A Bit Of An Unexpected Natural Wonder, Few People Know There Are Sand Dunes Hiding In Indiana
By Tori Jane|Published March 21, 2023
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Tori Jane
Author
Tori Jane is a storm chaser, writer, photographer, and the village idiot - in that order. When she's not out and about dancing with the meanest storms on planet Earth for funsies she can be found wandering, shooting landscapes, writing, editing photos, and otherwise up to no good. Legend has it that she can also be occasionally spotted typing up short bios in the third person, but those rumors are unsubstantiated.
When you think about Indiana (or the Midwest in general), what do you imagine? Probably something like farmland, corn fields, and maybe some emerald, deep forests, right? Same for most folks, which will probably just make this next point more prescient: did you know that there are actually many more diverse landscapes in Indiana than you might expect? Seriously – the lifelong locals might (hopefully!) know, but you’d be amazed at how many Hoosiers don’t realize there’s a bizarre, unexpected natural wonder among us: incredibly beautiful, silky sand dunes nestled right up alongside the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan. And when it comes to visitors, well, forget about it – nobody expects sand dunes in Indiana unless they already live there. Check out these amazing geological formations and learn the intriguing story of why they’re there:
Somewhere around 20,000 years ago, glaciers making up this region began to recede, which was the (eventual, uber-simplified) reason for the existence of the Great Lakes.
About 10,000 years ago, something remarkable began occurring: sediments were always being deposited in areas along the young lakeshore thanks to river activity and waves in newly-formed Lake Michigan "shaking things up" in the depths, so to speak.
Over time - tens of thousands of years - this sediment piled up, up, and up, forming stunning white-tan dunes that are intensely unique when compared to the rest of the region's topography.
As the decades come and go, so too do the dunes - you'll find that, much like human beings, they have a life cycle of their own. The younger dunes are closer to the shore - the older ones have been pushed further back over time.
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Many of these older dunes are still visible despite their age, though most of them are heavily grown-over by native local flora (like the dune pictured below).
The dunes closest to the shores began forming almost 6,000 years ago. In geology terms, this means they're still babies! After all, when you live for about 30,000 years, well, 6,000 is nothing.
These younger dunes are fairly obvious not only because of the distance from the water - the fact that they lack the plant growth the elder dunes have had plenty of time to amass makes them more visible, too.
Dunes aren't just big ol' piles of boring sand - it's quite the opposite. Dunes are "living" geological wonders, constantly growing, evolving, and changing over time. In another 10,000 years, the youngest dunes here will be more mature - and further back. They have "lifespans" much like we do, and they, too, go through numerous phases in their "lives".
So, what exactly are the wonderous Indiana Dunes made up of? Sure, sand - but what's in the sand?
The sand itself is made up of finely-granulated quartz and glacial sediments from way back in the days of the glacial retreat. As glaciers pull away, they leave dirt, rocks, minerals and more behind, and today that "glacier junk" is soft, pristine lakeshore sand (that, by the way, is also known as "singing sand", which makes it even MORE amazing).
It's also worth mentioning that, thanks to the unique makeup of this area, it's also home to numerous other unexpected natural points of interest.
All within the confines of Indiana Dunes National Park (which was our very first National Park, thank you very much) you'll discover unusual features such as oak savannas, bogs and swamps, marshes, prairies, rivers, and forests. You'll even find some bizarre plant life if you look at the bogs hard enough (hint: carnivorous. plants.)!
So, what do you think? Did you know that there are natural sand dunes in Indiana (or carnivorous plants)? What other unexpected natural wonders in Indiana can you think of? Let us know!
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