prairie is a long thin stretch of territory that starts at the top of the country and makes its way to the bottom. Due to this, the climate varies from North to South, but is essentially the same from East to West. The temperature in the North

11737-460: The rivers and gradually fades away at a distance of ten or more miles (16 or more km) on either side. It contains land shells, and hence cannot be attributed to marine or lacustrine submergence. The best explanation is that, during certain phases of the glacial period, it was carried as dust by the winds from the flood plains of aggrading rivers, and slowly deposited on the neighboring grass-covered plains. The glacial and eolian origin of this sediment

11858-661: The shortgrass prairie has suffered the greatest biological destruction of any major biome in North America. The three central processes historically shaping the shortgrass prairie are herbivory, drought, and fire. Through habitat destruction , extermination of native herbivores and predators, proliferation of noxious weeds, and altered fire regimes have negatively been impacted. The shortgrass prairie consists of different varieties of vegetation. Notably abundant grasses are blue grama ( Bouteloua gracilis ), sod-forming grass, and buffalo grass ( Bouteloua dactyloides ). Less prevalent

11979-483: The shortgrass prairie, are one North America's fastest declining groups of animals. Some of birds still inhabiting the shortgrass prairie are the Cassin's sparrow , loggerhead shrike , sandhill crane , scaled quail , Swainson's hawk , burrowing owl , mountain plover and thick-billed longspur . Although the loggerhead shrike and scaled quail are among the more common birds to see in the shortgrass prairie, they are also on

12100-436: The shortgrass prairie. Domestic cattle were placed in the prairie and have essentially replaced the native species that used to live in the shortgrass prairie such as bison and elk. In addition, the top predators used to be the Great Plains wolf and the grizzly bear , but the coyote has replaced those animals. Prairie dogs were once the most abundant animals in the shortgrass prairie and historically lived in colonies across

12221-411: The shortgrass prairie. They developed an extractive economy that led to the later growth and industrialization of the prairie. In the mid-to-late 19th century, the railroads expanded transportation channels and helped to increase settlement, predominantly in rural and small towns. While more people began to settle in the prairie, large-scale cattle and sheep ranching increased as well and later led to

12342-453: The site of conflict with the indigenous population. The northern part was generally content with remaining a territory. However, following the territorial capital being moved from Yankton in the southern part to Bismarck, the southern part began to call for division. Finally, at the 1887 territorial election, the voters approved splitting the territory into two. The division was done by the seventh standard parallel. Other account(s) state that

12463-523: The south and the Great Lakes on the north. The prairies are a contribution of the glacial period. They consist of glacial drift deposited unconformably on an underlying rock surface of moderate or small relief. Here, the rocks are an extension of the same stratified Palaeozoic formations already described as occurring in the Appalachian region and around the Great Lakes . They are usually fine-textured limestones and shales lying horizontal. The moderate or small relief they were given by mature preglacial erosion

12584-505: The southward slope of the melting ice sheet. When this eastward outlet came to be lower than the south-westward outlet across the height of land to the Ohio or Mississippi river, the discharge of the marginal lakes was changed from the Mississippi system to the Hudson system. Many well-defined channels, cutting across the north-sloping spurs of the plateau in the neighborhood of Syracuse, New York mark

12705-413: The state had lower rates of unemployment than the national average, and increased job and population growth. Much of the growth has been based on development of the Bakken oil fields in the western part of the state. Estimates as to the remaining amount of oil in the area vary, with some estimating over 100 years' worth. For decades, North Dakota's annual murder and violent crime rates were regularly

12826-407: The steepest decline. Roundtail horned lizard , Texas garter snake , Texas horned lizard , Texas long-nosed snake and Western Massasauga are among the most dominant reptiles in the shortgrass prairie. Most of those animals are cold-blooded and so in the winter months, they live underground until spring comes. Today, cattle, pronghorn and white-tailed deer are the most abundant mammals on

12947-509: The subglacial till was not spread out in a smooth plain, but accumulated in elliptical mounds, 100–200 feet. high and 0.5 to 1 mile (0.80 to 1.61 kilometres) long with axes parallel to the direction of the ice motion as indicated by striae on the underlying rock floor. These hills are known by the Irish name, drumlins , used for similar hills in north-western Ireland . The most remarkable groups of drumlins occur in western New York , where their number

13068-425: The superposition of successive till sheets, alternating with non-glacial deposits. It also has a physiographic consequence in the very different amount of normal postglacial erosion suffered by the different parts of the glacial deposits. The southernmost drift sheets, as in southern Iowa and northern Missouri , have lost their initially plain surface and are now maturely dissected into gracefully rolling forms. Here,

13189-413: The temporary paths of the ice-bordered outlet river. Successive channels are found at lower and lower levels on the plateau slope, indicating the successive courses taken by the lake outlet as the ice melted further and further back. On some of the channels, deep gorges were eroded heading in temporary cataracts which exceeded Niagara in height but not in breadth. The pools excavated by the plunging waters at

13310-554: The third largest artificial lake in the United States, behind the Garrison Dam . The central region of the state is divided into the Drift Prairie and the Missouri Plateau . The eastern part of the state consists of the flat Red River Valley , the bottom of glacial Lake Agassiz . Its fertile soil, drained by the meandering Red River flowing northward into Lake Winnipeg , supports a large agriculture industry. Devils Lake ,

13431-413: The time the 1930s came around, it was too late to protect the soil with grass. The unprotected soil contributed to the Dust Bowl by being blown around and creating dust storms. The Food Security Act of 1985 allowed for lower commodity prices and income supports. This Act also laid the foundation for the dairy herd buyout program. The Act made changes to several other USDA programs. Farmers enrolled in

13552-456: The valleys of even the small streams are well opened and graded, and marshes and lakes are rare. These sheets are of early Pleistocene origin. Nearer the Great Lakes, the till sheets are trenched only by the narrow valleys of the large streams. Marshy sloughs still occupy the faint depressions in the till plains and the associated moraines have abundant small lakes in their undrained hollows. These drift sheets are of late Pleistocene origin. When

13673-698: The western side of the Red River Valley , as was similarly seen in South Dakota and in a parallel manner in Minnesota. This area is well known for its fertile lands. By the outbreak of the First World War , this was among North America's richest farming regions. But a period of higher rainfall ended, and many migrants were not successful in the arid conditions. Many family plots were too small to farm successfully. Shortgrass prairie The shortgrass prairie

13794-426: The years of greater precipitation, otherwise dormant wildflowers bloom in the spring, quickly diminishing in the hotter and drier summer months. The shortgrass prairie consists of many kinds of birds, reptiles, and mammals. Most of those animals have adapted to living in such an open area, and many have adapted to living under ground or traveling long distances to find shelter. Grassland birds, particularly those of

13915-458: The young animal sold for finishing in feedlots. Stocking rates and the economy in this region highly depend on the amount of precipitation, range conditions, and other environmental factors. Parts of the shortgrass prairie are untouched and pastoral. Many artists and photographers travel to this prairie for inspiration and economic opportunities. Paintings and photographs are often sold at high prices for their aesthetic beauty. The Dust Bowl brought

14036-473: Was a landscape so teeming with life it has been compared to the South American Pampas . Today the most populous animal on the prairie is domestic cattle. Pronghorn and prairie dogs still inhabit the prairie however, in fewer numbers. Top predators have been replaced by coyotes. Ecological processes on a large-scale level such as climate, fire and grazing have strong influences in this system. Today,

14157-521: Was delivered to the Gulf of Mexico, for the curves of the present river are of distinctly smaller radii than the curves of the valley. Lake Pepin (30 mi [48 km] below St. Paul ), a picturesque expansion of the river across its flood-plain, is due to the aggradation of the valley floor where the Chippewa River , coming from the northeast, brought an overload of fluvio-glacial drift. Hence, even

14278-980: Was discovered in the state in 1951 and quickly became one of North Dakota's most valuable mineral resources. In the early 2000s, the emergence of hydraulic fracturing technologies enabled mining companies to extract huge amounts of oil from the Bakken shale rock formation in the western part of the state. North Dakota public lands 5 national parks, 5 state forests, 63 national wildlife refuges, 3 national grassland, and 13 state parks plus there are state trust land, bureau of land management, waterfowl production areas, bureau of reclamation, bureau of land management, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, state wildlife management areas North Dakota wildlife Currently there are 36 Level I species, 44 Level II species, and 35 Level III species. List of birds of North Dakota The basic NDGFD list contains 420 confirmed and extant species, two extinct species. Three additional species have been added from

14399-414: Was once filled with huge herds of free-ranging bison and pronghorn . The prairie also teemed with large prairie dog colonies, deer and elk , and predators such as gray wolves and grizzly bears . The prairie is home to healthy populations of plains blue grama , a vast array of songbirds and raptors, carpets of buffalo grass and a broad diversity and abundance of wildflowers and butterflies . It

14520-513: Was once the tallest artificial structure in the Western Hemisphere , the KVLY-TV mast . Native American people lived in what is now North Dakota for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The known tribes included the Mandan people (from around the 11th century), while the first Hidatsa group arrived a few hundred years later. They both assembled in villages on tributaries of

14641-406: Was stronger and cut the roots, making the fertile soils ready for farming. Former grasslands are now among the most productive agricultural lands on Earth. The tallgrass prairie has been converted into one of the most intensive crop producing areas in North America. Less than one tenth of one percent (<0.09%) of the original landcover of the tallgrass prairie biome remains. Much of what persists

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