Fall colors panorama

This video was taken on October 24th, when the trees were showing their best colors. It was taken from the highest point on Greene View Springs and pans from north to south.



All of the low land to the east and south, most of it unseen over the hillside, is in the American Bottoms.

What a rainstorm

We had a heavy rain storm the first week of August. Near the end of it, when it was just a drizzle, I took the camera into the woods to try to show where the water goes near the house site and elsewhere.

The this first video shows the large pond on the property just before the rain finally stopped.



(The narrative on this and the next few videos is clipped at the end. I took nine videos on this walk and didn't realize until I played them on the computer that my voice is clipped at the end of almost all of them. Apparently the audio track lags the video by a second or two. I'll stop talking sooner on future productions. Many of you will appreciate that, I'm sure.)

There are at least three places in the low parts of Green View Springs where a series of holes appears on the surface. Each hole can be up to two feet long as the water flows and about a foot across. In some places there are as many as eight of them in the series. All of them appear along the lowest part of a drainage and are from one to three feet deep. Until now I had not had a camera with me while water was running in them. This time I did and here's what they look like with the water flowing.



All of this water, and that from at least two other major drainages on the property, runs into the ditch along the county road. Combining that water with what comes down the roadside from the top of the road above Greene View Springs creates a formidable volume by the time it gets to the culvert under the road. It's going to take regular attention to stay ahead of the erosion.

(WARNING: Turn down your volume first. The water was so loud I thought I needed to talk louder.)



All the water from Greene View Springs flows farther into American Bottoms and finally into Mr Colling's cave.

American Bottoms - Cave Tour Videos

While I was researching the web for American Bottoms references, to my utter surprise, I found videos of recent exploration trips into the American Bottoms cave.

The most interesting is this 10-minute cave video shot on August 31st this year.



There are at least two more but I'll just give you the links for them on YouTube. The first, about 8 minutes, was made on April 8th this year; the other, about 10 minutes, was made on May 31st.

American Bottoms - Mr Colling's Cave

Soon after we moved to Greene County we learned about American Bottoms. Just recently I inquired as to who owns the property where the cave is. I dropped in on Mr Collings and his wife to ask permission to visit the cave. He was very gracious and we talked about things for about 45 minutes.

Last week Sandy and I visited the cave. There was some water flowing, but not as much as after even a minor rain event. Here are a few shots of the cave entrance, from outside

 

and inside.

 

I took quite a few pictures inside the cave, but, hey, if you've seen one cave wall, you've seen them all. Here are two, though, that are of interest. The first is the cave ceiling showing what may be a large fossil. At least that's what I'm calling it.

The second shows some raccoon footprints. The cave is the terminus of Bridge Creek, about 3 tenths of a mile from where I released the raccoons a few weeks ago.

 

American Bottoms - Intro

In addition to our mailing address, Greene View Springs' location can also be described like this...

Greene View Springs is on the north side of the watershed of an approximately 5200-acre natural depression known as American Bottoms located about 8 miles east of Bloomfield, Indiana.

All of the views posted to this blog to date (except some 2007 posts of flooded fields and turkeys) have been in the American Bottoms watershed and everything we can see from Greene View Springs, except some of the most distant hilltops, is in the watershed.

Rain falling on Greene View Springs will flow into Bridge Creek and into a cave from which it exits roughly 3 miles away, outside the Bottoms, at Rock Springs near Koleen, eventually draining into Richland Creek. There is no above-ground exit for surface water from the Bottoms.

Though one of the most unique geological features in Indiana, American Bottoms is not well known. Bluffs and ridges on three sides form the basin and two types of porous rock - sandstone and Beech Creek limestone - make up the natural drainage system.

View Larger Map

If you select the "Map" or the "Ter" box on the map above, and zoom out ("-") twice, you will see that Bridge Creek begins and ends in American Bottoms. The cave is at the westernmost end of Bridge Creek.