Guest Column by GeoT
Dateline: 06/13/00
In Illinois? Yup. Downstate Illinois? Double yup!! Where could that possibly happen?!
Just west of Woodland, Illinois. Approximately 80 miles south of Chicago's loop. Woodland does have woods - a somewhat unusual feature in this part of the state - we'll see them in just a little bit. It is also where the Union Pacific Railroad and CSX Transportation join together for the final double track run into Chicago. Trains Magazine called Woodland one of its "Hot Spots" to watch rail action. Woodland came into existence when a railroad used the Pythagorean Theorem to shorten the run to St. Louis. Railroaders know geometry too! The place became known, and still is, as "Woodland Junction" to the train crews and dispatchers.
Union Pacific controls all points north of Woodland and does an admirable job of keeping traffic moving - but its not unknown to see a CSX train get "stabbed" at Woodland waiting for UP to run their stuff first! While those GE Diesels idle, lets take a walk west of town.
That's Sugar creek immediately west of downtown Woodland - pretty neat meanders and oxbows. The trees are growing on or next to the river bottom. Sugar Creek continues north to join the Iroquois River and send its drainage on to the Illinois River. Look a little farther west, there is a cemetery.
About one mile west of Woodland is Body Cemetery - interesting name! Actually, it is pronounced "BO-dee". Graves there date from the 1800's. We need to remember that Mortuary Science back then isn't what it is today - and those good people were oftentimes buried is simple wooden coffins with no vault. (This is a major factor in why older tombstones are often tilted - over time, the coffin disintegrated beneath it.) It was imperative that the coffins be buried at a site with good drainage - and Body fills that need.
It's a sand dune!
Toward the end of the Pleistocene, a glacier deposited an end moraine approximately 15 miles to the south in northern Vermilion County. As the ice front retreated, that moraine acted like a dam and pooled the meltwaters into what is known as Lake Watseka. Eventually, that lake was drained - but its flat floor and sandy deposits are evidence of its existence.
During Ice Age winters following the draining of the lake, the lake floor sediments "freeze-dried" and strong winds whipped the material into dunes. The dunes become more numerous in a northward direction. If we climbed back into those GE's, notched 'em out to Run 8, and headed north (with UP's permission) we would be impressed with the number of dunes around St. Anne, Illinois. Many farmers here grow produce for the fresh markets of Chicago - but irrigation is often a must because of the sandy soil.
This map is to the northeast of St. Anne - that's the railroad to the west - it has made an alignment for Chicago back in town. Look at all the mounds - those are dunes. Look at the gentle "windward" side facing southwest and the steep slip-off slope facing northeast. Pretty neat stuff to be looking at on the prairies of Illinois!
Reaching "Yard Center" in Chicago - we could look at some of the cemeteries in the Windy City and see they too are located on sand deposits - not dunes this time though, sand spits and former shorelines of Glacial Lake Chicago.
So, sand and cemeteries, -- the gravediggers didn't complain too much about the difficulty of shoveling the deposit!
