Natural History
The park lies on a glacial moraine, scribed with deep ravines running down to the St. Croix River. Sandstone outcrops have been exposed in some of the ravines. The vertical drop from the blufftop to the water is 300 feet (91 m).
A few patches of remnant prairie survived the decades of farming that took place on the blufftop. Today the former fields are being restored to prairie and oak savanna. The ravines leading down to the riverbank are thickly wooded with oak, aspen, birch, and cherry.
Read more about this topic: Afton State Park
Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or history:
“My darling girl, Unfortunately this earth is not ... a fairy- land, but a struggle for life, perfectly natural and therefore extremely harsh. All the same, or precisely for this reason, it is happiness and comfort for us men to have a precious sweetheart—and I have the most precious, the dearest and best of all!”
—Martin Bormann (1900–1945)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)